Anna Faúndez

Tag: horror

  • 7 Reasons Readers Love Scary Stories

    Article written by Rayne Hall in celebration of The Haunted Train: Creepy Tales from the Railways

    ︶︶︶︶

    In real life, we seek to avoid fear, worry, panic, and terror. Yet in book form, they grant delicious thrills, and we choose to spend our time with the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King, or Anne Rice.

    As an author and reader of Gothic tales, I’ve identified seven psychological reasons why we’re drawn to scary tales:

    1. ESCAPISM

    Exciting stories distract us from the unpleasantness of real life. While reading, we become so absorbed that we forget about our everyday worries and looming threats. More than most other genres, Horror fiction offers excitement.

    2. PERSPECTIVE

    The suffering of fiction characters makes our own troubles seem less severe. Problems which normally drive us crazy—the arthritic twinge in a knee and the leaking roof suddenly seem minor inconveniences after we’ve spent time with characters who’ve had their legs ripped off and survived a snowstorm without shelter.

    3. ADRENALINE RUSH

    In dangerous situations, the brain releases a cocktail of adrenaline and other chemicals into the bloodstream to give us the stamina and courage needed to face the threat. These chemicals induce a high—a mild one for some people, a powerful surge for others. Horror fiction provides the same thrill as real danger, but in complete safety. The pleasure is similar to that of bungee-jumping, and it can be addictive.

    4. EDUCATION

    Horror stories teach valuable lessons about good and evil, about ethical conflicts and moral risks, about unseen dangers and disguised threats. Sharing the fictional characters’ adventures, we readers learn from their experiences, without making their mistakes and taking their risks. This is especially useful in stories for children—it gives kids the chance to learn without getting into danger—and for teenagers who may not heed parental warnings but like a scary story.

    5. REASSURANCE

    Many Horror stories—although not all—show that in the end, good triumphs over evil. Humans need that reassurance. In this respect, Horror stories are for adults what fairy tales are for children.

    6. PERSONAL GROWTH

    Story events put the fictional character’s strengths, resolution, ethics and courage to the test. As the character grows through experience, so does the reader. Dark stories invite readers to ask themselves what they would have done in the same situation, to compare the character’s courage with their own, to probe their consciences and explore their own ethics.

    7. CONTROL

    By reading, we gain control over our fears, at least temporarily. Whatever scares us, we can face this danger in fiction, reading as much or as little as we like, and are able to close the book when we’ve had enough. This sense of control can be empowering, especially for people who suffer from phobias and irrational fears.

    ︶︶︶︶

    WHAT DO YOU THINK?

    What kind of horror fiction do you enjoy—creepy ghost stories, shocking tales of violence, extreme splatterpunk, disturbing fantasy yarns, or suspenseful Gothic tales? What draws you personally to Horror? Which of those seven reasons apply to you? Can you think of others?

    Share your thoughts in the Comments below.

    『••✎••』

    Want to read some creepy stories but don’t know where to start? Find out if The Haunted Train: Creepy Tales from the Railways is the right fit for you by visiting Anna Faúndez’s book review. Or visit her blog to find new great books to read!

    7 Reasons Readers Love Scary Stories was written in celebration of Rayne Hall’s upcoming short story collection featuring trains!

    About the book The Haunted Train: Creepy Tales from the RailwaysThe Haunted Train: Creepy Tales from the Railways promo ends January 31, 2023.

    Come on board for a Gothic journey in a funicular railway in Victorian England, a freight train in the Carpathian mountains, a high tech sky train in Bangkok, an underground railway in Tokyo. Visit stations which lure with the promise of safe shelter but harbour unexpected dangers. Meet the people who work on the tracks—stationmasters, porters, signal-men—and those who travel—commuters, tourists, dead bodies, murderers, and ghosts.
    In this volume, editor Rayne Hall has collected twenty of the finest—and creepiest—railway tales. The book features the works of established writers, classic authors and fresh voices. Some stories are spooky, some downright scary, while others pose a puzzling mystery.
    Are you prepared to come on board this train? Already, the steam engine is huffing in impatience. Listen to the chuff-chuff-chuff from the locomotive and tarattata-tarattata of the giant wheels. Press your face against the dust-streaked window, inhale the smells of coal smoke and old textiles, watch the landscape whoosh past as you leave the familiar behind and journey into the unknown.
    But be careful: you can’t know the train’s real destination, nor your fellow travellers’ intentions. Once you’ve closed that door behind you and the wheels start rolling, you may not be able to get out.

