THINNER
Directed by Tom Holland
Written by Michael McDowell and Tom Holland
Starring Joe Mantegna
Released in 1996
Directed by Tom Holland
Written by Michael McDowell and Tom Holland
Starring Joe Mantegna
Released in 1996
Because I have spent the last couple days recovering from the experience of watching the movie Stephen King's Thinner (1996), the only way I'm going to get over it is to write it out of my system by way of an overview of the movies that have been made from the writings of our Mr. King and with luck tie the whole matter together by eviscerating the specific film in question, while in the process offering praise where such is due.
Subtracting the short films as well as the portions of his works that were anthologized, we are left with fifty-two motion pictures, most of which were originally displayed in cinema theaters, the rest either going straight to DVD/Netflix or being aired originally on that newfangled device known as the TEE-vee.
First, we have the A-List.
Carrie (1976). No less a personage than the glorious Pauline Kael interpreted the Brian DePalma movie of King's book as something of a dark comedy. I can't agree with that assessment--at least not totally--because I found the movie's overwhelming accuracy in its psychological understanding of adolescence to be painful and mesmerizing, two absolute criteria for a perfect horror film.
The Shining (1980). The novelist and some among his stone fans disapproved in the strongest terms this outstanding Stanley Kubrick film. From occasional flairs of Jungian imagery to false suspense (as when we follow the child up and down the halls on his Big Wheel, expecting the worst, and nothing happens--until it does), this is Kubrick's all-time best movie and often pushes the notion of the horror movie into completely new terrain.
Cat's Eye (1985). Three stories drawn together by the adventures of a tabby. James Wood was never better than as the man who quits smoking. The "message" of this film confused certain filmmakers into believing you could make a scary film without a good-guy protagonist, when in reality there were good guys a-plenty here. They simply weren't perfect. And that made them real.
Silver Bullet (1985). Gary Busey played the perfect drunken, good-natured, cynical uncle and even though this was mostly a kid's movie, it still packed enough verisimilitude to work on multiple levels.
Stand By Me (1986). It's hard to believe such an excellent movie is more than twenty-five years old since this Rob Reiner creation remains as fresh as the day it was released. Four boys on a journey that is as wide and as deep as that of life itself, in this case, a life that has been snuffed out and left to be displayed. Amazing.
Misery (1990). Another gem from Reiner, this being one of the rare cases where the movie stands superior to the novel that inspired it. Kathy Lee Bates was thoroughly convincing as the deranged fan and even James Caan came across as the perfect victim-foil.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994). King's best book has always been Different Seasons, a collection of four novellas. "Rita Hayworth and the Shankshaw Redemption" was the story that made this brilliant movie possible. The movie may have been low on logic, but it made up for that and more with the unflinching emotional courage as conveyed to perfection by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, as well as by a formidable list of support players.
The Green Mile (1999). As difficult as it is for me to sit down and praise a film that stars Tom Hanks, I must admit that director Frank Darabont transformed his own screenplay into a project that worked. It worked, essentially, because of the tragic performance of the late Michael Clarke Duncan.
Now let's look at the B-list.
Salem's Lot (1979). There was only one thing wrong with this otherwise marvelous Tobe Hooper-directed film, but that one thing was enough to banish it to permanent B-film status. The problem was in the casting. James Mason, outstanding as he was, could not carry a four-hour movie all by himself. With Lance Kerwin as the kid and David Soul (of "Starsky and Hutch") as Ben Mears, the adaptation of this scariest of all Stephen King books became a major disappointment for that nation of fans.
Cujo; Christine (1983).
Firestarter (1984).
Maximum Overdrive (1986).
All four of the above movies have something going for them, although we can rule out good acting, smart screenplays, and competent editing. I suppose the main feature--and this is true of all King product that works--is the acknowledgement of the essential nature of friendship, be it between two high school friends, a mother and son, a father and daughter, or a pair of teenage misfit lovers.
Needful Things (1993). Any movie that features both Ed Harris and the late J.T. Walsh has to be at least good enough to make the B-list. Max von Sydow is fair enough as the villain and the plot works--even though far too much of the secondary characters are missing from the novel. But Harris and Walsh are really all that's happening here.
Hearts in Atlantis (2001). There was nothing essential wrong about this movie. Anthony Hopkins carried the day and William Goldman was his usual brilliant self with a commercial screenplay. That's about all that can be said.
The C-List are films that don't really warrant any special comment, a fact which, paradoxically, is why these movies are listed here. Suffice it to say, one can at least endure these movies and possibly even find a few brief moments in which to enjoy them. But that's about all.
