Night Shift: "Outlander! We have your woman!"

Hello. Wow, it has been a different year already. My whole routine is changing, and I like it. I go to work now, and really get to have a hand in shaping the way of things in the branch. I come home, and do some exercise, and do some reading. After dinner is really the only time I have now to veg out and watch TV. I'm eating better, and watching my caloric intake. Two questions come to mind: "Have pod people taken over my body?" and "Is this going to last?" I hope it does, because I feel really good (and I never even made an official "New Years resolution").

Anyway, on to the good stuff:

So I have now watched two more SK movie adaptations: Cat's Eye and Children of the Corn (the one from the 80's). Both I had seen before, and both were just as enjoyable now. Cat's Eye had probably the best, and most faithful adaptations of SK short stories that I have seen. Why? Because they were short segments, I would assume. Get it, movie makers? Short stories=short movies. Most of the time, if you do anything longer, you screw it up. But not all the time. Case and point: Children of the Corn. I remember this movie from when I was a kid, and it creeped the shit out of me. Kids can be so goddamn scary sometimes. The funny thing is, the guy who played Isaac in the movie was really a 26 year old guy who had a disease that made him look young. Weird, huh?

I also finished the rest of the stories in Night Shift. SK really finished up the collection with some really good stories, not all of which were even horror related. Some really good stuff, though. Here is the breakdown:

"Children of the Corn": Well, I already said some about it, but here I will primarily talk about the story itself. It is a great story about a bitchy couple who get caught in a town in Nebraska where all of the adults are dead, and the children have taken over. They all worship "He Who Walks Behind the Rows", who demands the sacrifice of anyone over a certain age. The bitchy couple gets caught in the middle, and get slaughtered. Real creepy imagery of the woman crucified with corn husks shoved through her eyes. Icky!

"The Last Rung on the Ladder": A very touching, non horror/supernatural story, about a brother and sister who were playing in a barn as children, and the ladder they were playing on breaks, and leaves the sister hanging on to...you guessed it, the last rung on the ladder. But really the story is more about the relationship between the siblings, and how their lives went into separate directions. A very touching story.

"The Man Who Loved Flowers": Probably the shortest story in this whole collection, but definitely one to remember. It is all about this bouncy, happy man, who walks down the streets of New York, and picks up flowers for his girlfriend. Everyone is so pleasantly effected when they see this happy man, but little do they know that he is a crazy serial killer who finds woman in alleyways, and bashes their heads in with a hammer. Very well written, and enjoyable.

"One For the Road": A follow up story to 'Salem's Lot. This time it is two years after the events of the book, and there is a blizzard in Maine, and some stupid man from New Jersey drives right into the deserted town of Jerusalem's Lot with his wife and daughter. Well, the car breaks down, and he leaves them in the car while he walks six miles to a local bar to get help. Of course, by the time they get back to the car, the wife and daughter are now vampires, and they welcome the father with open fangs. Fun story, if only because it takes us back to the town that we have learned to know so well.

"The Woman in the Room": Another non-supernatural story about a son coping with the decision to help his terminally ill mother commit suicide. It is a very realistically written picture of how I would imagine someone to feel, and I was very close to tears while reading this story. Well done SK for showing us that some "horror" in life does not have to come from "the beyond".

Anyway, I think this concludes most of my Night Shift posting. I am still hunting down some of the harder to find movies, and I will comment on them whenever I do get ahold of them.

And now I am on to reading The Stand with my new Amazon Kindle....