Tag: Stephen King

Monday Morning Movie Review: Christine (1983)

The Portly Politico5 Comments

Amid an exceptionally grueling week—and this week will be no different—I somehow managed to watch 1983’s Christine, the John Carpenter-directed film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel.  The movie is about a 1958 Plymouth Fury with a bad attitude and a malignant influence on her owners.  The flick is also a reflection of Stephen King’s obsession with 1950s teen culture.  Indeed, Christine “speaks” through the medium of 1950s rock ‘n’ roll, much in the same way that Bumblebee from Transformers (2007).

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Children of the Corn (1984)

The Portly Politico2 Comments

Last night I decided to take advantage of the plethora of Halloween offerings still lingering about on Shudder and decided to watch Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992).  It was not a good movie.

Its predecessor, Children of the Corn (1984), isn’t much better, but even though it’s not a great film, it’s one that I enjoy viewing from time to time.  There’s something iconic about the type of story it tells:  a bunch of kids murder their parents and indulge in some kind of weird corn cult.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: Salem’s Lot (1979)

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Do you feel it, dear reader?  The crisp little nip in the air?  That delicious coolness first thing in the morning?

Yes, autumn is close—and the spooky season is near!  That refreshing sense of autumnality (my favorite made-up word) conjures up all manner of pumpkin-spiced fantasies for the season ahead.

It also means Halloween is coming!

Naturally, yours portly loves Halloween—I probably won’t shut up about it from now until probably well into November—and Halloween means scary movies, which are even better when it’s dark and chilly.

What’s even better are scary movies that I saw when I was entirely too young, and which have seared themselves into my mind over the intervening decades.

The 1979 miniseries Salem’s Lot, an adaptation of the Stephen King novel “‘Salem’s Lot,” is one such film.  It’s streaming now on Shudder, and I’ve been soaking in its vampiric scares off and on for the past week.

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Monday Morning Movie Review: The Shining (1980)

The Portly Politico35 Comments

With the passing of Shelley Duvall earlier this month, Shudder has offered up The Shining (1980), one of the best horror films ever captured on celluloid.  Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 1977 novel—which King famously hated, until he didn’t—has been analyzed to death, but like the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel, yours portly will offer up his own humble exorcism of these now-familiar haunts.

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