Creepshow (1982).
The Dead Zone (1983). [And it kills me, you should pardon the expression, because the novel was amazing!]
The Running Man (1987).
It (1990).
The Stand (1994).
Dolores Claiborne (1995).
The Mist (2007).
The D-List? There's no such thing as a D movie.
The F-List bears some explanation. Many of these movies came and went so fast at the cinema--if they appeared there at all--that most people never really got a look at them in their early days. It is fair to say, however, that none of these have improved with age. Ripened, they may have done, to the extent that without exception, each of these movies stinks to hell.
Children of the Corn (1984). The Ishtar of horror films. When a movie starts out with children in a small town diner slicing open the throats of the adults in the room, a facet the camera sees fit to linger upon in the way that pictures are taken prior to an autopsy, then things are not likely to lift off well from there. They do not. This is the absolute worst of the bunch. And that is really saying something.
Creepshow 2 (1987). I know! Let's pay homage to the great George A. Romero by having him write--but not direct--this collection of three stories that didn't even work all that well on the printed page. That way we can show all those hoity-toity big shot real film school directors how things can be done. Or, maybe we should just flush this rancid bit of gross-out back down the cesspool where it came from.
A Return to Salem's Lot (1987). Once again we have TV actors appearing outside their natural medium and once again the product reeks of arrogance without a cause. Michael Moriarty (who actually is a fine thespian) simply couldn't hold the story together, despite his superhuman attempts to do so. The real abomination here is the disservice done to Tobe Hooper's admirable adaptation of King's wondrous novel.
Pet Sematary (1989). The release of the novel that inspired this dreck was the beginning of a long downward slope for the writing of Mr. King. Not even the music of The Ramones could shake the dirt off this corpse.
The Tommyknockers (1993). The problem with the novel was that just about every time the writer brought a character along far enough to make that person interesting--even compelling--the subject got changed and when we next encountered that character, he or she had lost all the pizzazz. The movie can't even lay claim to being thatgood. The acting was tolerable, but the storyline about UFOs commanding people to build projects and power them from batteries, coupled with a soundtrack that I imagine was intended to distract the audience from the nonsensical storyline--well, let's just say that television may not be the proper venue for a movie this bad. Perhaps the garbage disposal?
The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999). Answers the musical question: Whatever happened to Sue Snell, one of the survivors of the original movie? Answer: She made the mistake of getting hooked up with director Katt Shea, the latter being the mind behind such twists of fate as Stripped To Kill, Stripped To Kill II (Live Girls), and Dance of the Damned. The only significance of this film is that it furthered the trend of omitting any characteristics with which an audience member (at least the ones who are not sociopaths) could identify favorably. A piece of shit is what this is. And so it shall remain.
I can make no comment as to the merits or lack of same regarding any other Stephen King-cinema-related product because I have either forgotten everything about them or apparently neglected to see them.
There is one exception to the above statement. That exception is the original reason for this over-long piece. That movie is a bit of nastiness called Stephen King's Thinner. It is a movie I very much wish I could forget.
Everyone in this movie is an evil layer of rancid detritus. In some movies--even bad ones--a neutral person will become tragic or a good person will weaken or a bad person will turn good. But in Thinner, everyone is rotten from the get-go and they only become worse as time drags on. A lawyer gets a professional criminal off on a murder rap. After celebrating this victory, the lawyer runs down an old gypsy woman, killing her. We don't care about the lawyer because he's rotten. We don't much like the criminal, except that he's Joe Montegna. The gypsies, led by Michael Constantine, are an arrogant and tortuous bunch, so we don't sympathize much when the old lady bites it. After the coroner's inquest--a fixed affair--the lawyer gets off and Michael Constantine puts a curse on him, causing the obese attorney to lose thirty-to-forty pounds a week--forever. So we have a stinking lawyer, the lawyer's adulterous wife, an adulterous personal physician who is banging the wife, a corrupt sheriff, a nasty mob boss, a lecherous law partner, a young gypsy woman who has no mercy for anyone, her mother (who gets offed before we find out what kind of person she is), a murderous 106-year-old king who threatens to die with the curse still in his mouth, and the lawyer's kid, the latter being the only remotely likable person in the film and we can't even be sure of that because she is, after all, the lawyer's kid. When the only way for an a member of the audience to enjoy a movie is to relish in the suffering and cruelty of the actors on screen, then what we have is an inherently evil movie. Not since I Spit On Your Grave (1978) or maybe Caligula (1979) have I seen a movie with such monumentally horrid acting, idiotic storyline, and inherent evilness. Director Tom Holland's movie should be kept in a transparent time-capsule and set on display at the Center for Science and Industry as a permanent example of just how unrepentantly obnoxious white people can be when they try.
