Bill's World of Night

It’s a mystery!  It’s a horror film!  It’s a…musical?  Yes, it’s The Wicker Man. Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer’s 1973 haunting masterpiece. I’ve got so much to say about this,  I’m going to spread it over three entries.  The film itself, the restored version and the atrocious abomination that is the remake. 

To be continued, because now I feel like watching the movie.

I’ve been interested in trying out blogging for some time, but couldn’t settle on what to blog about.  I knew a guy one who wrote one about himself, and once I got past the making fun of it phase, it was really dull.  I’d venture to guess that I’d get the same results with me as a subject.  There are many things I’m interested in, though, so I figure I’ll ramble on about those things, and keep the self reference to a minimum. I like Theater, Movies, Books, Music, Pop Culture in all its forms. My favorite genres are horror and noir, plus I’m a night owl, hence the name World Of Night. Nonetheless, I’ll hit other genres as well as time goes on, I’m sure. I’ve posted a list of 10 great horror movies on my Live Space, so I plan on writing about them individually for my first series of entries.

One thing I will chime in on now is the movie "I Am Legend." Please, take the money you would have spent on the movie ticket and buy the book.  This is the third time they’ve tried to film this novel and they keep screwing it up.  The only film version that came close to getting it right was the 1964 version called "The Last Man on Earth" with Vincent Price.  It was low-budget, but atmospheric, and along with Hammer’s "Plague of the Zombies" was an admitted influence on "Night of the Living Dead"

Matheson’s original novel is wonderfully philosophical and explores themes like what is normal, relativism and isolation with a disturbing ending, which involves an explanation of the title, designed to leave the reader with much to ponder.  This latest movie adaptation completely subverts the intentions of the novel by rewriting the ending to convey exactly the opposite message, reducing it to just another action film. 

I’ll be revisiting this situation in my post about the 1973 masterpiece "The Wicker Man," which was similarly stripped of meaning by its recent pointless remake.