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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 28, 2012 0:17:16 GMT
Well, I finally got hold of my ex, and he told me it is actually Flood Plains by Mark Wheaton and it's much newer than he had made it out to be (that or I took it to be older). Thanks anyway, though, guys.
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 23, 2012 0:41:21 GMT
Hmm, well, if you guys can't find it, I guess I could just wait until my ex gets on and ask him. I see him seldom however. I just feel stupid because he told me the title and I forgot it. Nonetheless, thank you for your assistance so far. I appreciate it.
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 22, 2012 20:42:07 GMT
Just read the summary and that isn't it, unfortunately. I was told the menace was specifically crude oil possessed by vengeful ghosts. The Crawling Horror is a short story, besides, and my ex intimated that this other story was an actual novel.
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 22, 2012 6:01:08 GMT
My ex mentioned a novel about living oil that eats people, possessed by ghosts or something. Anyone know the title of this? Not Phantoms by Dean Koontz, I think the word "Fields" was in the title he gave me (and which I forgot).
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 19, 2012 2:39:11 GMT
The Poison Belt: Being an Account of Another Amazing Adventure of Professor Challenger by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle came in the mail earlier today. It's a very short novella, a direct sequel to The Lost World and a contender for one of the single longest book titles I own. This is the title on the cover of the version I have, anyway, published by Bison Books. Most everywhere else (including Wikipedia) just calls it "The Poison Belt."
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 17, 2012 1:44:33 GMT
To an extent, it is, as it is physically possible to attach three people in the manner Dr. Heiter does. Maybe not in the precise manner he shows on his slide projector, but it could be done.
Whether the people would survive very long afterward is another question entirely.
In fact, I think since they begin suffering from a variety of problems from being attached in that manner, such as constipation and blood poisoning, with only Katsuro, at the front, remaining healthy, the movie is at least semi-realistically depicting why such an "experiment" would fail and the "Siamese triplet" would slowly get sick and die. So I think the movie's claim of medically accurate is at least partially justified. Just not maybe 100%.
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 16, 2012 19:15:43 GMT
I am such a man of such acquired tastes. To be honest, I'm not entirely certain why I decided to see this film, but, when I did, I found it quite well done as a horror movie.
The concept of the human centipede itself (themselves?) isn't necessarily what I found disturbing, but the way the movie really lingers on the emotional suffering of Jenny, Lindsay and Katsuro to keep the horror going after the movie has peaked with the reveal of the "centipede." It went admirably beyond just the gimmicky main concept and showed us the trials and tribulations of the three as they try and escape this madman. If only Katsuro had bit deeper into his throat...
And as for Dr. Heiter, it's nice to see mad scientists (well, mad doctors) made scary again. Yeah, he's over the top, but his determination and willingness to get his hands dirty in pursuit of his mad goal showed him to be a force to be reckoned with. The scene where he's trying to beat down the door is quite intense, and his threats disturbing (if a little odd; yeah, pulling someone's teeth without anesthetic is agonizingly painful, and removing the teeth is part of the procedure, but still). Him treating the "centipede" like a pet was funny.
My only problem is a few things at the end just rub me the wrong way. I found it odd Katsuro selfishly kills himself when confronting Heiter, essentially dooming Lindsay and Jenny. What a nice guy. Also, I'm unsure why Heiter insisted on acting so suspicious when talking to Detective Kranz; he's a really bad liar and it's clear he doesn't handle pressure very well. But since he acted that way with Lindsay and Jenny earlier, why should he act any differently with the police?
In fact, although the way Heiter acts is consistent, it isn't believable that he could remain undetected as a clearly insane person for so long. I don't buy Lindsay and Jenny trusting him when he acts even creepier than the perverted old man in the Mercedes, and, rather than making Kranz and Voller look clever for figuring Heiter out, they just look like they're noticing the blatantly obvious (and consequently are smarter than Lindsay and Jenny) because Heiter isn't even trying to hide how weird he is.
As fort he sequel... it had some good potential, but I don't like how Tom Six went all meta on it.
Some Spoilers for the Sequel!!!
Martin made for an interesting villain protagonist and as screwed up as he is I felt sorry for him because everyone, even his own mother, treated him horribly. Only Dr. Sebring was nice to him, and that is later revealed to be for Sebring's own perverted reasons.
