Stephen King's 1922 Book vs Movie Review

[00:00:00]And Stephen King has written a fair amount of detestable characters. And yet, I think I'm not going to say he takes the cake, but he definitely is amongst some of the worst that King has ever written. Hello, and thank you for joining me here at Why the Book Wins, where I compare books with their movie adaptations. My name is Laura and today I am talking about the novela 1922 by Stephven King published in the story collection Full Dark No Stars in 2010 and I am comparing it with the 2017 adaptation directed by Zack Hildrich.

[00:00:33]And I'm just going to jump right into the plot details. But I would recommend both of these. I liked them a lot.

[00:00:38]Again, this is a nolla and I do love King's shorter works because he's always able to pack such a punch in such a short amount of time. And I'm going to go over the plot first. And this movie is incredibly faithful. So what I say about the plot is basically the same with both book and movie. So we have a family consisting of Wilfred, his wife Arlette, and their 14-year-old son Henry. And in both versions, Arlet inherits 100 acres from her father because they live on a farm in Nebraska, by the way. And it's in Hemingford home, Nebraska, which is fictional. But Hemingford home is an important place in the book The Stand, which I have right here. This is where uh Mother Abigail, she lives in Hemingford home. So anyway, Arlet inherits 100 acres from her father and they had had 80, so now they have 180 acres. And Wil takes a lot of pride in his land and in his son. However, Arlette does not like the farming life and she wants to sell her 100 acres because there is a pig slaughter house that wants the land and she wants to move to the city. However, Will, he hates the city. He wants to stay put.

[00:01:47]And so, they argue about this and ultimately she's like, "You know what?

[00:01:51]How about we sell the land and then I'll be generous and we can split the money and we can just divorce because let's face it, like we don't like being together." However, when Wil is like, "Well, who where who would Henry go with?" She's like, "Well, he would come with me, of course." And Wolf doesn't want to be without his son. And so, he doesn't like this idea either. And so, he thinks things over and he knows that his son Henry is in love with a girl in the neighboring farm, a girl named Shannon. And so using this information, he manipulates Henry into thinking that the only way they can stay put and keep what both of them want is to kill Arlet.

[00:02:31]And so with his son's help, they get her drunk one night and they slit her throat. And he says like, "Oh, it'll be quick and easy." But of course, it's not quick or easy and it's just this long horrible process. And Henry is not doing well emotionally or mentally throughout all of this. And honestly, like why why did he choose this method? Like poison that seems like the best way to go about this. So, I'm not really sure what his logic was. He does admit in the book though how uh it was I forget how he phrases it, but they didn't like fully plan this out as well as he could have or should have. So, he does admit that, but yeah, what a mess. And her body is then tossed down a no longer in use well. And then a few days later, they get an old cow to go into the well too and they kill it and they use that as their reason as to why they need to fill this well in case anybody asks. And the company that wanted to buy the land comes to see what has happened to Arlet.

[00:03:28]And Wilf and Henry tell them that she just up and left in the night. And the sheriff also comes by at one point to investigate and he believes what Wolf tells him. And the sexism throughout this story is interesting because for one, Will, he's like, "Uh, back in the day, what a man did with his wife was his business, and if she disappeared, no one would ask questions." Uh, which obviously is horrible. But then also when he's talking about his neighbor, he's jealous of his neighbor's wife because he's like, "Oh, I wouldn't be in this mess if Arlette was more like her because she just goes along with whatever her husband wants and she doesn't put up a fight." And she, you know, she's very submissive to the husband and he's like, "Oh, that's what Arlet should have been like." And so yeah, that's just sort of like a maybe not a minor theme going on, but definitely present, which was interesting, I guess. But then some months later, Shannon, Henry's girlfriend, is discovered to be pregnant. And the father is really angry. And even though Henry wants to marry Shannon, you know, Wil is against that idea. But Shannon's father is very against it. And he's like, "No, we're sending her to like this Catholic home for girls who get pregnant and she can give birth, give her child up for adoption, and then, you know, she's really smart. So from there, we're putting her in this really advanced school because she's going places. We have high hopes for her." However, when Henry hears this, he's very upset and he's like, "Life isn't worth living if I don't have Shannon." Because remember, Shannon was a huge part as to how Will convinced him to do what they did, right? Cuz he was like, "Well, you want to keep Shannon, right? Like, if your mom gets what she wants, you're going to leave and you're going to lose her." And so, yeah, Henry is just like, "What's the point of anything if I don't have her?" So he runs away, breaks Shannon out of this school, and he had robbed some places along the way. And so he and Shannon together kind of resort to a life of crime, and ultimately she ends up being shot and she dies. And then Henry shoots himself. And also in both book and movie, the sheriff, after Henry has run away, the sheriff is talking to Wilf and he's like, "By the way, I heard a story that, you know, this bank was robbed by someone who looked fairly young or, you know, he's like wearing a bandana and a hat and whatever." But basically, the sheriff is insinuating that it might have been your son.