    The ebook is available for pre-order from Amazon at the special offer price of 99 cents until 31 January 2023.
    (After that date, the price will go up.)
    The paperback edition will be available soon.

    『••✎••』

    About Rayne Hall

    Rayne Hall with her cat, Sulu

    Rayne Hall writes fantasy, horror, and non-fiction, and is the author of over 100 books. Her horror stories are more atmospheric than violent, and more creepy than gory, and often leans towards the Gothic, e.g The Bride’s Curse: Bulgarian Gothic Ghost and Horror Stories.
    She is also the acclaimed editor of Gothic, Fantasy and Horror anthologies (e.g. Among the Headstones: Creepy Tales from the Graveyard, and Fiends: Ten Tales of Demons), and author of the bestselling Writer’s Craft series for advanced-level writers (including Writing Gothic Fiction, Writing Dark Stories, Writing Scary Scenes, Writing About Magic, Horror Writing Prompts, Writing About Villains, Writing Short Stories.)
    Born and raised in Germany, Rayne Hall has lived in China, Mongolia, Nepal and Britain. Now she resides in a village Bulgaria. The country’s ancient Roman ruins and the deserted houses from Bulgaria’s communist period provide inspiration for creepy ghost and horror stories.
    Her lucky black cat, Sulu, adopted from the cat rescue shelter, often accompanies her when she explores spooky derelict buildings. He delights in walking across shattered roof tiles, balancing on charred rafters and sniffing at long-abandoned hearths.
    Rayne has worked as an investigative journalist, development aid worker, museum guide, apple picker, tarot reader, adult education teacher, belly dancer, magazine editor, publishing manager and more, and now writes full time.
    Visit her on her website, her Facebook author page, on Mastodon (new) or Instagram (new), Subscribe to her newsletter here.

  • The Lovely Bones

    The Lovely Bones

    By Alice Sebold

    {Warnings for The Lovely Bones: sexual and physical violence}

    The Lovely Bones is about moving on, both after death and for those who are still living and have experienced a death or trauma. Its message is sound and practical, and leads with a semi-omniscient narrator, Susie. The point of the book isn’t actually the murder; it’s the after. The family. The friends. How each person deals with the trauma and how much time it takes to be “okay” again.

    I liked that aspect of the book most. Sebold does create relatable and imperfect characters who clash and grieve over long periods of time. As a reader, you get to see the little effects the death of the narrator had on the people around her.

    Truthfully though, this book wasn’t my cup of tea, and I kind of had to make myself read it at certain points. It’s the type of slower drama that also tries to be a mystery, but you have all the answers already, so there’s no real stakes.

    My biggest beef is with the ending, and it’s something I can’t make completely spoiler-free to talk about, so spoilers beyond the cut.

    ─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

    I want to speak for a second about unfairness: Sebold does it well. The murderer is never caught; instead, he dies by complete accident. There is no justice here. The Lovely Bones has false accusations, ostracism, unfair beatings, affairs, and abandonment. It is real, it is gritty, and it is everything Susie wants now that she’s lost it.

    But I’m not annoyed with any of that in the least. The realism of the living’s everyday is one of the only things that kept my attention while reading.

    What is rather annoying is how Susie is finally able to let go and move on to actual heaven. Of course, the entire book centers around some magical realism, but Susie is never able to change what’s happening on Earth. She can’t affect anything. She has no control. Part of her life after death is being doomed to watch but never interact; some of these instances in the book actually help Susie understand and accept her circumstances.

    The end suddenly gives her that control. In fact, Susie outright possesses another character and proceeds to use that girl’s body to have sex with her school girl crush before being pulled back to her heaven. For a character that was raped and brutally murdered, you’d think Susie would have some strong thoughts about consent. Not to mention the psychological trauma she would have from her experience. The whole set of pages in that section felt out-of-character and notably cheapens the entire novel.

    On top of that, Susie doesn’t think to use her last few hours to check on her family? Say goodbye? Tell them she’ll be okay? Sure, Susie is forever fourteen years old, but the book indicates some level of maturation after death. To see that ripped from her the second she moves back into a physical body makes no sense in that Susie herself is the same person she’s been and grown into after she died.

    In short, this book isn’t one I plan to pick up again anytime soon. Possibly ever.