Yeah, Martin is a freak and kind of gross, but mostly inoffensive, and, his plan to create a twelve-person "centipede" notwithstanding, I feel like he wasn't going to to go through with it until the guy who's locked out of his car gets in his face and treats him like shit for no reason. Sure, Martin went out their with his gun, but I am convinced it was in that moment he finally just snapped and wasn't going to take the world's crap anymore.
The other interesting aspect of the character is how upset he gets when he kills someone, intentionally or unintentionally (except his mother). When he's trying to revive the guy he bought the warehouse from. Or the pregnant lady. He seems pretty anguished. But is he upset at their deaths, or because they can't be in his "centipede?" Maybe both? He certainly seems overly protective and sympathetic towards children, likely due to his own horrible experiences as a child. His reaction to the infamous baby-under-the-gas-pedal scene in particular comes to mind... he is enraged.
Maybe I am reading too much into the Martin character and inferring things that aren't there, but nonetheless it's a testament to Laurence Harvey's performance as Martin that he manages to wrench so much emotion, subtle and otherwise, out of a character who never says a single word in the entire film.
Anyway, all that "mainstream critic" type reviewing aside, yeah, I liked both films immensely.
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 16, 2012 18:43:11 GMT
Ah, learn something new every day. I had assumed it was in the UK version as well, and that what was shown on the Universal VHS was essentially the full, unaltered movie. Now I find otherwise. Great trivia.
Also, as it turns out, the DVD I mentioned (without the hand-cutting) is out of print. I think it was by DD, as part of their Masters of Horror series. I also have The Blood Beast Terror and Night of the Big Heat by them. As regards the former, I think there is some problem with their DVD of it, as they used one of its many alternate titles, "The Vampire Beast Craves Blood," I believe, in the actual movie, so that the film has a different title than the one on the DVD case.
Anyway, was the insert shot of Stanley's hand getting cut off shot for the US cut or added later by Americans? I mean, did the British film crew do it with the intention of putting in a foreign cut but not theirs, or did the American distributors have it shot on their own, thinking we ought to see Stanley's hand getting cut off? It seems a little odd that, whoever did, their idea of adding more gore to the US version amounts to one quick shot only!
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 16, 2012 2:47:44 GMT
Reclusive oncologist Dr. Lawrence Phillips (Peter Forbes-Robertson) is on the verge of curing cancer. He and his assistants have set up shop on the remote Petrie's Island, somewhere off the coast of Ireland, an island with no working phones, a weekly visit by a supply ship, and only one cop. Dr. Phillips' experiment is reaching a head, when, suddenly, something goes wrong. There is a flash of red light, and some breaking glass and we smash cut to the opening credits...
Island of Terror.
The night of the ill-fated experiment, That night, local farmer Ian Bellows (Liam Gaffney) is walking home through the woods when he hears a strange, electronic warbling noise coming from inside a cave. He decides to investigate. Bad move, Ian.
When Ian doesn't return home, his wife contacts Constable John Harris (Sam Kydd), the aforementioned only cop, who finds the waylaid farmer in the cave after searching the forest. But his corpse is in such a state that Harris rushes to get Reginald Landers (Eddie Byrne), the island's doctor. An examination of Ian's corpse confirms Landers' worst fears; the dead man is completely boneless! At his wit's end, Landers heads to the mainland to see Dr. Brian Stanley (Peter Cushing) in London. Unfortunately, although Stanley is Britain's foremost pathologist he has never heard of a disease that dissolves human bone.
Undaunted, Stanley takes Landers in turn to see hotshot young osteopath David West (Edward Judd), currently attempting to talk his way into the pants of Toni Merrill (Carole Gray), a former patient of his. Thoroughly cockblocked by Stanley and Landers, West is confounded by the tale of a boneless corpse, but agrees to return to Petrie's Island with the other two doctors. Toni, who has a rich father, offers the use of daddy's private helicopter with which to fly to the island, provided the three men let her tag along. Upon arrival however, Toni's father requires the chopper for some last-minute business. The pilot is forced to drop the four people off at the island and then fly away, leaving them effectively stranded until he can return. Uh-oh.
