Though It may have taken the cinematic world by storm this
summer, most people are at least aware that Stephen King has penned or inspired
much more than that over the decades. Considering everyone’s favorite Mainer
ability to churn out wads of processed forest on an almost yearly basis, it’s
no surprise that there’s been likewise plenty of films to choose from based on
those. I happened to take a marathon of some of the better ones not too long
ago, and with Halloween coming up, here’s a series of short reviews covering
those, hopefully inspiring you to perhaps indulge in some suitable creepiness
for the end of October yourself.
And on that note, the one we’re starting with isn’t really a
horror film, though it is a classic—1986’s Stand by Me, directed by Rob Reiner.
Reiner’s done some other charming standout films like the Princess Bride, A Few
Good Men, Spinal Tap…though unfortunately his career committed hari-kari
abruptly with 1994’s infamously Ebert-enraging North. Here, he adapts the King
story ‘The Body’, wisely changed to avoid people assuming this one was some
sort of bodybuilding documentary.
The story takes a look back to the childhood of a standin
for King himself, a young budding writer played by Wil Wheaton, a year or so
before he began annoying Trekkies for the first time. The setting is an
unassuming forested region of Oregon, back in the 50s—which was the nostalgic
era du jour back in the 80s. The film takes a bit of a swipe at the common
depiction of this as a nice, wholesome time, when kids were polite and well-groomed,
everyone was just fine to one another, and the mail was on time. Not so much
here—we start off with kids puffing on cigarettes, swearing and telling dirty
jokes, and meeting all sorts of uncouth assholes along the way. It’s nice to
see some potentially cloying nostalgia balanced out with the reality that kids
have been dickish for time immemorial, and likewise all too happy to leap onto
crude sex jibes before they barely understood what the anatomical regions in
question even were.
Much like with the recent It, the core of the film is the
child cast, and this pretty much set the bar in that regard. You’ve got Corey
Feldman, not too long after being chased around by Jason Voorhees, as the
slightly demented Teddy; River Phoenix as the more grounded Chris, and finally,
Jerry O’Connell as the picked-on but friendly Vern. You really buy that these
are a close-knit group of pals, and the interactions do take you back to early
adolescence when you’d spend most of your time cruelly teasing each other but
still ultimately sticking together. As such, when the kids take their somewhat
leisurely trip across the forests to investigate a supposed dead body, it’s
this performance that draws you in along with them.
Of course, we can’t escape at least one or two favorite
Stephen King tropes, namely the rather cartoonish bullies who soon cross paths with
the boys, but it makes the final confrontation worth it and have their little
arcs come to a head. The film ends on a bittersweet note, with the gang in
adulthood dead or split up, though it’s better than the book ending, in which
all of them die. And that’s also just like in real life—be it going separate ways
at some point, most of us do lose contact with those we hung out with in our
early youth. Few people will watch this without getting some sort of tear in
their eye.
It’s almost a similar situation to the cast themselves. Poor
River Phoenix passed on in his twenties, Jerry O’Connel’s languishing in
obscurity, and Corey Feldmen, while still fondly remembered, hasn’t done much
noteworthy since the early 90s. Wheaton, despite a rough reception upon
piloting the Enterprise in Star Trek: TNG, has at least made a career in the
geek circuit since, and remains a pretty cool guy.
But after that reminiscing, it’s time to move onto what
people know King for, with Carrie…
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