Fearless Writer ... Reviews

Author: Stephen King

For such a quiet, close-knit community, a lot of unpleasant things happened in Castle Rock, Maine. Its residents always seemed to take these events in their stride, however, as if they were an inevitable toll that had to be paid for enjoying small-town life. But 1991 was an especially bad year for these backwater Mainers. That was the year that would rock the Rock.

These bad days were heralded by the arrival of a new store in town. With its flashy green awnings and unusual name, Needful Things startled the townsfolk out of their usual aloof attitude towards anything new. Once inside, they were immediately charmed by the proprietor, the smiling Leland Gaunt. Even if they were strangely repulsed by his touch.

Mr Gaunt’s range of wares was quite remarkable. No matter what his customers desired, no matter how obscure the object, Mr Gaunt had it in stock. And it was always affordable, never beyond the customer’s means. Young Brian Rusk picked up a rare Sandy Koufax baseball card. Nettie Cobb acquired some beautiful carnival glass. And as word of Needful Things got around, it seemed half the town paid a visit to Castle Rock’s newest entrepreneurial venture. And they all got what they wanted for a bargain – a minor cash outlay, plus a small favour performed for Mr Gaunt. This favour was usually a small prank, played on another member of the Rock. Quite harmless, really.

But possession quickly turned to possessiveness. Mr Gaunt’s customers were paranoid that someone was after their treasures and went to great lengths to keep them safe. Rather crazy lengths, you might say.

Sheriff Alan Pangborn sensed something amiss almost from the day Gaunt set up shop. But between concerns for his girlfriend Polly Chalmers and the persistent guilt and grief over his wife and child who were killed in a car accident, the lawman didn’t quite get around to paying Mr Gaunt a visit.

And before he could, Mr Gaunt’s ‘favours’ began to turn Castle Rock’s residents against one another. It was an isolated incident at first, a mentally ill girl and a notoriously bitchy woman hacking each other up in broad daylight. But then more and more personal vendettas of greed and hate gathered, building momentum like a rockslide (or rather a Rock-slide). Yet these displays of violence, perpetrated by people wired into an animalistic fury by Mr Gaunt’s long, nimble fingers, were only a distraction. The sideshow to keep the police distracted while the real fireworks show was being hatched by Ace Merrill and town selectman Danforth ‘Buster’ Keaton.

Needful Things was Stephen King’s final farewell to his famous town of Castle Rock and arguably the last good novel he would write until 1997, when The Green Mile was published in a series of chapbooks. King obviously cared for these characters and it shows in their depth and believability. This was essential, as the reader also needs to care for them if the exploitation of their frailties – which powers the book both in action and themes – is to work. And it does.

There is more than a touch of dark satire in Needful Things as well, not least King’s distaste for the hypocrisy of organised religion (the conflict between the Catholics and Baptists of Castle Rock is a thinly-veiled lampooning of all theological disputes). The usual human failings are writ large, with various characters succumbing to pride, greed, envy and all the emotions that can open the door to evil.

Needful Things is a complex network of events that in another writer’s hands might have become convoluted, but thanks to King’s clear storytelling, the reader is never unsure about who is doing what to whom and why. Its messages are clear without being broadcast by megaphone and thematically this was surely King’s most mature novel.

But as a long time King reader, I felt (both when I first read it about 10 years ago and again recently) that Needful Things was beginning to exhibit some of the impurities that would spoil subsequent novels completely.

King himself has referred to Needful Things as a “long novel” and it is that. It’s almost as though the author moved up into some invisible, unspoken status-bracket and editors grew fearful of whittling down his prose with anything but the finest grain sandpaper. Over-explanation is rife in Needful Things, with King often telling us things that we have already gleaned from a character’s actions or other plot developments.

Needful Things was also the first in a string of King novels with poor denouements. I won’t ruin it for those who have not read the book, but the final scene adds an element of silliness that knocks down the carefully constructed world of plausible fantasy built up in the preceding 600-odd pages. Rose Madder was the low point in this regard – its sudden sharp turn into the supernatural was both jarring and frightfully close to self-parody, almost as if King were afraid to write something that was not to type.

Nevertheless, one emerges from Needful Things with a feeling of satisfaction. It is a book that, in King’s unnecessarily self-deprecating words (although he was describing another tome), provides good weight. It’s not creepy in the sense that The Shining or Salem’s Lot was creepy, but it does generate a prevailing sense of unease. The reader is left gape-mouthed at the atrocities within its pages … and a little ashamed at how readily members of the human race will sell each other out for commercial or personal gain. In this regard, Needful Things has only increased in relevance since it was first published.