The doctors set immediately to work. They discover Ian was injected with a new enzyme that dissolves calcium phosphate, but can't figure out what produces it. The local clinic doesn't provide sophisticated enough equipment, so Landers suggests they go and see Dr. Phillips, as Phillips' laboratory, located in an old mansion in the woods, is better equipped. Upon arriving however, they discover that Phillips and his assistants are all just as dead as Ian Bellows... and just as boneless. Reasoning that whatever Phillips was mucking around with started all of this, West, Stanley and Landers gathers up the dead scientist's notes to study them.
As soon as they've left, another farmer comes to complain to Constable Harris that one of his horses has been found dead and, shall we say, relieved of its skeleton. Harris hurries to the mansion to tell the three doctors, but arrives after they've gone. Doing a little exploring of his own, he is drawn to one room they didn't go into by a strange electronic warbling, the same Ian Bellows heard coming from the cave before, only to be seized by the throat by a green tentacle...
The entities responsible for all the sudden bonelessness on Petrie's Island, the results of Dr. Phillips' work to cure cancer, are squat, green things vaguely resembling starfish with one long tentacle each, which they use to inject a bone-dissolving enzyme into their victims. Worse, they are nigh impossible to kill, as poor Dr. Landers discovers when our heroes return to the mansion looking for the missing Harris, and he tries to kill one with an axe; Landers promptly exits the movie screaming. The creatures however also reproduce by fission, but luckily they are inert for a brief period after dividing, which allows West, Toni and Stanley to make a hasty getaway.
After learning all they can from Dr. Phillips' notes, West and Stanley opt to inform the islanders about the situation. Here we meet Roger Campbell (Niall MacGinnis) and Peter Argyle (James Caffrey), an older farmer and the owner of the village market respectively, whom the townspeople look to as their leaders. Despite appearing slow at first, the pair are quick to believe everything that the visiting doctors tell them (a little too quickly, in fact; there's being openminded and then there's being gullible), and offer their assistance in helping them destroy the monsters, which West and Stanley eventually dub "Silicates."
Campbell and his men attack the Silicates with everything they've got, but the creatures are amazingly tough: bullets, Molotov cocktails, and dynamite all fail to even hurt them. But hope is restored when a dead Silicate is found, and it turns out that the unfortunate monster died as a result of eating the bones of a dog from Dr. Phillips' laboratory, which were contaminated with Strontium-90, an isotope which settles in bone. West hatches himself a hare-brained scheme to destroy the bone-sucking beasties once and for all. After instructing Campbell and Argyle to sequester all the cows on the island in Campbell's cattle yard, he and Stanley return to the mansion and get some more Strontium 90 from Phillips' lab.
To do so, they must don very silly-looking radiation suits (which more resemble something you'd wear to protect yourself from germs, not radioactivity), and after a lengthy and suspenseful sequence (i.e. boring) of them carefully handling the radioactive materials, they are successful and make ready to depart the creepy manor for good. Unfortunately, on their way out, Stanley gets attacked by a lone Silicate whose tentacle grabs him by the wrist. Grabbing the axe dropped by Landers earlier, West is forced to amputate his friend's hand in order to save his life (a shot of the hand actually being cut off is cut from the current UK DVD, I believe, but present on the US VHS release from the 90's).
Although Stanley survives, he spends the remainder of the movie confined to the local clinic. Using a strange silvery injector gun thingy, West contaminates all the cows in Campbell's cattle yard. Toni and the rest of the monster fodder--I mean townspeople are holed up in the town meeting hall until the crisis blows over, while West, Campbell and Argyle keep watch on the cattle. They do not have to wait long: the Silicates very swiftly appear and gobble up all the cow bones, then come after the three humans who hurriedly retreat to the meeting hall.
There's just one problem. The Silicates divide after eating the cows, which means the power and the effect of the Strontium-90 is cut in half, and will take that much longer to kill them. West, Toni, and the islanders have a siege ahead of them. They must hold out long enough for the isotope to kick in...
A minor cult classic of British horror that has sadly fallen through the cracks of time, 1966's Island of Terror is a movie that certainly deserves more fame than it's gotten over time (especially a proper American DVD release!) due to some stellar performances by a great little cast, headed by stalwart Peter Cushing, and also due to its frankly creepy central premise. Having your skeleton sucked out while you're still alive sounds pretty damn nasty! A shame the movie's budget wouldn't allow for actually showing it, although the boneless corpses we're treated to look pretty icky.
