A&E's "Bag of Bones"

[shipperx]

So anyone else watch A&E's version of Stephen King's "Bag of Bones"?

Oh my, it was bad. I mean, wanktastically, SyFy Channel movie bad... only with a couple of decent actors such as Pierce Brosnan immersed in the cheese giving a decent serious performance in an awesomely bad movie. For pure cheese, not to be missed are the creepy old bad guy, his Mrs. Travers-like housekeeper, and the constantly screaming precocious child.

There also seemed to be a fair degree of overlap with King's "Duma Key" in general concept (though they are different). In BoB, PB is a writer in mourning for his late wife who is haunted by a malevolent (?) watery ghost and seriously weird dreams foretelling the endangerment of his psuedo-daughter. In "Duma Key", the main character is a contractor turned artist who is in mourning for his divorce who is haunted by a malevolent watery ghost who has weird dreams foretelling the endangerment of his daughter. Yeah, there are a lot of differences, but it still boils down to that.

Comments

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

Things I need to know: 1.) Is this show set in Maine? 2.) How many characters are alcoholics?

I've been seeing commercials for it, and it seemed to be trying to follow the creep-factor of FX's "American Horror Story" (which disturbs and fascinates me).

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Of course it was in Maine! Duh! It's king. :)

PB's character wasn't obviously an alcoholic, but he did drink a lot. :)

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

The Stephen King Drinking Games consists only of four reasons to take a shot- 1.) If the story is set in Maine. 2.) Every time a character is an alcoholic or drinking. 3.) Every time an adult is an arsehole to a kid for no reason. 4.) If the ending involves aliens.

If you play the SK Drinking Game while watching "IT," you will die of alcohol poisoning.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It was actually a pretty straightforward (though dream-filled horror story).

PB's wife died of an undiagnosed aneurysm, after which he discovered that she was pregnant -- but had never told him -- when she died and that she had been taking an excessive number of trips to their summer lake house in Maine (once seen in the company of a man).

He seemed to have been haunted by that (and questions about it) for a while, and he finally decided to go to the lake house to try to understand what his wife had been doing (and whether she had been having an affair, which was painful because he appeared to have genuinely loved his wife and had loving memories of her).

He mets a young blonde with a young daughter. The blonde's husband had tried to murder her and the husband had been killed in the process. Her father-in-law was suing for custody (which was strange because old creepy guy with his even more creepy housekeeper kept calling the blonde 'that whore' and her daughter 'the whorelet.' PB is offended and befriends the blonde and her daughter. Meanwhile, he discovers his late wife had collected these old 1940s Billie Holiday-esque albums and lots of materials on the singer. He begins having nightmares involving his wife, the blonde, and the 1940s singer. The 1940s singer was also the ghost-woman in the lake. His wife tells him to 'save the girl.'

Eventually he discovered the legend that the lake is cursed and that there's this bizarre rash of daughter-murder in the town.

Long story short, back in the 1940s, creepy-old man and his co-horts had gang-raped the Billie Holiday-esque singer and murdered her daughter by drowning the daughter in the lake. With her dying breath the singer had cursed the men and all their descendents to do the same to their own daughters. PB's wife hadn't been having an affair (the man she had been seen with the one time was PB's brother who is gay), but she had been pregnant. She had discovered the curse and had been trying to break the curse when she died (because PB was the grandson of one of the rapists). Creepy Old guy was head rapist and the reason he'd wanted to get custody of whorelet was to murder her. He did arrange the murder of the blonde 3/4 of the way through.

So PB spent the last 1/4 trying to protect the blonde's daughter and trying to break the curse. PB's wife comes back as a ghost and battled the singer's ghost so that he could destroy the singer's bones and break the curse. Then the wife-ghost tells him she always loved him. And the recently-deceased blonde-ghost came back to tell her daughter that PB would be her father now and it would all be okay. The End.

Nothing ground-breaking going on.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

... I need to add a rule to the SK drinking game about father-to-daughter child abuse. Again, watching "IT" will lead to alcohol poisoning.

That bad huh?

[menomegirl.livejournal.com]

Suddenly glad I forgot about this.

Re: That bad huh?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

But I had such a huge Pierce Brosnan crush as a teenager. And admittedly while gray and wrinkling... he's still rather hot. :)

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Only question bigger than why King continues to written long novels is why they keep making movies of them. His short stories are much better suited (and better, period, IMO) than his long novels.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Heh. My problem with King is that usually he has such weak endings. I don't think I've read a book that I didn't think had a weak ending.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Me either. His short stories are the only ones that actually feel like he was there the whole time. His novels generally feel like he got bored halfway through and rushed the ending along, usually with the help of a telepathic kid.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

It happens...the writer gets tired of writing and just wraps it up. A lot of writers fall into this trap. (sigh, I fall into this trap.) Ending are hard.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Very true. He chickens out and wants the happy. The only one that had a chilling ending that I read was Pet Semetary (that was plain creepy - he brings back his wife, killed by the dead son at the end), also The Body wasn't bad. His short stories tend to be okay in the ending department. But other than that? Yep weak endings. It's saying something - when Stanley Kubrick's version of the Shining had a scarier and creepier ending than King's novel.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Duma Key has a downbeat ending. The monsters kills the protagonist's daughter and eventually his friend dies as well. In the end, there's just the protagonist.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the review. I'd forgotten about it. Was planning on DVR'ing, watching, but fell into work hell stress and forget completely about it. Sounds skippable. King hasn't written anything interesting in years...has he?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I've skipped the last several, but I sort of assume he hasn't.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

So did I to be honest. Last thing I read, which was quite good was a Memoir On Writing.

The problem with the prolific genre writers is after a while you feel like they are just telling the same stories over and over and over.