The Fearless Writer

Stars: Keira Knightley, Rosamund Pike, Donald Sutherland, Brenda Blethyn
Director: Joe Wright

By far the best loved and most famous of Jane Austen's novels, Pride & Prejudice has been subject to umpteen adaptations both on film and television – including an Indian interpretation by director Gurinder Chadha with Bride & Prejudice. So why do we need another one?

It's a question that might as well be rhetorical – filmmakers keep creating new versions of it for the same reason that people reread the novel three or five or ten times. It's just a terrific tale that people want to relive again and again.

And let's relive it once more, for the sake of getting a synopsis into this review. The Bennets are a fairly well-to-do family living in country England. Mr Bennet (Sutherland) and his wife (Blethyn) have only managed to churn out daughters, which means than when Mr Bennet goes to the big farmhouse in the sky, his estate will pass on to the nearest male relative (who we'll meet later). Knowing this, Mrs Bennet is very keen to see her daughters married to advantage.

The two eldest daughters, Jane (Pike) and Elizabeth (Knightley), appear to have the best marriage potential, being both intelligent and attractive. So when the rich Mr Bingley (Simon Woods) and his equally pecunious friend Mr Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen) arrive in town, matchmaking is inevitable. Following a ball, there appears to be definite chemistry and potential wedding bells between Jane and Mr Bingley, but while there is a certain physical attraction between Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, their personalities clash.

Adding to the fun and games is the handsome soldier Mr Wickham. He and Darcy appear to have a history, and whatever went down in their mysterious past, it has left bad blood between them.

Enter Mr Collins, reverend, cousin to the Bennet sisters and inheritor of Mr Bennet's estate. Unattractive and boringly stable in thought and action, his eye is initially drawn to Jane, but upon learning from Mrs Bennet that Jane is expecting a proposal from Mr Bingley, his attentions shift to Elizabeth. He makes a decidedly unromantic proposal, which the willful Lizzy turns down in no uncertain terms. Mrs Bennet is horrified and entreats her husband to talk some sense into his daughter. But in what is probably the movie's (and the book's) best scene, Mr Bennet tells Elizabeth that if she does not marry Mr Collins her mother will never speak to her again ... and he will never speak to her again if she does.

The door is now open for Elizabeth and Mr Darcy to discover their love for one another, but between his reticence and her youthful impulsiveness it's a tortured process. There are other angst-filled subplots to be unravelled as well, such as youngest daughter Kitty's shotgun elopement with Mr Wickham and Mr Bingley's abrupt termination of his courtship with Jane.

This is a quality cast by any measure and all the actors clearly have a good grasp on their characters. Knightley conveys Elizabeth's sharp-minded independence, Macfadyen plays Mr Darcy as a noble man who values manners and propriety above all else, Brenda Blethyn draws out Mrs Bennet's absurd hypocrisy and Sutherland gives us a benevolent but ultimately wise Mr Bennet. That said, the casting is not thoroughly ideal – even in full costume Knightley looks altogether too modern for the role (a younger Emma Thompson would have made the perfect Lizzy) and Sutherland can't quite get his American tongue around English vowels. But this new iteration of Pride & Prejudice is still a joy to watch, because director Joe Wright obviously understands the material he is working with – and when you're talking an Austen adaptation, that is absolutely essential.

VERDICT: 4/5

RATINGS
5/5 The Empire Strikes Back
4/5 Star Wars
3/5 Revenge of the Sith
2/5 Attack of the Clones
1/5 The Phantom Menace

Director: Douglas Law
Starring: Andie MacDowell, Samuel Le Bihan Tim Roth, Margot Kidder

Recently widowed research scientist Kathy Macfarlane (MacDowell) is trying to hold her life together. Odd things have been happening since her emotionally disturbed husband, Jeremy (Roth), died in a car crash. She also has three kids to look after – including an argumentative teenage son – so Kathy decides the only option is to rent out the cottage on her property. Handsome stranger Marc (Le Bihan) moves in, but she distrusts him – especially when someone starts making prank calls at 12:15 every morning. But is Marc to blame? Kathy’s apparently psychic colleague Endora (Kidder) suggests she should start looking for the ‘signs’…

This is direct-to-video drama dreck at its absolute worst. Aside from the implausible character motivations and continuity errors (Kathy's son appears out of nowhere when he is supposed to be out of town with his sisters) the screenplay offers dialogue so wooden that only Pinocchio would say it rang true. The considerable talents of Roth (Pulp Fiction) and Kidder (Superman) are no match for it, although they do provide some relief in an otherwise abominable hour and a half of cinematic torture. The worst offender is Samuel Le Bihan, who would be hard pressed landing a role on The Bold and the Beautiful. On those occasions where he doesn't sound like he is reading his lines, he is using improper inflection or putting emphasis on the wrong word. MacDowell is just her usual one-dimensional self, vacillating between sweet smiles and brow-furrowing depending on what the script calls for.

