Introduction
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
6 p.m. – 8 p.m. CUJO (1983)
My very first published review is lost to the ages. It was a book review I wrote during my freshman year of high school, published in our school newspaper The Schoodic Breeze (derisively known to its detractors among the faculty and student body as The Schoodic Sneeze). The subject was Stephen King’s Cujo, the first of the horrormeister’s books that truly disappointed me. (It wasn’t until many years later I learned King had written most of the book while either drunk or coked-up or both, and had no memory of writing it.) Now, 20-odd years later, I guess I’ve come full circle, writing a review of the movie version of Cujo while too drunk to remember it. (I’m kidding! Maybe.) Here’s the problem: the copy of Cujo I secured (never mind how) turns out to be in Spanish with no subtitles, and there’s no time left to get a new one. I probably missed some of the subtleties in the first half, which mainly consists of scenes of domestic discord amongst the Trenton clan. After checking with Wikipedia, I confirmed that mom Donna (Dee Wallace) is having an affair, dad Vic’s advertising career may be in the hopper because a client’s kiddie cereal is making the wee ones shit pink, and son Tad is afraid of monsters in his closet. When Donna and Tad take the family clunker out to Joe Camber’s garage on the outskirts of town, Tad has a real monster to worry about: Cujo, the Camber family St. Bernard, has been bitten by a bat and gone rabid. The second half of the movie mainly consists of Donna and Tad trapped in their car, which the mangy mutt occasionally attacks. It’s not that scary, probably because no matter how menacing you try to make a St. Bernard look, he still just comes off as dopey and lovable. One thing in the book’s favor: King kills off the whiny kid, while the movie lets him live.
8 p.m. – 10 p.m. CAT’S EYE (1985)
Cujo director Lewis Teague also helmed this trilogy of tales, loosely connected by a wandering cat. There’s an amusing moment near the beginning when the cat is chased by Cujo and they are nearly hit by Christine, but Teague ruins it by cutting to the “I am Christine” bumper sticker on the red Fury. Oh, now I get it! Anyway, the three stories here are presented more for amusement than scares – at least, I hope that was the idea. In the first, James Woods attempts to quit smoking with the aid of a shadowy organization that employs extreme measures (such as giving his wife a series of electric shocks the first time he sneaks a butt). In the middle segment, a mobster forces the man who’s been boinking his wife (Robert Hays) to walk all the way around a tall building on a tiny ledge. The finale brings us the return of Drew “Firestarter” Barrymore, who is menaced by a funny little troll in a jester cap. Woods and Alan King provide some chuckles, and I did like that troll – Was there a tiny person in there? A monkey, perhaps? – but this is pretty typical mid-80s cheese. If it’s late at night and you happen upon it on cable, it’s a good movie to semi-watch while conking out on the couch. And by this point in the marathon, I’m doing a lot of conking.
King’s cameo: In addition to the in-joke mentioned above, there’s also a scene with Woods watching The Dead Zone, and another with Barrymore’s mother reading Pet Sematary in bed.
10 p.m. – Midnight SILVER BULLET (1985)
Did someone mention typical mid-80s cheese? I’ve saved the least for last, assuming anyone is still awake out there. Silver Bullet may not actually be the worst King adaptation, but it doesn’t offer much besides a pop culture anthropologist’s glimpse of Ground Zero for modern celebreality rehab shows. Both Corey Haim and Gary Busey appear in this lame werewolf flick, which also features Everett “Big Ed” McGill as the preacher-turned-lycanthrope. (That’s technically a spoiler, I guess, but since everyone with an IQ above room temperature will figure it out five minutes into the movie, it shouldn’t count as one.) Haim is the crippled boy in the souped-up motorized wheelchair Silver Bullet and Busey is his drunken Uncle Red, a part he could play even more convincingly today. Considering that Silver Bullet came out several years after The Howling and American Werewolf in London, it’s remarkable how shoddy the were-suit is. Of course, it’s not quite as shoddy as the Casiotone soundtrack, which conjures all the excitement of a game of Simon. (Ask your drunken uncle, youngsters.)
Well, looks like we made it all the way to the end. Except…wait! I’ve actually been dead since 8 a.m. and the rest of this has been written by the zombie Scott Von Doviak. BWA HA HA HA HA!!!!
Nah, just joking. I meant to say I’ve actually been drunk since 8 a.m. I forget – did we watch Cujo?