[00:05:47]However, Will is very offended by this and he's like, "Hey, that's not how my boy was raised. He would never do those things. He's, you know, he's a good Christian boy, whatever." And we get this in the movie, but in the book, in Wil's thoughts, he's thinking, well, I mean, at least he used to be a good boy until he helped me commit murder, right?

[00:06:05]And so, just the way he corrupted his own son and maybe 6 months ago that Henry never would have done these things and how much they both have changed because of what they did. Uh, but yeah, Will learns of everything that had happened with Henry and how he dies and all of that before some of it even takes place, before he is like officially told any of it for sure because he is having his own breakdown in his house at one point and Arlet's ghost visits him and she tells him all of this. But yeah, he's kind of a mess because Henry leaves and so the bank had mentioned to him like, "Hey, like his house was paid off, but they're like if you take a mortgage out on the house, you're going to have all this money." And so he's at home thinking about that when he notices a hole in the roof. And he's thinking like, "Wow, you know, I could take out that mortgage and not only could I fix this roof, that money would allow me to do all sorts of work on the house." and he wants work to keep him busy because keeping himself busy is how he keeps his mind off of everything that has gone on.

[00:07:07]So, he takes out this loan. However, before he even fixes the roof, he like took some of the money out in cash and so he wants to hide it. And when he's going to hide it, he is bit by a rat and this ends up infecting him. And then meanwhile, he it's the winter time now and so cold air, you know, snow is coming in through the roof. He's delirious from pain medicine and alcohol and just the infection of the bite. And so, yeah, he's a mess. And this is when Arlet comes to visit him, and then he is on the brink of death. But then the sheriff happens to show up, sees him, takes him to a hospital, and the reason the sheriff had come by was to say that Arlet's body had been found, and there wasn't much remaining, but he says that she must have been robbed and killed.

[00:07:50]And this, of course, is not Arlet's body, but Wilf acts like he agrees with the sheriff's assumptions. And in both, when the sheriff had looked over the house, he had noted that Arlet had not taken her leather shoes and rather she was wearing her canvas shoes. But then when he is talking to Wilf, this is unique to the book. He's talking to Wilf and he mentions that a leather shoe was found. And so when the sheriff leaves, Wil like breaks out laughing hysterically. in part because the fact that the sheriff forgot that Arlet was not wearing leather shoes and so the fact that this woman was is a clear it's very clear that it wasn't Arlet and yet the sheriff had totally forgotten and so Wolf is now off the hook but from here so Wil loses his hand due to the infection and he then tries to sell his land to the neighbor guy the one who had Shannon as a daughter however that guy hates him now because Shannon is dead because of everything that happened.

