I love Stephen King. Read everything he’s ever written. Except the Dark Tower series that they’ve now just made a movie out of. He’s written hundreds (almost) of books. All brilliant, all different. And if you think he is just about ‘horror’, then at least (The Shining) it is the best horror ever. But its not vehicles for horror. Stephen King writes about people. And their interactions. And bonding. Particularly over adversity. So his early books in particular all tend to feature kids, often quite the misfits, never the cheerleaders and quarterbacks, and the bonds that link them together. Which may, or may not, come back later to be re-… re-… to be re-whatever they were in the first place but better. And the true magic of the writer is these relationships. They’re easy, natural, uncomfortable at times (Carrie? though she was sadly the most solitary of outcasts, had trouble bonding) and life-affirming. The ‘horror’ is just the medium, the adversity that needs to be dealt with. Sometimes very darkly…

My favourite book? Its between It… and The Stand. Both of which are so vast (in scope as well as size) that they were made, decades ago, into totally awful tv mini-series. You can see them now sometimes, on Sci-Fi channel, or Dave, at about 3 in the morning. Don’t bother, they’re shit. And they’re mainly shit because they are weak distillations of an epic story. They take the story of a group of people, each of whom has his/her own remarkable story, who happen to be involved in something (obviously) horrible and dangerous, and then they film them as just the horrible and dangerous, without mentioning the people. Its like watching football where they’ve removed all the players. So you see the ball, but nothing else. Cos that’s the important bit, right?

King’s short stories have fared better on screen. The Shawshank Redemption is the best movie ever made. Yeah, its about an escape, yeah its a prison drama. But what it really is is the relationship between two men. Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. Because that’s what the book is really about. And Stand By Me was another brilliant short story (written as ‘The Body’) which translated into a fantastic film. Yeah, there’s a dead body but its the relationship between the four kids and their families and rivals that you’re engrossed in.

And all this because they’re releasing a movie of ‘It…’. The last time they did they it starred Jon-Boy Walton as the hero. So you know you’re in trouble from the opening credits. This time they’ve made the film 135 minutes long. Too long for most films (other than 7 Samurai) but stay-awake-able. But the book is 1000 pages long. Its about poor kids and abused kids and stuttering kids and… its about relationships and adversity and… all of the above except football. Naaah! Fuck dat! Just show ’em the dodgy clown and a few gory deaths, that’ll be fine. No time for all that other bollocks. Just make ’em jump and they’ll be happy.

Actually I’m not happy. Though its true, no-one needed to ask my permission nor advice before making the film. But the injustice is horrible. More grist-to-the-mill of the ‘Stephen King? He’s that horror bloke, inn’ee?’ brigade.

Happy Friday. Stay away from the drains.

A xxxx