Customer Reviews

Creepshows (Illustrated Movie Guide)

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Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide got off on the wrong foot quick by crediting (On the lower back cover) the Berni Wrightson cover illustration to the woman who DESIGNED the cover layout. Very sloppy, especially considering Wrightson's rendition of "The Creep" is world-famous.....

The book covers all of the films that have sprung, however tenuous the connection may be (Children of the Corn 666), from Mr. King's stories. Stephen Jones does an interesting job of digging up little-known bits of trivia; I'm a King fanatic, and there were quite a few things here that were new to me. The irritating thing is the division of space in the book: A gem like The Green Mile gets the same amount of space as Children of the Corn. Jones devotes too much space to films that have nothing to do with King at all, such as the awful "House", covered because the main character is a King wannabe. The book is an American reprint of a British book, published in the UK by Titan Books, and the fact that Watson-Guptill couldn't even be bothered to Americanise the Brit spellings gets annoying after 100+ pages of "Favourite" and "Colour". Jones also seems to love the word "Eponymous"- He uses it on almost every page, and one would hope that someone has since bought him a Thesaurous. There's a brief King interview at the end, and the book is heavily illustrated with stills and poster reproductions. King fans will probably enjoy Creepshows a lot, but it could have been better....

This large (in size rather than actual volume of text, as most of the book is occupied by photographs - the vast majority of them in black and white) guide to films, TV productions, fan videos and other filmed works based on or inspired by Stephen King's prose (and one poem...) is not particularly detailed, but certainly contains enough basic information, facts and trivia about almost every minor, major, cancelled or planned King production as of late 2002 to satisfy a King reader interested in the visual media.

Unfortunately, it leaves much to be desired. The layout is clunky at times, and there are a few truly pointless parts thrown in at the end most likely just to increase the volume (what in heaven's - or hell's - name would otherwise be the point in including such entries as Sean Cunningham's "House" [apparently listed because its protagonist is a "Stephen King-like writer"], "The Simpsons" episode "Maximum Homerdrive" [whose only relation to King is the title, as the book even admits], or some German porn flick which features a mad naked janitor [allegedly a ripoff of "The Shining's" Jack Torrance]?), and the book does not actually list *all* adaptations of King's writing (where is the best of the King shorts, "Strawberry Spring" from 2001?).

The most annoying thing about the guide, however, is the fact that it discusses the films in a chronological order rather than the proper, alphabetical one. This awkward (to put it mildly...) decision makes the book extremely inconvenient for quick checking, looking up particular titles, or comparing movies. Fortunately, there is an index, but still, flipping 87 pages to reach that index after reading an entry for one film, then flipping back 61 pages to find its sequel is infuriating.

Stephen King movies have a pretty bad reputation (just watch Maximum Overdrive or the dozen Children of the Corn movies and see what everyone is complaining about). But I like Stephen King movies, for the most part. Some of my personal favourites are: Storm of the Century (a mini-series written by King), Sometimes They Come Back (a film based on his short story of the same name) and Creepshow (anthology film with a screenplay written by King based on his own short stories). And of course there are the classics like Carrie, The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption.

I don't really understand when people complain that King movie adaptions "ruin" the book because movies are never as good as the book anyway. Here's what King has to say about that:

"They may not be good movies but they haven't ruined the books. Look here they are, lined up on the bookshelf."

Creepshows: The Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide is a thorough handbook for all films based on King's work. Some of the films I haven't even heard of before. And it's fairly recent; the last movie featured is Rose Red, which came out in 2002. The book also includes short films, forthcoming projects (so far only two of them have been produced), unproduced projects, associational titles, King cameos, television episodes, other media (i.e. plays), recurring talent in his films and an interview with King.

The write-up about each film includes the tagline, a listing of the cast, a description of the film, how they made the film, a brief background on the book/short story it's based on and various quotes from reviews, King, and people who worked on each film. Each write-up is incredibly thorough and it's interesting to see what King thinks of the movies based on his work. But the films are listed in chronological order rather than alphabetical, making it annoying to find a particular movie without looking it up in the index, unless you know the year it was released.

Creepshows also features a lot of nice illustrations, such as movie stills, film posters and book covers.

This is an interesting book and I would recommend it if you're a fan of Stephen King or just a fan of horror movies.

This is a nice book to have if you are a King Collector.