[00:08:47]Plus, his wife had left him. And so, he tells uh Will, he's like, "That land is cursed. I want no part of it." And so, then he tries to sell it to the bank, but they're weird about it, too. And basically, like, they had something going on with the slaughter house. And Will, the reason he wants to sell it to anyone else, but the slaughterhouse is because he hates to think what this company is going to do to not only the land, but just the whole area, cuz they'll pollute the rivers and it's just going to ruin the area essentially. And that's just how much he also loves the land is he wants it to stay clean and owned by a fellow farmer, not some big company. And yet in the end, that is who he sells it to for a measly amount. But as small as the amount is, it does take him 2 years to drink through all of the money he makes. So he just becomes an alcoholic. But then from there, once he runs out of money, he does get these like random different jobs. However, he keeps having visions of rats thinking that they're following him around everywhere. And so after eight years in 1930, he's like had enough. And he gets a hotel room and writes his confessional while the rats surround him and wait.

[00:09:54]And in the end of the book, he says, you know, as he's writing, he's like, I hear footsteps now. And he believes that they're the footsteps of those whose deaths he has caused. And also as he's writing, he's hearing the footsteps. And then he's writing being like, "Ah, like the rats, you know, they've been gathering around me and now they've started to bite me." And then from here we get a newspaper clipping saying that a man was found in a hotel room with self-inflicted bites all over his body and he died because he had bit through his wrists and also the paper he had been writing on has been like chewed up the way a rat would chew it. So he had also chewed up the confessional he had been writing. So no one ends up reading it. Whereas in the movie, you know, it's the same thing where the rats are coming towards him, but in the end, the ghosts of Henry are Arlet and Shannon appear and they offer him a knife, telling him it'll be quick, which of course is what he had told Henry when he had the knife, being like, "Don't worry, it'll be quick." When really it was painful and slow. And in both book and movie, the following day after they have killed her, uh, Wolf is gathering some of her clothing in a bag to go along with the story that she ran away. and he tosses that down the well. And at this point the next day is when he sees all of the rats down there with her. And this was pretty grizzly in the movie, but like everything in the book was far more vivid and disturbing. And also like her death scene was pretty brutal in the book. And uh yeah, I mean the movie I don't I almost didn't want it to be faithful to the book because of how you know horrible it was in the book. And so the movie does bring it down a few notches as well as the ending, right?

[00:11:31]The ending is much more mild in the movie compared to the book. But yeah, in the book this was all very gross. Uh but yeah, so he sees that the rats have gotten to her through a pipe. However, once they fill up the well after the cow is down there, he assumes like, okay, now the rats will either suffocate or starve. But then he sees that the other end of the pipe comes into the barn and the rats can still come and go. and one of them has started munching on one of his living cows. And so he then fills that end of the pipe with cement. And when he later gets money from the bank again, you know, he has this extra cash he wants to hide. And he goes to grab one of Arlet's hat boxes. And that's when the rat bites him. And he swears it's the same rat he saw in the barn that had been in the well. And it had gone back in the pipe after he cemented it. So he knows logically like there's no way this could be the same rat. And yet he swears it is and he's like, I I know that rat's face and this is the same one. And he does kill it in this moment. However, throughout the course of the story, whenever he sees rats, he always sees this one in particular among the group. Also, when her ghost comes to visit him, when he's delirious and she tells him everything that's happened, she has, you know, an army of rats with her. And so this is why when he goes crazy, he is seeing rats everywhere because they represent what he has done.

[00:12:53]And in the book, he thinks they're starting to bite him when really it's just he himself doing it. And yeah, throughout this whole story, Wolf is just his own worst enemy. And yet, he puts the blame on. Like all of the things he does, he acts like other people are to blame for having done it right. What he does to Arlette, he blames it on her. And then his own death he blames on the rats when really he has been causing his own demise from the start. And in the movie he of course is not a likable person at all. And yet in the book I just found him so detestable and horrible. And Stephen King has written a fair amount of detestable characters. And yet, I think I'm not going to say he takes the cake, but he definitely is amongst some of the worst that King has ever written in large part simply because not simply cuz this is like a horrible thing, but he coerced his young son into committing murder.

[00:13:51]Not only that, but the way it was done and the fact that it was his own mom/Wolf's wife. And so, it's like, wow.