Subtracting the short films as well as the portions of his works that were anthologized, we are left with fifty-two motion pictures, most of which were originally displayed in cinema theaters, the rest either going straight to DVD/Netflix or being aired originally on that newfangled device known as the TEE-vee.
First, we have the A-List.
Carrie (1976). No less a personage than the glorious Pauline Kael interpreted the Brian DePalma movie of King's book as something of a dark comedy. I can't agree with that assessment--at least not totally--because I found the movie's overwhelming accuracy in its psychological understanding of adolescence to be painful and mesmerizing, two absolute criteria for a perfect horror film.
The Shining (1980). The novelist and some among his stone fans disapproved in the strongest terms this outstanding Stanley Kubrick film. From occasional flairs of Jungian imagery to false suspense (as when we follow the child up and down the halls on his Big Wheel, expecting the worst, and nothing happens--until it does), this is Kubrick's all-time best movie and often pushes the notion of the horror movie into completely new terrain.
Cat's Eye (1985). Three stories drawn together by the adventures of a tabby. James Wood was never better than as the man who quits smoking. The "message" of this film confused certain filmmakers into believing you could make a scary film without a good-guy protagonist, when in reality there were good guys a-plenty here. They simply weren't perfect. And that made them real.
Silver Bullet (1985). Gary Busey played the perfect drunken, good-natured, cynical uncle and even though this was mostly a kid's movie, it still packed enough verisimilitude to work on multiple levels.
Stand By Me (1986). It's hard to believe such an excellent movie is more than twenty-five years old since this Rob Reiner creation remains as fresh as the day it was released. Four boys on a journey that is as wide and as deep as that of life itself, in this case, a life that has been snuffed out and left to be displayed. Amazing.
Misery (1990). Another gem from Reiner, this being one of the rare cases where the movie stands superior to the novel that inspired it. Kathy Lee Bates was thoroughly convincing as the deranged fan and even James Caan came across as the perfect victim-foil.
The Shawshank Redemption (1994). King's best book has always been Different Seasons, a collection of four novellas. "Rita Hayworth and the Shankshaw Redemption" was the story that made this brilliant movie possible. The movie may have been low on logic, but it made up for that and more with the unflinching emotional courage as conveyed to perfection by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, as well as by a formidable list of support players.
The Green Mile (1999). As difficult as it is for me to sit down and praise a film that stars Tom Hanks, I must admit that director Frank Darabont transformed his own screenplay into a project that worked. It worked, essentially, because of the tragic performance of the late Michael Clarke Duncan.
Now let's look at the B-list.
Salem's Lot (1979). There was only one thing wrong with this otherwise marvelous Tobe Hooper-directed film, but that one thing was enough to banish it to permanent B-film status. The problem was in the casting. James Mason, outstanding as he was, could not carry a four-hour movie all by himself. With Lance Kerwin as the kid and David Soul (of "Starsky and Hutch") as Ben Mears, the adaptation of this scariest of all Stephen King books became a major disappointment for that nation of fans.
Cujo; Christine (1983).
Firestarter (1984).
Maximum Overdrive (1986).
All four of the above movies have something going for them, although we can rule out good acting, smart screenplays, and competent editing. I suppose the main feature--and this is true of all King product that works--is the acknowledgement of the essential nature of friendship, be it between two high school friends, a mother and son, a father and daughter, or a pair of teenage misfit lovers.
Needful Things (1993). Any movie that features both Ed Harris and the late J.T. Walsh has to be at least good enough to make the B-list. Max von Sydow is fair enough as the villain and the plot works--even though far too much of the secondary characters are missing from the novel. But Harris and Walsh are really all that's happening here.
Hearts in Atlantis (2001). There was nothing essential wrong about this movie. Anthony Hopkins carried the day and William Goldman was his usual brilliant self with a commercial screenplay. That's about all that can be said.
The C-List are films that don't really warrant any special comment, a fact which, paradoxically, is why these movies are listed here. Suffice it to say, one can at least endure these movies and possibly even find a few brief moments in which to enjoy them. But that's about all.
Creepshow (1982).
The Dead Zone (1983). [And it kills me, you should pardon the expression, because the novel was amazing!]
The Running Man (1987).
It (1990).
The Stand (1994).
Dolores Claiborne (1995).
