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Mike Flanagan and More Will Revisit Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ for Upcoming Limited Podcast Series

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4 years ago

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We’re excited to debut the news today that Mike Flanagan, Tananarive Due, and Anthony Breznican will join Jason Sechrest in a 6-episode limited series podcast discussing Stephen King’s epic novel, The Stand. 

The Company of the Mad: The Stand Podcast will debut on Friday, May 29, 2020 at TheStandPodcast.com, and will subsequently be available on iTunes, Spotify, and most other apps where podcasts can be found. Video will be available exclusively at TheStandPodcast.com, where you can sign up now for notifications when each episode goes live. 

“The idea is that the four of us will read 200 pages a month, and then meet up on the podcast to discuss what we just read. Sort of like a virtual book club, but one the whole world can join in,” says Sechrest, horror author and writer of the popular column What I Learned from Stephen King. Sechrest will serve as the host of the podcast, guiding the conversation. “We’ll be encouraging listeners to join us in #TheStandChallenge, committing to reading 200 pages a month and letting us know their thoughts. We’ll also be encouraging them to donate to The EMS FDNY HelpFund, benefiting first responders of New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic.” 

While the superflu nicknamed Captain Trips in Stephen King’s The Stand is far deadlier than COVID-19, there are eerie similarities. “The Stand is a book everyone should read, and if you’ve read it before, there is no better time to re-read it,” Sechrest says. “There’s this great quote from the book that reads, ‘Love didn’t grow very well in a place where there was only fear, just as plants didn’t grow very well in a place where it was always dark.’ For all the scares King packs with a punch into his stories, there are equal parts wisdom, spirituality, and life lessons to be found – perhaps more in The Stand than ever. King doesn’t just write horror, he writes about people. He writes about the nature of the human condition, and that is what makes the horror work. That’s a big part of what we’ll be exploring in the podcast.” 

For more information, visit thestandpodcast.com. 

JASON SECHREST is the host and producer of The Company of the Mad. He is an author of horror fiction, and the writer of “What I Learned From Stephen King,” a popular column exploring the wisdom, spirituality, and life lessons in King’s many works. Sechrest’s horror stories have appeared in various publications and anthologies. His short story “Orange Grove Court” is featured in the latest issue of Cemetery Dance Magazine. Sechrest publishes a new short horror story or chapter from a serialized novel every month to subscribers of his Patreon page. Twitter: @jasonsechrest

MIKE FLANAGAN has brought Stephen King’s novels to the screen as the writer/director of Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game. Flanagan is also the writer/director of the hit Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House. He is currently adapting King’s novel Revival, while finishing production on The Haunting of Bly Manor, a standalone second season of the Netflix series. Flanagan’s work has attracted the praise of critics for his directing, focus on characters and themes rarely depicted in horror. Twitter: @flanaganfilm

TANANARIVE DUE is an award-winning novelist who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. She is also the executive producer of Shudder’s groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. Due has been reading King since she was a young girl, having first read The Stand while in bed sick with the flu, and has played with King on stage in the rock band The Rock Bottom Remainders. Twitter: @tananarivedue

ANTHONY BREZNICAN is an author and journalist who has worked as a reporter for The Arizona Republic, Associated Press, USA Today, and Entertainment Weekly. Breznican’s debut novel Brutal Youth — a funny, tough, and heartbreaking book about the darker side of growing up — received high praise from critics and peers alike, including Stephen King, who provided a blurb for the dust jacket. Breznican is currently a correspondent with Vanity Fair. Twitter: @breznican

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Writer in the horror community since 2008. Editor in Chief of Bloody Disgusting. Owns Eli Roth's prop corpse from Piranha 3D. Has four awesome cats. Still plays with toys.

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Books

‘Halloween: Illustrated’ Review: Original Novelization of John Carpenter’s Classic Gets an Upgrade

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4 days ago

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April 16, 2024

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Film novelizations have existed for over 100 years, dating back to the silent era, but they peaked in popularity in the ’70s and ’80s, following the advent of the modern blockbuster but prior to the rise of home video. Despite many beloved properties receiving novelizations upon release, a perceived lack of interest have left a majority of them out of print for decades, with desirable titles attracting three figures on the secondary market.

Once such highly sought-after novelization is that of Halloween by Richard Curtis (under the pen name Curtis Richards), based on the screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill. Originally published in 1979 by Bantam Books, the mass market paperback was reissued in the early ’80s but has been out of print for over 40 years.

But even in book form, you can’t kill the boogeyman. While a simple reprint would have satisfied the fanbase, boutique publisher Printed in Blood has gone above and beyond by turning the Halloween novelization into a coffee table book. Curtis’ unabridged original text is accompanied by nearly 100 new pieces of artwork by Orlando Arocena to create Halloween: Illustrated.

One of the reasons that The Shape is so scary is because he is, as Dr. Loomis eloquently puts it, “purely and simply evil.” Like the film sequels that would follow, the novelization attempts to give reason to the malevolence. More ambiguous than his sister or a cult, Curtis’ prologue ties Michael’s preternatural abilities to an ancient Celtic curse.

Jumping to 1963, the first few chapters delve into Michael’s childhood. Curtis hints at a familial history of evil by introducing a dogmatic grandmother, a concerned mother, and a 6-year-old boy plagued by violent nightmares and voices. The author also provides glimpses at Michael’s trial and his time at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, which not only strengthens Loomis’ motivation for keeping him institutionalized but also provides a more concrete theory on how Michael learned to drive.

Aside from a handful of minor discrepancies, including Laurie stabbing Michael in his manhood, the rest of the book essentially follows the film’s depiction of that fateful Halloween night in 1978 beat for beat. Some of the writing is dated — like a smutty fixation on every female character’s breasts and a casual use of the R-word — but it otherwise possesses a timelessness similar to its film counterpart. The written version benefits from expanded detail and enriched characters.

The addition of Arocena’s stunning illustrations, some of which are integrated into the text, creates a unique reading experience. The artwork has a painterly quality to it but is made digitally using vectors. He faithfully reproduces many of Halloween‘s most memorable moments, down to actor likeness, but his more expressionistic pieces are particularly striking.

The 224-page hardcover tome also includes an introduction by Curtis — who details the challenges of translating a script into a novel and explains the reasoning behind his decisions to occasionally subvert the source material — and a brief afterword from Arocena.

Novelizations allow readers to revisit worlds they love from a different perspective. It’s impossible to divorce Halloween from the film’s iconography — Carpenter’s atmospheric direction and score, Dean Cundey’s anamorphic cinematography, Michael’s expressionless mask, Jamie Lee Curtis’ star-making performance — but Halloween: Illustrated paints a vivid picture in the mind’s eye through Curtis’ writing and Arocena’s artwork.

Halloween: Illustrated is available now.

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