[00:13:58]like how demented and messed up do you have to be to get your young son to participate in this? Especially in the book, he's constantly wanting them to feel like, hey, like we're in this together. We're a team and I won't do this if you're not okay with it. And so, yeah, it was just so messed up. And I I I just hated Will so so much. But then I also wanted to mention that I do like how Arlette is also not a likable person in the book. And the night she is killed, she has been drinking too much and she says inappropriate things to Henry about what he should be doing with Shannon, but also warning him not to go all the way so that you know she doesn't want it to lead to a pregnancy. And she implies that that is why she and Wolf got married was because they had an unintentional pregnancy. And she does say this to him in both book and movie, but in the book she was also doing gestures and it was just worse in the book. And I've said this too about past king works. But I love that he writes complicated people, right? And the victims can straight up be people that we do not like and yet they still deserve sympathy more often than not, right? It's easy to feel bad for a woman who has done nothing wrong and is just this, you know, a saint of a person and it can be more of a struggle to feel sympathy for someone who we don't like and who has done bad things and so we can almost be like, oh well, you know, she sucked so she deserved it when really like no. Like a person doesn't need to be perfect for us to have sympathy for them. A person can actually be pretty m messed up and yet that doesn't mean they deserve to be murdered, especially the way it happened. But in both book and movie, Wolf blames the quote unquote conniving man inside of him for all he does.

[00:15:43]Again, acting like it's not himself, but this other person within him is to blame. And this too made me dislike him because it was just another way in which he didn't take the blame. You know, his money woes he blames on the bank for tempting him with this loan. And he also just feels like multiple people, you know, his neighbor, the bank, the slaughterhouse, like all of these people are conspiring against me. And it's like, no, none of this can be blamed on other people. It's your fault. Like, take the responsibility for what you have done. Like, yeah, all of these people, again, none of them are perfect and they're all making their own choices, but at the end of the day, like, just take the responsibility on yourself, man. Come on. And when it comes to book versus movie and just my final thoughts. So, yeah, this is a pretty straightforward story, but again, I did really like the book. you know, it was just so disturbing in its visuals and I love how Wilf deteriorates over the course of the story due to what he has done and how it eats away at him.

[00:16:38]And also, this is like a tale oldest time, right? And yet, when it's done well, it's a story that never gets old ultimately in my opinion. And then the movie is incredibly faithful and it stars Tom Jane, who I do like. And this is his third, I believe, King adaptation he has been in. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he was in The Mist and Dreamcatcher, which I have videos for. But yeah, I'm a big fan of Tom Jane, especially his movies Junk and Homeless Dad, which are both really good. That's an Arrested Development joke for those who don't know. He has like a reoccurring cameo as himself in that show. And in the show, he's working on these two different movies. One is like a family comedy, and the other is like this gritty story about drug abuse. But yeah, anyway, I'm a fan of Tom Jane and I did think he was good here, although he is doing a very thick accent and no one else is doing this and so you could like it's supposed to be like a regional accent and yet the fact that he's the only one doing it comes across as distracting at times and maybe it feels like he's laying it on a bit thick and yet ultimately I liked his performance and uh yeah, I thought he captured this very horrible unlikable person who goes crazy. I did feel like the pacing, you know, this isn't a long movie and yet the pacing felt a bit slow at times and I feel like it almost could have been even shorter to be honest because again this is a pretty tight story so it almost felt like they were trying to stretch out the run time more than they needed to and yet at the end of the day yeah it's a great adaptation.

[00:18:10]I did like it a lot. I will say ultimately the book wins because the book it was just fantastic pacing so gripping I did not want to put it down and again Wolf is just such a horrible horrible person and yet he was a horrible person that again I just couldn't put this book down and I wanted to keep reading as to what he was going to do and where things would lead and uh yeah anyway ultimately I liked it a lot again more disturbing than the movie in various ways but I would still recommend the movie and I thought it was again a solid adaptation So, thank you so much for watching today's video. I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know your thoughts down below in the comments. This movie is available on Netflix, so if you have an account, you can watch it there. Uh, but yeah, don't forget to like and subscribe, and I will see you next time.

[00:18:56]Bye.