Stephen King's "Under the Dome" First Look

Anytime they bring Stephen King to either the small or big screen they usually don’t get it right. With few exceptions being “The Shining” and “Misery” being the most notable best of his adaptations.

“Under the Dome” is a massive novel and when I heard that they were going to film it I was hoping that it would get something better than just a two part mini-series and surprisingly someone in Hollywood thought the same as I. As the book is going to get a 13 week run, ala “Kingdom Hospital”. The next thing they seem get right is their choice of director in the form of Niels Arden Oplev who brought the novel “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” to the big screen in Sweden.

Here is the first look inside the Dome

Stephen King's "The Night Flier""

I found Stephen King’s “The Night Flier” one of the better adaptations done to his original stories. Because we all know when it comes to King being brought to the big screen it can be more miss than hit. Save a few exceptions in the likes of “The Shinning”, “Carrie”, “Christine.” Mostly because they had great directors behind them. That, and the movie actually follows the short story pretty closely.

“Night Flier” follows the exploits of Richard Dees (Miguel Ferrer), ace reporter for the sleaze tabloid magazine Inside View. However, Dees seems to have fallen on hard times as a reporter. And along with an up coming starlet Katherine Blair (Julie Entwistle), who is out to make a name for herself and is breathing down the Dees’ neck, it’s just a matter of time that Dees will find himself washed up. Because in truth, there is not in the way of reporting after you have done the tabloid thing.

Dees is offered a story by his editor (Dan Monahan) about a guy cruising private, out-of-the-way airports in his own plane and is killing the people that he finds there. The twist: The killer is draining the blood of his victims. Even going by the name Dwight Renfield (a character from Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”). Dees turns the story down thinking that it is a waste of time. The story then goes to Blair who turns up some interesting info of what has been taking place with the murders. Smelling that this might turn into something, Dees decides to take back the story and sets out in his own plane, back trailing the killings. 

Unfortunately, for Dees, he has no idea that his waste of time story will be the biggest thing to ever come his way.   

"Salem's Lot" My Twelfth Pick for the Halloween Season

Vampires Stephen King style, in other words: “Salem’s Lot”. The made for television movie is my twelfth pick for Halloween, made during a time long before bad reality TV shows and -what we are starting to see more of- cutting edge shows of horror variety. Think “American Horror Story”, “Walking Dead”, or even that of “True Blood”.

“Salem’s Lot” sees king use his favorite type protagonist: writer (Ben Mears), as played by David Soul (Starsky & Hutch) as he returns back to his hometown of Salem’s Lot, Maine (another mainstay of the King universe) with the intention to write his newest novel about the ominous old house that sits and over looks the town. The house itself presents a traumatic past as it was home too Hubie Marsten, a bootlegger and suspected child murder. As a young boy, Ben went inside the old, deserted mansion on a dare from friends and the images that his mind had conjured (he believed that not only that he saw the corpse of Hubie Marsten, but good-old-Hubie opened his eyes and looked at him) have haunted him ever since.

So what better way to confront ones fears than trying to rent the house that scares the shit out of you. Unfortunately for Ben someone has beet him to the punch and the house is already rented to a man named Barlow, and who has moved in his man servant, Straker, to get the house ready for his arrival. This fact forces Ben to take up residence in the local boarding house.

Not long after the arrival of Straker, strange occurrences began to hold upon the town of Salem’s Lot. First the disappearance of Ralphie Glick one night as he and his brother Danny cut through the Marsten property. Then the body of another well known towns person is found behind the wheel of his car. After that things rapidly start to come apart in Salem’s Lot. Danny awakens the night of the search for his brother to find Ralphie outside his window. Problem with that is Danny’s room is on the second floor, So Danny being a dumb kid opens the window for his brother and gets a surprise from his younger brother that he was not expecting. Danny is found face first on the floor by his parents. At the hospital things do not bode well for poor Danny-boy as he receives another visit from his dear ol’ brother this time when is found in the morning Danny is dead. But this just the beginning of the bad things that are coming to Salem’s Lot. As more and more townsfolk either are taking “ill” or just disappearing altogether.

At thins point Ben Mears is starting to put the pieces together and begins to think that all of this has something to do with the impending arrival of the mysterious Barlow. But what Ben thinks is by far of the real evil that is taking place in “Salem’s Lot”.

FYI: The TNT remake of “Salem’s Lot” (2004) starring Rob Lowe is actually a very good as well. And stayed a little truer the actual King novel. So think if this post as a two for one deal…

Until next time…