    ~ Anna
    (Entry 11)

  • ‘Salem’s Lot

    ‘Salem’s Lot

    By Stephen King

    ’Salem’s Lot is a book you could take and plop into any time period you wished, and it would still work. It’s your typical genre piece that I feel every writer gets around to at some point. That’s not saying it’s bad. Not at all. I quite enjoyed my read of King’s ’Salem’s Lot. However, I was able to take it at a leisurely pace, put it down for a few days without thinking about it, and go about my life without wanting to get home and pick the book up.

    The genre on the back says “fiction/horror,” and I’m actually inclined to disagree somewhat. You’ll remember if you read my blog post on The Shining that I’m a notorious and life-long chicken. I don’t do scary. Reading scary books now is my way of trying to desensitize and branch out of my comfort zone. So either I’ve had too much success with that, or ’Salem’s Lot isn’t all that terrifying. Creepy? Yep. Unsettling? You bet. Scary? Eh. A good read? Absolutely!

    As usual, King has some delightfully unique imagery. In ’Salem’s Lot, he skirts the line between dramatic and serious well, never quite falling into either one. Of course, a clear voice through a novel is essential, and no one can say King isn’t good at that!

    Which brings me to the characters of ’Salem’s Lot! I loved them. All of them. The characters in this book are the driving force to keep reading. The characters are the reason I enjoyed ’Salem’s Lot more than The Shining. Even the people that showed up for a scene or less, I could remember. Why? Spectacular characterization! Each one felt like a person, and that’s so, so important. Usually a novel can get away with some cardboard-like side characters. King didn’t bother with that. Nope. Every person with a name got a little backstory—sometimes less than a sentence, but it’s enough if done well—and it really brings the novel up to another level. Every main character had unique trauma reactions and displays of disbelief. It’s been a long time since I read a book that I could see the characters so clearly.

    The only, and I mean only, issue I had with the book was the name of one of the characters: Jimmy Cody. Periodically, King will call characters by their last names, which is fine if your last name isn’t also a first name. This led me to a few different instances of confusion in the final quarter of ’Salem’s Lot. In one sentence, Jimmy would be called Cody, and in the next, he’d be Jimmy again. It was the one thing I had to actively remember. He’s not two people! In scenes with three or more characters—and there are a fair few written this way—it’s really easy to forget that Jimmy Cody is one person. But hey, maybe you’ll remember better than I did now that you’ve seen this!

    Even if the plot of ’Salem’s Lot isn’t super intriguing on its own, or too surprising, the characters, the ordinary people that King creates and throws into a terrible situation, are worth the trouble. Ask me if you should give it a go? Read it for yourself? My response: Yes!

    Next time, we’ll be taking a look at a childhood favorite of mine: Margaret Peterson Haddix’s Just Ella!

    ~ Anna

    (Entry 6)

  • Acceptance

    Acceptance

    By Jeff VanderMeer

    We did it! The Southern Reach Trilogy is finished!

    Before I get into the third book, Acceptance, I’d like to talk a little about the series as a whole. I’m still fully of the opinion that the second book, Authority, could’ve existed as 150 pages lighter with no real drawback in regard to plot or characters. Honestly, that’s my main complaint about the series. Well, main complaint from an editor’s standpoint when looking at things like pacing and reader interest levels. It’s possible to be subtle without being long-winded, and Authority dropped the ball off a three story building with that one.

    Onward to Acceptance though! Overall? Much better pace. Acceptance starts us out with the habit of narrator changes via chapter change! I couldn’t have been happier to see that style of narration for this book. It was exactly what the series needed. It not only sped the pace but filled in massive knowledge gaps for the reader as the story progressed.

    Control has a less grating personality this time ‘round. That is to say, he isn’t changed much, but he’s broken from the “tortured spy” gimmick that cropped up too much in Authority.

    Grace . . . well, I don’t really want to talk about Grace. Besides existing in Acceptance as the “mentor” figure to answer some questions—spoiler: that would’ve been answered anyway via the biologist’s letter—before the journey could begin, she had no real impact with the other characters, her environment, her situation, or herself. No change from the second book, really. Still kinda unnecessarily aggressive. Still wanting to act as boss lady. Still a flat character. Sure, we get some tidbits: she’s a divorced, middle-aged woman with adult children that she doesn’t see often enough but also doesn’t have much of a relationship with. So? This isn’t enough to let a reader feel connected to Grace. Not really. We don’t meet these people. They may as well not exist. The story would be just fine without them. And I know VanderMeer is more than capable of making the average important! He does it with Control’s chess piece. It’s beautifully done. It’s practically a character, and it’s a better one than Grace.