The Last Sign is one of those movies that just seems to exist for no reason. It's not cheap and ugly enough to be laughed at, and it doesn't have a single event or idea worth discussing. It is one of those most unfortunate and ill-gotten celluloid creatures: The viewer just wants it to be over.

VERDICT: 1/5

RATINGS
5/5 The Empire Strikes Back
4/5 Star Wars
3/5 Revenge of the Sith
2/5 Attack of the Clones
1/5 The Phantom Menace

Director: Greg McLean
Starring: John Jarratt, Nathan Phillips, Cassandra Magrath, Kestie Morassi

Hollywood’s quest for ever-greater profits had, by the 1990s, essentially squeezed truly impressive horror films out of existence. Shockers that typified the genre in the 1970s such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead and even the cheesy I Drink Your Blood had no place in an industry that wanted everything to achieve the all important American rating of PG-13.

In the early Noughties, a small backlash began against glossy, self-conscious pap like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Director Eli Roth pulled no punches with the delightfully gory and paranoic Cabin Fever (2002) and the remake of Dawn of the Dead, while it had its flaws, at least made true horror a marketable concern in the eyes of film studio execs.

Low-budget Australian movie Wolf Creek is perhaps the final shift in a genre that has come full circle since the heady days of the ’70s. Made on a budget that wouldn’t have paid for everyone’s coffee on the set of Scream 2, it set the box office on fire and made amazing profits with next to no marketing aside from word of mouth.

Contrary to what its opening titles claim, Wolf Creek is at best loosely based on true events, knitting together the facts of two Australian serial killer cases and throwing in a very large handful of fiction. Aussie traveller Ben Mitchell (Nathan Phillips) is exploring Western Australia with a couple of attractive British backpackers, Liz and Kristy (Magrath and Morassi). The first half an hour of Wolf Creek is devoted to little else but showing us the relationship between this trio – and it paints a pretty realistic picture. We know them, we can relate to them.

Then their journey turns down the inevitable dark road. Upon their return from checking out an enormous crater at the titular town, Ben’s car breaks down quite literally in the middle of nowhere. Their fun-loving holiday appears to have turned into a disaster, until the jovial, laconic Mick Taylor (Jarratt) finds them and offers to tow them to the nearest town (although it’s not really a town, just a couple of buildings with electricity and water). There, they sit around a campfire to eat, drink and have a bit of a yarn. It’s now that our ears, finely attuned to the conventions of horror, begin to ring, as Ben’s attempts at humour are met with … let’s say unusual stares from Mick. But then Mick cracks another joke and they all bed down in their sleeping bags to see out the night.

See out the night they do. But when they wake up, Ben, Liz and Kristy find themselves in a nasty little predicament. It seems Mick has a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock, and our travellers are the latest flies to blunder into his intricate web of insane terror…

Much was made of the cinema walkouts during screenings of Wolf Creek, and indeed two couples made a hasty exit when I saw this in the theatre. But given that this film has little gore compared to something such as Dawn of the Dead or Saw, and only the vaguest hints at sexual violence, what is it that so disturbed these people?

My guess is that unlike all the sparkly Hollywood ‘horror’ that so defined the glib ’90s and early 2000s, it is almost impossible to tell yourself that Wolf Creek is only a movie. Its lengthy character introductions make it difficult for the viewer to just laugh or shrug his or her shoulders when unpleasant things begin to happen to them. Similarly, it is nearly impossible to dislike Mick, even when he is torturing these human beings that we have come to care about. No one is a cardboard cut-out, and you get the feeling that if such outback serial killings went on in real life, this is exactly how they would go down.

Fledgling Aussie director Greg McLean also shows a keen eye for visuals. I won’t spoil the car chase scene for those who haven’t seen it. Suffice to say that its wide-angle climax is one of the most effective scenes of suspense and horror ever committed to film.

While Wolf Creek may have a few technical faults, they really do fade away against the intricate tapestry of disturbing horror that McLean has woven. Forget the ‘true story’ nonsense and just enjoy this film for what it is – R18+ rated horror that is the equal of any film made in the halcyon days of the 1970s. ****

RATINGS
5/5 The Empire Strikes Back
4/5 Star Wars
3/5 Revenge of the Sith
2/5 Attack of the Clones
1/5 The Phantom Menace

Be it a new book or old literature; a cinematic classic or the latest blockbuster, you'll get my honest opinion complete with reasons to back it up. Discussion appreciated, trolls should turn around and go back to their natural habitat at imdb.com.

The Fearless Writer