I don’t care what Stephen King says, I thought Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” was and is damn scary, but I never read the book, so I couldn’t be annoyed by any perceived unfaithfulness to that version. Never read books, it only hampers your enjoyment of movies.

brebro - 08 October 2009 12:27 PM

I don’t care what Stephen King says, I thought Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” was and is damn scary, but I never read the book, so I couldn’t be annoyed by any perceived unfaithfulness to that version. Never read books, it only hampers your enjoyment of movies.

I have read the book and Kubrick’s film is still incredible and scary—and a good deal more intelligent than the book. Interestingly, there was a time when King thought a lot more highly of the film than he does now (or than he did last time he said anything about it). When King wrote an article for TV Guide some time in the 80s he remarked that he thought Kubrick’s film was probably the best possible adaptation of the book.

Ken Hanke - 08 October 2009 11:41 AM

Back to the question of the Top Five American horror films—that needs to be broken down into eras or something because if we’re talking of all time, there’s nothing in the selections I’m seeing here that I’d let in my house, let alone on any such list with the possible exception of Gore Verbinski’s The Ring. (Since it’s an improvement in every way on Ringu—as far as I’m concerned—I don’t see why you couldn’t include it. Alien is a remake/ripoff of It! The Terror from Beyond Space, if you want to get technical about it.)

Well, I certainly couldn’t do a serious breakdown of any genre that way. I managed to skip film appreciation class in college and my knowledge of film is greatly limited by the fact that there are several “great” films in the overall catalogue of film that I have never seen (Casablanca, Citizen Kane, most anything by Hitchcock) but then again, there are plenty of movies I have seen that I think are pretty great (Cinema Paradiso, Dark City, most anything by Gilliam).

I might also be crippled by my crushing and seething dislike of all things Tarantino.

All this is to say that I cannot compare The Ring to Ringu because I have never seen the latter. Same with It! The Terror from Beyond Space. But if you can admit that The Ring is an improvement on the source material then is Alien an improvement as well?

Otherwise I don’t think I can talk film here anymore because I might be out of my depth.

Then again, can I add Nochnoy Dozor to the list of awesome foreign horror films?