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 16, 2012 0:03:21 GMT
Regarding Proteus, the film based on Slimer.
It's a fairly decent adaptation. Most likely because John Brosnan himself wrote the script. It makes some odd changes such as making Alex the main character and making him a badass, likable DEA agent, and also inexplicably now English, whereas the novel's English characters are now American and Alex's douchebag qualities are divided between Mark and Paul, the latter of whom, in the farthest fall from main character status I can think of, is actually Charlie's very first victim in the movie.
They also for some reason insisted on giving Dr. Shelley a Russian accent. Funny. "Shelley" doesn't strike me as a Russian surname. Beyond these weird changes the effects are a bit lame, particularly the shark monster animatronic used to represent Charlie's true form. It leaves a lot to be desired.
The editing is also weird. Two pivotal scenes are done strangely. The boat sinking happens quickly and we suddenly cut to the castaways in the raft; we never see them abandon ship and get in it. They're just suddenly in it. Ditto for the helicopter rescue at the end; the copter appears out of nowhere and suddenly the surviving characters are on it being flown away, with them never shown boarding. Weird.
But the main problem is the darkness, as erebus mentioned. Apart from the brightly-lit main lab, the interior of the Proteus Project facilities is very dark and dreary and it's hard to make out what is happening sometimes. A far cry from the brightly-lit white corridors Brosnan describes in the book.
The final major difference of note is that Mr. Brinkstone, mentioned often in the novel but never actually appearing, turns up at the end with a squad of armed goons. His name has been changed to "Leonard Brinkstone" (what was wrong with Lloyd?) and he's played by a thoroughly wasted Doug Bradley of Hellraiser fame, and gets killed off almost as soon as he's introduced, he and his henchmen merely providing more fodder for Charlie.
As to the ending, as in the novel, the pilot of the Brinkstone copter is revealed to be taken over by Charlie, but Alex and the surviving girl aren't aware of it and the film ends on a dramatic closeup of the pilot/Charlie's eye. Then cut to credits. Since the movie is told in flashback, with Alex talking to his superior officer at the DEA and telling him what happened, we're left to wonder: is Alex aware? I mean, he's telling all this to his boss in the present. It seems they were setting up for a sequel or perhaps a longer ending was cut out, since we never do return to the present to see what Alex's superior thinks of his story...
Despite this, the acting is quite good, especially from Craig Fairbrass as suddenly good guy Alex and minor details aside the plot is pretty much beat for beat an accurate retelling of Slimer. A much better effort than Corman's insultingly terrible Carnosaur.
And with that, my review of Harry Adam Knight's Slimer comes to an end, unless at some point I do a more detailed review of Proteus. Maybe some other time.
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 14, 2012 23:40:09 GMT
I actually rather liked the film. It was a better adaptation than Roger Corman's Carnosaur anyway. And I rather liked Craig Fairbrass in the lead role.
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 11, 2012 16:28:49 GMT
Gonna try and wrap this up! I don't wanna leave this unfinished like I did with Slime!
Paul and Linda go looking for Mark and discover him and Charlie half-fused together in the bathroom, with neither moving. Mark is (technically) dead but only partially absorbed and Charlie doesn't appear to be trying to finish the job, just sort of sitting there as a big half Charlie, half Mark lump. Our heroes realize that because his victim has just shot up, Charlie is high as a kite! Heroin, it seems, has stopped the unstoppable! Thinking quickly, the pair get the rest of the heroin and inject it into the mass over and over again until it is seemingly dead. Then they go and rest.
When they awake, they decide to vamoose, just in case overdosing the creature failed. I'm unsure where they think they're going since the boats were smashed, but oh well. On the way out, they encounter a man with a flashlight and Paul shoots him, mistaking him for one of Charlie's forms. Then they escape to the exterior of the rig and discover a parked helicopter with the logo of the Brinkstone oil company on it! Paul realizes with horror he just shot the pilot. It doesn't hamper his and Linda's escape any; the copter is a Godsend. He has some (convenient) rudimentary piloting skills. He's just upset he killed an innocent person by accident. Linda consoles him.
