Ok, so I never read the book. I am slightly ashamed to be reviewing this whole thing based on the information I have, but I read a comic book adaptation of the book. It was pretty good, it was by Steve Niles and I liked it pretty well. I have no idea how it turns out in the book, really.
I just read wikipedia's article on the subject and it quotes Stephen King as saying that if Richard Matheson didn't exist, he wouldn't either. Obviously Matheson has a lot more to answer for than the several poorly made attempts at filming his original vision. I suppose we can't take him to trial for creating Stephen King, but I can always dream of the day that someone is punished for that crime.
The book is pretty tense, well like I say, the comic adaptation was pretty tense. The way the main character's neighbors were on to him from the first and just waited and haunted him was a good setup. The antagonistic relationship with his former buddy on the block made me really pleased and reminded me of when I used to fight with our next-door neighbors, the Rayles. Nice kids, two girls and little boy. I can remember beating the boy up, sitting on his chest and punching him. I think he'd bitten me. Anyways, a belated sorry to Bobby Rayle and I hope that he never becomes a vampire and hangs around outside my house for revenge.
I also liked how much he drank in the book. It appealed to the lush in me. I also thought that it made a lot of sense. If all my neighbors were camping out in front of my house every night I'd probably want to get pretty trashed as well. My current neighbors are mostly Okinawan and I think that if they became vampires it'd be pretty terrifying. I'm not sure I'd be able to tell if they were vampires or not. They already hang out behind the house all night, how would I be able to tell if they were also eating people? They left a dead goat in my backyard last week. I mean, what would the signs and symptoms of vampirism be, and how would they be different. This is the sort of dilemma that culture shock brings.
My point, and I genuinely DO have a point, is that this particular movie version is pretty rotten. I liked how scary bits of it were, and I liked the first 25 minutes a whole, whole lot. But then little things started to bug me. Why was Emma Thompson in this movie? Why did the vampires look like CGI monsters? What's the satirical value of monsters that are nothing like people? Useless. And what the hell is the whole thing with the heroic value of Bob Marley? How nonsense is that? Bob Marley? Is Hollywood really scraping the bottom of the barrel for heroes or what? I have no idea what album it was that Will Smith claims is the best album ever, but since it is a Bob Marley album I have to say that I suspect he is wrong. Not only wrong, but wildly, hilariously inaccurately wrong.
There is a great scene, really scary and intense, where he is driving around and sees someone standing in the road. It's great, the whole scene that follows is wonderful. But it is ruined by the stupid CGI effects that look ridiculous, no matter how many time we see them. They look like they are Beowulf's cousins that suffer from alopecia. It's just sad.
Vern said that he waited through the whole movie for Will Smith to say something like, "Why's it always gotta be a black man gets eaten by the vampires?!" And while it wasn't quite THAT bad, I saw what he meant. I think that Will Smith, while I will always love him for his Fresh Prince shtick, both in his albums and his TV show, has kind of painted himself into a corner as an actor. It's too bad, as I think that he is pretty good, but just like Keannu Reeves always appears to be about to say, "Dude!" Will Smith always seems like he is about to try to out Martin Lawrence Martin Lawrence.
4 comments:
I didn't see the movie, or read the book, and I am not a horror fan. But the CGI thing, yeah, that sucks. I watched some of Beowulf and all of Ratatouille this last week. What I realized was that the characters in Ratatouille, as freakishly non-human and cartoonish as they were, had MUCH more character for me. I understood them as real, even though it was evident they were caricatures. Even the talking rat was more human than any of the characters in Beowulf CGI. I would think that a Zombie movie where the undead acted normal (up to the point of eating human flesh), except they became CGI people, and are therefore vaguely unsettling and wrong for the other non-CGI characters, would be cool. It would a HUGE challenge to get the human like CGI as close to real as possible, while still being wrong and artificial. Maybe a better alien invasion movie? At any rate, I think I can accept cartoons as real easier than I can accept CGI as real.
Discuss.
I really enjoye the book. Richard Matheson also wrote a lot of short stories that eventually became Twilight Zine episodes, like the one about the gremlin on the plane wing. He was a pretty imaginative guy.
I did not read the book, and as usual I wish I had read it and skipped the movie. I just watched it last weekend. It had some good scary parts. I loved the dog. I was cheering for Will Smith. The CGI people freaked me out in the first scene, but they did look like cartoon characters. I thought the ending was so unnecessarily cheesy and unoriginal. And the Bob Marley album was Legend, which is not anywhere near the best Bob Marley album and anyone who named their kid after Bob Marley would never pick that as their favorite album. Also, how has that lady never heard of Bob Marley?
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now. Keep it up!
And according to this article, I totally agree with your opinion, but only this time! :)
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