    Ghost bird is still pretty good. Though, being fair, she’s also the most dynamic of the three. She is, by far, the most internally driven character. Part of her curiosity is the reader’s endeavors to figure out what part Ghost Bird plays in the story. Why does she exist? What’s her purpose? Is there one at all? Of course, Ghost Bird asking these questions of herself is the complication given to her character. She’s self-aware enough and brave enough to analyze everything. Even herself.

    However! We get new characters in Acceptance! The lighthouse keeper and the director both make comebacks in the finale of the Southern Reach Trilogy. The lighthouse keeper is wonderfully written and full of life. He’s a believable person and, as a reader, he’s very easy to sympathize with. His life. His story. His actions are led by emotions that are all too easy to understand.

    The director is a little more difficult to like and understand, but it’s really just the good writing of her damage and the way she relates to the word—similar to the biologist—that makes her compelling. In comparison with what we got of her in Annihilation, this version of the director and her memories are much more impactful in Acceptance.

    The ending. Oh boy. So, I was really looking forward to the finale of the Southern Reach Trilogy. All my questions answered. Right? All my theories shot or developed. Right? Nope, not really. You will get answers from Acceptance—here’s the part where my significant other says it’s like I’m going through stages of grief with this book, and maybe he has a point—but you won’t get what you’re looking for. Probably. Me? I was seeing tons of buildup and lines drawn in the sand for a reveal that never happened. In the end, the finale felt “just okay” or “a little disappointing” compared to my expectations paired with what VanderMeer was building. With so much preparation, so many embeds, and callbacks, and twirled oddities of phrase, you get your final answer: (spoilers?) it was an accident of fate. And that . . . That, people, is disappointment wrapped in lethargy. An “accident of fate” is one level up and adjacent to “it was all a dream.”

    Now then. Was it a horrible, terrible, badly written ending? No. It fit the story well enough. You won’t end the series confused about what happened, broadly speaking. It makes sense on paper, but isn’t brilliant. There’s nothing patently wrong with the ending. There’s enough strings to lead to the right conclusions, or the characters make them for you, and you’re more likely to end on an “oh” rather than an “ah ha!”

    I still love VanderMeer’s writing style! There are more descriptive gems in Acceptance than in the other two books in this series combined. It was a delight to read them all! My general apathy about the Southern Reach Trilogy’s story, particularly the ending, wouldn’t stop me from picking up another book written by VanderMeer. From this small sample of his work, I’m inclined to think he excels at novels more-so than series. I’d be curious to try out a singular work from him. Maybe if another title finds its way to my bookshelf in the future.

    ~ Anna

    (Entry 4)

     

  • Authority

    Authority

    By Jeff VanderMeer

    Alright, well, the Southern Reach Trilogy had a good start; I’ll give it a big thumbs-up there.

    Before I get into the second book, I’ll remind you I haven’t yet read the third and final book of the series. However, Authority, while well-written when looking solely at craft and structure, borders far too close to boring in too many instances. Authority simply could not keep up with the gem that Annihilation was.

    Annihilation left us on the brink of great change. But Authority rapidly turns that suspense of “what’s next?” into purgatory. Nothing substantial really occurs in Authority until page 179, and even that amounts to a really, really obvious embed with a payoff that is never actually explained. Another “big reveal” moment on page 336 is rendered pointless from an occurrence on page 195. These are two of three major plot points in the novel.

    Then there’s the characters: I don’t like them. Any of them. VanderMeer gave me not a single reason to pity them or empathize with them. Honestly, they were flat, vague archetypes of “tortured spy,” “bitchy boss lady,” and one iteration or another of “crazy scientist.” Looking back on Annihilation, I can say those characters weren’t incredibly well-rounded either, but they weren’t cardboard with microscopes!

    Control, Authority’s narrator, isn’t really a bad guy (and his name is hilarious after you figure out what’s going on—which won’t take you as long as the book seems to think it will) and thankfully has a bit more personality than other characters. Authority is written with the same kind of one-track narrative that Annihilation was, so all you’ve got are Control’s thoughts and actions and visuals to go on. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’d say a sizable portion of literature is written that way. Here comes the “but.”

