Monday, October 20, 2014

Stephen King and Giant Monsters

*Originally published on 10/6/09


I was planning to write an article discussing how King could write a book about giant monsters.  It would be a sort of follow up to the article I wrote about mummies.  I decided to scrap the idea.  Casey brought up the topic again when I wrote about Battleground.  After some consideration, I decided to write it after all.  So, for all intents and purposes, this article is back from the dead (hence the pic).

I think a King novel about some giant monster would be very enjoyable.  You could argue that there's nothing left to say, with all of the giant japanese monsters out there, what would be the point?

I actually liked Cloverfield.  It wasn't perfect but it was intense, exhilerating and kept me on the edge of my seat.  The pros outweighed the cons in my opinion.

Cloverfield's greatest weakness was it's characterization.  It tried, but ultimately didn't give us characters we really cared about.  King thrives on characterization so he could accomplish this in spades.  He can also craft a story that keeps us gripped as well as the movie did. 

I also have no doubt that he could concoct a giant monstrosity unlike anything we've read about.  It would fall outside the "horror" category while still giving us a page turner that keeps us gripped in fear for the duration of the book.

He's touched on the idea with the gelatinous blob from Gray Matter as well as the worm from Jerusalem's Lot and the giant rats from Graveyard Shift.  It could also sort of qualify, being a giant spider, but when I say giant monster, I mean giant more in line with Kong, Godzilla, Gamera, or the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.

While I guess a giant monster story could work in a small Maine town, it would work better in a major city.  On the other hand, that is a tad obvious, one would never expect a giant monster to attack a small town.  Changing the location would be a good way to shake up the status quo of the genre.
You might think that the giant monster movie is overdone and cliched, heck you might be right, but I believe that King could make it work.  This is the guy who wrote a story about a killer washing machine and made it work. 

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