stephen king c/d?

I recently read The Outsider and liked it a lot. He doesn't really stick the ending - there's a very "really? That's it?" quality to the climax - but everything before that is really good.

Swap out the title and that's my loose review of almost every King book ever.

I mean, that's his thing. That's what he does. Or doesn't do, rather.

Yeah, 11/22/63 had by the far the most satisfying, *right* ending to any King novel I've read - perhaps it's the exception to the rule. Was impressed by how little conspiracy stuff was in the book, too, and how that wasn't a disappointment.

I looked at the length of IT and was like, shit, I need something shorter. I see CUJO's been getting reappraised lately so I'll probably try that.

Cujo, yes. Recommended. Also, as always, The Long Walk if you haven't already.

I find the thing about king’s endings is really overstated, I find most of them satisfying enough tbh. The outsider has a particularly bad and boring end run tho

has it maybe gotten worse over the years? I remember a lot of the early books having perfectly fine endings

They almost all end with either “the entire town is destroyed” or “some handwavey magic happens” or both, which winds a lot of people up - it’s pretty clear he doesn’t care much about how things get resolved. I can get with that.

I guess I wouldn't say it's an always thing but it happens often enough and is glaring enough in its 'let's say...Moe'-ness when it happens that it tends to stick in my brain.

But as you say, I don't get particularly wound up about it as long as the journey is sound.

I think there’s a disconnect between the type of writer he is (a yarn-spinner) and the way he writes (ultra-prolific, never uses outlines, works on instinct) - so people think that because he’s so much about ~storytelling~ that he should care a lot about the conventions of plotting, but I really don’t think he does. It’s not just the endings, the deus ex machina stuff happens all the way through. He just wants to move from one wacky, pungent idea to the next. Sometimes it is really fucking silly (one novel ends with someone randomly doing shadow puppets to defeat the villain because reasons) which makes a lot of people feel like they’ve wasted their time with the previous 8000 pages, but it’s way down the list of king’s faults for me personally and I often like the way his endings feel tonally which is what matters to me, I mean it’s all silly shit when you get down to it. I fucking love the ending of it, and the “is that it?” bathos just adds to it for me

That said I just slogged through the last two dark tower books and that’s essentially a king ending stretched out over two whole books and it is painful.

god the last 3 dark tower books are dreadful... i get seriously worked up thinking about how bad they are, especially considering how much potential the first few books had. wish he had finished the series when he was in his prime

His new one (out later this year) sounds like a mash up of Firestarter and It

talisman for me, chuck

whats kings best, did we ever just straight-up ask

think wizard and glass maybe

Long Walk. I'll evoke it as many times as is necessary. Long Walk.

I'll have to give it some thought but Long Walk is not far wrong, definitely WAY up there.

Important sidebar: did anyone see the news that the new Creepshow tv show might attempt an adaptation of Survivor Type?
I am VERY excited because it is really not something that should ever be brought to a visual medium but if Greg Nicotero could pull it off it would be fucking AWESOME to see ... :D :D :D

https://birthmoviesdeath.com/2019/01/17/new-creepshow-tv-series-might-be-adapting-one-of-stephen-kings-most-gnarly

also the first Stephen King story I remember ever reading. VERY formative. Also may say alot about me idk

Ohhhhh boy, did not know that was happening. Love Creepshow, love horror/sci-fi anthology shows, want this to not suck. I guess it won't take much to transcend the original quasi-Creepshow show (the wildly uneven Tales from the Darkside). And holy cow @ 'Survivor Type'! That is ballsy.

truly a swing for the fences. i’m into it!

Has anyone else read his latest little novella, "Elevation?" It's a fast read and it's fine? I guess? But the more I think about it the central metaphor may be a little problematic.

I hated everything about it tbh

That and his other recent pamphlet-sized attempt at (I guess) Bradbury-esque lyrical whimsy, gwendy’s button box. Just completely flat, irritatingly cutesy first drafts of nothing much. Elevation is worse cause it has the added bonus of the straight male saviour character helping the upright man-hating lesbian to get the chip off her shoulder

Hah, OK, it's not just me. "If you're a cishet white dude and are nice enough to lesbians, you can ascend straight into Heaven!"

Best short: The Mist or The Long Walk
Best novel: It or Salem's Lot

is that the one where the guy ... eats himself?

That's Survivor, innit?

I can't believe I remembered that from when I was in middle school.

it’s hard to forget

Hint: 'Survivor Type' is the one where when you first read it you end up like the kid in 'The Jaunt'.

I wonder if this series is going for the campy tone of the original creepshow film. That would probably be a good fit for this story, it could be very early Peter Jackson “ha ha gross”

"The Jaunt" was actually the one that fucked up my mind the most as a kid.

Yeah, “The Jaunt” ftw. Love that it’s tone is so Tom Swift *isnt technology grand* until the very end.

God help me I’m about 12 hours into 11:22:63. Please remind me again how not racist you are, Stephen King.

I'll toss Pet Semetery in the discussion for his best novel.

First teaser for IT: Part Two. Beverly has visible bruises on her arms here, so I guess the abusive husband plotline is in there.

Witness the end of IT. Watch the new trailer now. #ITMovie pic.twitter.com/EEqX6jVT8r

— IT Movie🎈 (@ITMovieOfficial) May 9, 2019

Nice eye for detail Eliza!

it looks really good - i am v excited for this

that Bev/old lady scene always freaked me out on the book

the first one was an abject failure from a horror perspective

this one looks no different on the basis of that scene

How hard is it to make a legit horror movie derived from this source material, seriously. Get it together, Hollywood.

idk the big scares did nothing for me but the old lady sitting perfectly still actually did genuinely creep me out which almost never happens

We should have a 'best/scariest horror movie scenes of all time' thread, that would be wicked. Lots of good ones in not-so-good movies.

I nominate the stabbed-hand-stab from the Crazies remake.

We should have a 'best/scariest horror movie scenes of all time' thread, that would be wicked. Lots of good ones in not-so-good movies.

― Artisanal Personality Disorder (Old Lunch), Thursday, May 9, 2019 12:05 PM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

vulture did a ranking of this recently? it was a little too loose of an idea to work as a ranking tbh it would be a much better message board thread

i recall the very not-good Darkness Falls having a good scary opening scene.

there's a pretty scary scene in the downright awful the houses october built but it's not worth the suffering

Someone make this thread plz, it is a good idea

do we want to restrict it to bad/mediocre movies? I like that idea.

Here, we can stop shitting up this thread now: Best and/or Scariest and/or Creepiest Scenes Ever (from horror films or TV shows or whatever, I don't care)

i think a lot of king's creepiest and most unsettling scenes are basically unfilmable, because they either stem from some ineffable, nearly-symptomless ~~wrongness~~ about the mise-en-scene.... or really freaky elaborate distortions of reality (like idk the house caving in on the kid in the second or third dark tower book) which are just going to be realized as photorealistic-but-fakey CGI, missing the gauze of nightmare that our imaginations give to them.