    But . . . Authority drags on for so long, not only are you going to start forgetting details that don’t matter anyway—and maybe I’ll eat a few of those words in book three. I hope so—but you’re also going to end up more exhausted than the narrator. He goes through too much normal. Not the “Wow, this is too par for the course for this situation. Something is wrong. Something is going to happen” off-kilter normal. No, it’s the kind of normal that is forgettable and dull. This is bad. Books should not be sludge to walk through.

    Overall, Authority feels like a holding pattern between books one and three that could’ve been 150 pages shorter. I very, very rarely struggle through books, and Authority almost became one of them.

    Before you convince yourself never to read Authority, don’t give up quite yet. If you come prepared for a slow pace, you can make it. I was curious enough about possible explanations for events in book one—not great for a whole book to hinge on its predecessor, but work with me here—that I kept going. VanderMeer is still a wonderful descriptive writer. My personal favorite description was on page 328: “. . . black rocks as sharp as shark fins.” A long way to read for a phrase so short, but you’ll find other descriptive gems hidden throughout Authority’s pages.

    Fingers crossed that the next book, VanderMeer’s third and final installment for the Southern Reach Trilogy: Acceptance, gives me a sense of fulfillment and closure! And, just maybe, picks up the pace.

    ~ Anna
    (Entry 3)

  • Annihilation

    Annihilation

    By Jeff VanderMeer

    Annihilation! Nope, not the creepy little tune by A Perfect Circle.

    . . .

    Though now that I think about it, that song fits this book pretty darn well. Why? Annihilation (Book 1 of the Southern Reach Trilogy) is all about will and adaptability! Before you ask: yes, the movie was great. I loved it! It was the movie that made me pick up the book in the first place. Spoiler alert: the entire movie only deals with the events of the first book—I think. Still need to read the next two books—which is really exciting for me, because I found out there’s yet more story to go and maybe I’ll get another movie one of these days. Here’s hoping it goes as well.

    Diving into the book itself, my number one favorite thing is the entire main cast is female! Rare enough as that is, this book passes the Bechdel Test too! You won’t read a single conversation between two women about a man unless it actually drives the story forward or offers event context. And even then, Annihilation is subtle. And it’s the good kind. This book drags you through it—I finished it in one sitting of about five hours—but not through adventure and excitement. No, no. It is so undeniably creepy and surreal that you simply must read on. This isn’t an “Oh my god, I have to find out what’s next” book; this is a “What on earth is going on? This is so weird” book. VanderMeer de-familiarizes an entire section of our planet by making the natural just a little . . . not. It’s like looking at the world through a prism. You recognize what you’re seeing, but it’s not quite right.

    Along with a strange setting, you get strange characters. From the start, none of the women communicate how you might expect. Social norms and courtesies have been thrown out the window. Their expedition even took their names. You’re left with a psychologist, a biologist, a surveyor, and an anthropologist. And this book does so well just scraping the edge of their stolen humanity. Before they even entered what VanderMeer named “Area X,” they were changed. The time the women spent training to enter the containment zone was a time each woman was subjected to hypnotism and lies about what they might face. You’re aware the narrator, the biologist, is unreliable right out the gate. She isn’t maliciously unreliable though. She’s the type of unreliable that occurs when you have a single voice giving you only the information they’ve been given and no more. No speculation. No critical thinking. No imagining. It makes for a wonderful lens for this type of work. I applaud VanderMeer on his narrator’s personality choice.

    Now about Annihilation being all about will and adaptability. The women’s main objective is to figure out what’s going on in Area X without being contaminated—whatever that means, they don’t know—by Area X too. The suspense comes in the form of which woman digs her heels in and starts asking questions. What’s amazing is it’s the—minor spoiler here—environment itself that triggers the asking of questions! Each woman is in a daze until something happens to the biologist. She “wakes up” and begins to think. She begins to imagine. She begins to put pieces of a puzzle together the others can’t because they literally cannot see the truth due to interference that occurred outside of Area X. When I realized that, I began to wonder, just like the biologist did, what the expedition wasn’t told by the forever nameless “superiors” and what did anyone actually know about Area X? Were there any concrete facts known at all?

    Annihilation is a mere 195 pages. All VanderMeer really did in this book was set me up with a million questions that I won’t voice for fear of major spoilers. Annihilation will keep you on your toes for the whole ride. Grab your snacks and water bottle because you won’t get up until you’re finished.