Linda however realizes there were two pilots, and she and Paul go back inside to try and find and warn the second pilot. Here, they encounter Dr. Shelley. His consciousness has regained control of Charlie's body and changed it to his own in the mutant shark's heroin-induced stupor. He explains Charlie is going through fatal withdrawal symptoms and will die soon, and thanks the two for freeing him and everyone else Charlie ate, granting them the sweet release of death. He expires.
Paul and Linda then encounter the second pilot who explains that he was sent to find out why the Phoenix Project scientists had not reported in. He's a bit miffed about Paul killing his friend, but eventually the three reach a rocky understanding, and promptly depart in the helicopter after Paul and Linda collect Shelley's tapes about the Phoenix Project, as proof of what Brinkstone was doing. During the helicopter ride however, surprise surprise, it turns out the pilot isn't the real pilot, it's Charlie!
Apparently, he evolved a means of overcoming the heroin withdrawal by spreading his genes to other people instead of just absorbing them into himself. What he did exactly is a bit difficult to explain but essentially he "body hopped," killing the helicopter pilot and taking over his body, leaving his old, heroin-addicted one behind to die. It was this body which Paul and Linda spoke to in the form of the dying Dr. Shelley. Whether Shelley was still "himself" or was even aware of what had transpired is not gone into. Anyway, the Charlie-pilot explains he intends to also turn Paul and Linda into Charlie clones, and, eventually, do the same thing to everyone else on Earth!
A "white, pulpy tentacle" with a claw on the end "dripping fluid" emerges from the pilot-monster to "impregnate" them. Ew! Mutant shark penis! Linda's got a plan, though! She has some vials of heroin left and makes the gamble that although Charlie ditched his old body dying of severe withdrawal, he is still addicted, and, sure enough, the pilot-monster starts acting like a crazed junkie and demands she give him the goods. Between this and figuring out there was a second pilot earlier (and it isn't her fault he turned out to already be taken over), Linda is proving mighty useful all of a sudden. As Charlie grabs the heroin vials, she reaches over and opens the door, and a good kick from Paul boots Charlie out of the copter, and our friend the mutant shark plummets into the sea.
Paul then climbs up front and takes over the copter and puts his rudimentary pilot skills to good use. Uncertain that he's good enough to get them to the mainland, he instead aims for another, nearby Brinkstone rig, hopefully one that isn't a cover for a secret lab. As they come in for a landing, though, he and Linda make the horrifying discovery that when they opened the door to knock Charlie out, they also lost the tapes. Now they have no proof of their story. Brinkstone as well as the US authorities might have some questions about where the pilots of the helicopter went to. Not to mention all the scientists and guards and their four friends. And on top of that, there's the fact they were out there in the first place because they were smuggling drugs.
I suspect a very awkward trial and either prison or a long stay at the nuthouse are in Paul and Linda's future. And that's if Lloyd Brinkstone doesn't decide they know too much. And what of Charlie? They can only hope he dies of heroin withdrawal before he can reach land, because if he doesn't... well, let's just say it'd be very bad now that he has the ability to turn other living things into clones of himself. It would've been awesome if Brosnan wrote a sequel where Charlie returns and is systematically replacing people in an Invasion of the Body Snatchers kind of way.
Slimer was a thoroughly enjoyable read with a fun premise and a neat twist with how they defeat the monster by turning him into a drug addict. It was adapted into a 1995 movie titled Proteus. I'll cover that in a little more detail next time.
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 9, 2012 16:22:59 GMT
Chris ends up getting attacked by Charlie in the form of Alex. In a darkly amusing moment, Alex's supreme douchebaggery proves so formidable that his absorbed consciousness actually briefly takes over the monster's! Then comes probably the most horrific scene in the novel, as the Alex-monster puts Charlie's shape-shifting abilities to good use to make his dick grow bigger, and he uses it to rape Chris to death, impaling her insides with his giant wang of doom. After this, though, Charlie regains control and Alex's mind is subsumed along with all the others, and the monster promptly takes Chris' body into itself.
This leaves only Paul, Linda and Mark. When Mark finds out about his girlfriend's horrible death, he understandably freaks out. Charlie, in the form of Chris, tries to trick the others and almost convinces Mark, but Paul outs the imposter and the Chris-monster flees. Paul and Linda are for finding a way off of the rig, but by-now insane Mark refuses to leave, insisting his girlfriend is still alive inside of Charlie.
