1. CROUCH END
Disclaimer
1:
I’m taking my students to Hampsted,
Hamsptead
is not that far from Crouch End, a couple of kms
and two tube stops.
You can even walk there if it’s a nice day.
So allow me to touch wood and try to dismiss this story as absurd and totally
unlike.
A
more *fictional* setting wouldn’t have hurt, both for the credibility (oxymoron?)
of the story and for my tranquillity, too.
J
Disclaimer
2:
Though I’ve become pretty old J
I’ve been educated in modern times; so I belong to the school that has
learned to do off with any attempt to compare books and movies as childish, anticultural,
antihistorical and a
bit stupid as a whole.
Still
I must say that with short stories this axiom might be (I’ve just said, *might*,
mind you!) modified.
Because the reading // watching time become approximately equal thus dialogues
can be virtually identical and, besides, a short story is technically defined
as a one-plot, one-time, one-setting (differently from the novel) thus
rendering its visual dramatization much easier than that of an ordinary novel.
That
said, Crouch End is a hell (no pun intended) of a ride into a well-known
quarter of
A
little bit naïve for the others, maybe, because Lonnie and Doris seem too
much like actors out of the Scary Movie series; they go where they don’t
have to go, they do what they don’t have to do but they don’t go where
they have to go.
Some
clichés too many, all and all, but in the end the story works and keeps you
stuck up to the very end of it.
Much
more than the rendering of his many novels (see above) here the constant
reader can find *exactly* what he was supposed to; and this, far from
belittling King’s work, is a really good achievement for an author who plays
with fantasy and imagination and has ever hoped to become a good director, too.
44
minutes which won’t make history but sure will give you
the creeps.
In
the wonderful site, www.liljas-library.com,
Lilja says *This is that kind of story that can’t be done semi good.
Either all the toy soldiers would look pretty silly or they would awesome.*
I
think this is quite with *any* King’s story, when it comes to his *impossible*
stuff, re: the Langoliers (first off the top of my head) .
She
then adds *They’re awesome*
Well,
I don’t’ quite agree they’re awesome, but they’re sure much much
better than the ridiculous Langoliers (to quote an example).
Besides
that, what I really found awesome in this rendition is:
Top
of the game, brilliant, definitely flawless.
I’ve never seen a better Hurt since *minor god*, I mean it.
2. The
director’s choice to make it a silent film. It stresses the thrill and
adds to the suspense.
Great
short movie, really.
You
won’t miss it.