    Count on the next post being about Book 2 of the Southern Reach Trilogy: Authority!

    ~Anna
    (Entry 2)

  • The Shining

    The Shining

    By Stephen King

    Oh boy, oh boy, was this book nothing like I expected. I’ll start by saying I’d never seen the movie and that I knew . . . well, essentially nothing about the book. Actually, the only thing I knew about The Shining was the few seconds of it shown at the drive-in theater in the movie Twister. And that was only after my mom said, “Hey, look, it’s The Shining.”

    I’ve never been a horror connoisseur. Probably the opposite. I was the kid that jumped and yelped when tapped on the shoulder, and the scariest thing I’d seen was Alien through my fingers at age fifteen. But after meeting my significant other and his love of most things dark and spooky, I found myself at the tip of a compromise to watch more horror so long as I got to watch something cute after—though my love of movie romances died very quickly upon the re-watch and analysis of a few old favorites. But we’re not here to discuss that.

    We’re here for Jack Torrance and his family. This isn’t a book review. Really. I don’t have enough exposure to the horror genre of books (this was the first of its kind I’ve picked up) to give an actual review. But I can tell you what I thought was neat and (probably the biggest reason this blog post might make someone argue with me) why I really disliked the movie.

    So let’s jump in! I’ll do my best not to be super spoiler-y, but take this as your warning, just in case.

    As far as horror goes, The Shining had a surprisingly sedate pace. This isn’t a bad thing; it was just the exact opposite of the “BOO! AH!” I had been expecting. Instead, The Shining takes on the slow, steady feel of something approaching you from behind. Which . . . okay, that might be worse. I freely admit I had to put the book down at least twice from getting so creeped out. Anytime Danny was alone, I braced for impact.

    Jack’s rather rapid descent (that’s not a spoiler, right?) into the realm of those-that-are-very-mentally-unsound wasn’t a surprise. Even if I wasn’t sure who exactly had that axe when I saw the snippet of film, it wasn’t hard to figure out from about page—and here’s a laugh for you—thirteen.

    Unfortunately, I’ve discovered I’m one of those people that once they know what the source of “the scary” is, they’re not really that scared anymore. Fun facts about Anna. The scariest part of the book, for me, was well before the climax of the story. That’s not a critique in any way. Quite a few instances after the spoiler-y part I’m talking about—think outside with snow and, if you’ve read it, you’ll get it—were pretty unsettling.

    I definitely preferred reading the sections that were from Danny’s point of view. King does a nice job letting us into the child’s head without making him seem too much like an adult. That’s a hard balance to strike.

    Now . . . the movie. I was well on my way to strongly disliking The Shining in movie format long before a friend told me that Stephen King hated it. I know. I know. It’s a “classic.” But it really shouldn’t even be called The Shining as there is very little to do with King’s book within that screenplay. I was, and continue to be, disappointed. Most of my major complaints are complaints King had about the movie himself, so let’s get into a few of those.

    Problem #1? Jack Torrance’s character. In the movie, you know immediately that Jack is out of his mind. There’s no mystery. No saying to yourself, “Hey, this guy is genuinely trying to be better, even if he’s sorta failing at it. He’s owned up to his mistakes (mostly) and a begrudging try is better than none at all.” Trying is a huge part of redemption arcs, and King’s novel gives Jack tons and tons of chances to be better. Jack not taking every opportunity to be better is a part of Jack being human. It allows for a rounded and character-driven story.

    Problem #2? The movie made Wendy look like a terrible mother. If you’ve read the book, you know she showed care and love for her son and would do anything to protect him even if she was frightened too. Movie-Wendy may as well have been a cardboard cutout placed on set.

    Problem #3? Danny has almost nothing to do with the plot of the movie besides a few takeaways adjacent to the novel’s content. As I said for #1, The Shining is a character-driven novel. You have nothing without those characters and their flaws and feelings and fears. This is the main reason the movie flopped for me. It was just a two and a half hour calliope loop of incoherence with no character development anywhere in sight.

    Now, before someone comes after me, unlike Stephen King, I didn’t hate the movie with a passion. I can appreciate the cinematography and Jack Nicholson’s unhinged performance along with the creep factor, but the movie credits really should have said “inspired by” rather than “based upon” Stephen King’s novel.

    ~Anna
    (Entry 1)