Paul loses some of my sympathy around this point because when he learns about Mark's heroin addiction he becomes quite mean to him over it and pretty much decides to abandon him despite the fact they're ostensibly best friends. I just find it quite dickish of him to hold Mark's addiction against him now of all times when they're fighting for their lives against a shape-shifting killer. (Edit: Upon rereading the novel, Mark pulls a gun on Paul so he does give Paul good reason to start being mean to him.)
Mark reacts to this about the way you'd expect, running away in despair. I really pitied this poor bastard, having lost his girlfriend and been essentially written off by his lifelong friend in the same day.
More tape-watching happens. I may be mixing up the order of some of the events, and, if so, I apologize. On the tapes, Paul and Linda get told by Dr. Shelley about the Phoenix Project and how it was intended to create the ultimate organism which can survive anything, and adapt to any environment. The experiment was funded by rich American businessman Lloyd Brinksone, owner of the Brinkstone oil company. Brinkstone apparently intended to use the results of the Phoenix Project to become immortal, basically "curing" death. Needless to say, the resulting mutant, Charlie, was too perfect, too good of a survivor, and yadda yadda yadda ate everybody.
Shelley insists on the tapes that of the people whose minds Charlie has absorbed after eating them, only he, due to his great intelligence, has had the willpower to remain separate, and force himself to the surface so to speak, changing Charlie's form into his. However he fears he will not be able to hold out forever, and, indeed, since we haven't seen Shelley since that first night, it appears Charlie finally completely absorbed him.
The new revelations about Lloyd Brinkstone make Paul and Linda decide that the American is responsible for all of this, and so they resolve to collect all of the tapes and take them back as proof of the Phoenix Project and take Brinkstone's ass to court. Smart! First, though, Linda finally convinces Paul they shouldn't leave Mark behind. Paul grudgingly agrees to go and find him.
Meanwhile, Mark finds Alex's heroin stash he'd been hiding from him, and, overjoyed, goes into the bathroom where he shoots up. As he's right in the middle of enjoying his hit, however, Charlie, in liquid form, oozes out from a ventilation duct and pours down over poor Mark's head. I guess his one consolation is he's too high to even realize he's getting absorbed...
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 9, 2012 16:03:41 GMT
Likely doesn't fall into the classification of horror like some of the other books I've gotten, but I just ordered The Poison Belt by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The Lost World (also not horror) is my favorite Doyle work, more than any of his Sherlock Holmes stuff, and in particular I love the Professor Challenger character, boisterous, lovable brute that he is, and so I'm very much interested in reading a different story with him in it.
Also, although I already have it, I'm interested in acquiring a copy of Richard Matheson's The Incredible Shrinking Man[/b] with its original title of just "The Shrinking Man," from before publishers changed it to reflect the film. In many ways I'm a purist, I guess, and it wouldn't bother me to have more copies of a book I already own, considering I have three of Eat Them Alive.
As to subject matter more appropriate for the site, now that I've gotten Slimer finally I've sort of run out of genuine pulp horror novels I actually want. I guess Squirm sort of interests me...
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 9, 2012 15:57:01 GMT
Don't get me wrong, I liked it. More than the movie actually. I just felt it spent too much time spinning its wheels so to speak. So much of the middle part felt like blatant padding.
The movie is actually surprisingly faithful to the novel, apart from changing Drake's name, making Spaulding a civilian scientist rather than a Navy officer, and also in regards to the fate of the pilot, Brown (named "Miller" in the film). In the novel, Brown commits suicide upon landing, whereas in the film, Miller survives in a comatose state for a while but eventually goes nuts, escapes and is eaten by one of the tree monsters. Man, guy can't catch a break, can he? He survives longer in the film only to die anyway later!
One other thing as regards the book. Most of the characters are identified by either a first name or a last name, very few by a full name. One exception is a sailor named Tom Belden. And Leinster was apparently so proud that he gave this guy a first and last name that he almost always calls him by his full name every time he is mentioned. Almost never simply Tom or Belden but almost always Tom Belden. I dunno why but it started to grate on me after a while. Why do some authors do this with some characters?
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