The Mist (2007).
The D-List? There's no such thing as a D movie.
The F-List bears some explanation. Many of these movies came and went so fast at the cinema--if they appeared there at all--that most people never really got a look at them in their early days. It is fair to say, however, that none of these have improved with age. Ripened, they may have done, to the extent that without exception, each of these movies stinks to hell.
Children of the Corn (1984). The Ishtar of horror films. When a movie starts out with children in a small town diner slicing open the throats of the adults in the room, a facet the camera sees fit to linger upon in the way that pictures are taken prior to an autopsy, then things are not likely to lift off well from there. They do not. This is the absolute worst of the bunch. And that is really saying something.
Creepshow 2 (1987). I know! Let's pay homage to the great George A. Romero by having him write--but not direct--this collection of three stories that didn't even work all that well on the printed page. That way we can show all those hoity-toity big shot real film school directors how things can be done. Or, maybe we should just flush this rancid bit of gross-out back down the cesspool where it came from.
A Return to Salem's Lot (1987). Once again we have TV actors appearing outside their natural medium and once again the product reeks of arrogance without a cause. Michael Moriarty (who actually is a fine thespian) simply couldn't hold the story together, despite his superhuman attempts to do so. The real abomination here is the disservice done to Tobe Hooper's admirable adaptation of King's wondrous novel.
Pet Sematary (1989). The release of the novel that inspired this dreck was the beginning of a long downward slope for the writing of Mr. King. Not even the music of The Ramones could shake the dirt off this corpse.
The Tommyknockers (1993). The problem with the novel was that just about every time the writer brought a character along far enough to make that person interesting--even compelling--the subject got changed and when we next encountered that character, he or she had lost all the pizzazz. The movie can't even lay claim to being thatgood. The acting was tolerable, but the storyline about UFOs commanding people to build projects and power them from batteries, coupled with a soundtrack that I imagine was intended to distract the audience from the nonsensical storyline--well, let's just say that television may not be the proper venue for a movie this bad. Perhaps the garbage disposal?
The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999). Answers the musical question: Whatever happened to Sue Snell, one of the survivors of the original movie? Answer: She made the mistake of getting hooked up with director Katt Shea, the latter being the mind behind such twists of fate as Stripped To Kill, Stripped To Kill II (Live Girls), and Dance of the Damned. The only significance of this film is that it furthered the trend of omitting any characteristics with which an audience member (at least the ones who are not sociopaths) could identify favorably. A piece of shit is what this is. And so it shall remain.
I can make no comment as to the merits or lack of same regarding any other Stephen King-cinema-related product because I have either forgotten everything about them or apparently neglected to see them.
There is one exception to the above statement. That exception is the original reason for this over-long piece. That movie is a bit of nastiness called Stephen King's Thinner. It is a movie I very much wish I could forget.
Everyone in this movie is an evil layer of rancid detritus. In some movies--even bad ones--a neutral person will become tragic or a good person will weaken or a bad person will turn good. But in Thinner, everyone is rotten from the get-go and they only become worse as time drags on. A lawyer gets a professional criminal off on a murder rap. After celebrating this victory, the lawyer runs down an old gypsy woman, killing her. We don't care about the lawyer because he's rotten. We don't much like the criminal, except that he's Joe Montegna. The gypsies, led by Michael Constantine, are an arrogant and tortuous bunch, so we don't sympathize much when the old lady bites it. After the coroner's inquest--a fixed affair--the lawyer gets off and Michael Constantine puts a curse on him, causing the obese attorney to lose thirty-to-forty pounds a week--forever. So we have a stinking lawyer, the lawyer's adulterous wife, an adulterous personal physician who is banging the wife, a corrupt sheriff, a nasty mob boss, a lecherous law partner, a young gypsy woman who has no mercy for anyone, her mother (who gets offed before we find out what kind of person she is), a murderous 106-year-old king who threatens to die with the curse still in his mouth, and the lawyer's kid, the latter being the only remotely likable person in the film and we can't even be sure of that because she is, after all, the lawyer's kid. When the only way for an a member of the audience to enjoy a movie is to relish in the suffering and cruelty of the actors on screen, then what we have is an inherently evil movie. Not since I Spit On Your Grave (1978) or maybe Caligula (1979) have I seen a movie with such monumentally horrid acting, idiotic storyline, and inherent evilness. Director Tom Holland's movie should be kept in a transparent time-capsule and set on display at the Center for Science and Industry as a permanent example of just how unrepentantly obnoxious white people can be when they try.
