Pop Culture Princess

Pop Culture Princess
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Friday, September 30, 2016

Betting on a pair of Kings for a FrightFall good time

Halloween happens to be one of my favorite holidays and one of the best ways that I've found to get into that perfectly spooky mood beforehand has been taking part in Seasons of Reading's FrightFall read-a-thon.

The main rule with FrightFall is to read one scary book(in either horror,mystery,thriller,etc) and this time out, I'm going with two books. That wouldn't be a big thing yet one of my chosen chillers is rather lengthy, to say the least. Since it also happens to be a re-read, this just might work out well:

IT: Rereading Stephen King has become a tradition of mine during these fear themed read-a-thons and with a new film adaptation in the works, all signs point to this monster mash magnum opus for me to explore yet again.

Frankly, I was shocked when the first movie version was made, especially since it was done for television(regular network TV, mind you, no cable). Given the gruesome nature of the story, it was hard to believe that this could work.

The results were mixed at best(I do recall my dad finding a certain giant spider scene hilariously bad), mainly due to some of the nuances of the book not being included into the miniseries. With the new film planning to be a two-part production intended for the big screen, as well as a R rating,I'm sure, we may get a much better adaptation of King's tribute to the old school monsters of his day.

Despite all of this talk about the upcoming movie, I don't intend to re-watch the prior adaptation. I really feel that it would be best for me to re-experience the true horror of Pennywise the clown in his original literary incarnation:



HORNS: This choice was inspired not only by the fact that author Joe Hill is one of Stephen King's sons(and a formidable talent in his own right), I also saw the movie version of this wild and weird book via Netflix over the summer.

The main focus of the plot is on Ig Perrish, a distraught young man who is still under suspicion for the murder of his beloved girlfriend Merrin over a year ago. On the anniversary of her death, Ig gets good and drunk, awakening the next morning to find a pair of actual horns growing out of his head.

These horns give him some unusual powers, including the ability to compel others to tell the truth(which they do in rather bluntly fashion). Ig decides to make the best out of his strange situation by using his powers to find the real killer. However, Ig learns more than he cares to know about many things, paying quite the unexpected price for his troubles.

While I do know how certain events will play out in the book,thanks to the rather underrated movie, there should be some interesting insights to check out in Horns that will make this reading just as interestingly awesome as the film was:



If you'd like to sign up for FrightFall, there's still plenty of time. The read-a-thon starts on Monday, October 3 and finishes up on Sunday,Oct.9(you can follow it on Twitter with the hashtag #FrightFall). It's always a good group of folks who join in and yes, there are prizes at the end but the real thrill here is in reading a good spooky story and sharing it with friends.

Mind you, your Frightfall reads don't have to be gory or overly gruesome. You can read something suitable sinister that would be fine to enjoy in a quaint small town setting like the gazebo in Stars Hollow(although Taylor Doosie might frown upon it) with a warm mug of story telling cider on hand:




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