Stephen King's Rose Red (2002)

 

Director: Craig R. Baxley

Screenplay: Stephen King

Cast: Nancy Travis as Dr. Joyce Reardon, Matt Keeslar as Steve Rimbauer, Melanie Lynskey as Rachel "Sissy" Wheaton, Kimberly J. Brown as Annie Wheaton, Judith Ivey as Cathy Kramer, Matt Ross as Emery Waterman, Julian Sands as Nick Hardaway, Emily Deschanel as Pam Asbury, Kevin Tighe as Victor "Vic" Kandinsky, David Dukes as Dr. Carl Miller

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows)

 

Well, I’ve never heard Glen Miller out of a flower before.

Unlike other Stephen King adaptations, this is not actually adapting one of the legendary author’s stories to the screen, but is an entirely original tale King himself wrote the screenplay of. This one has some history, in which in the nineties he had pitched a haunted house story to Steven Spielberg, remaking The Haunting (1963), the legendary horror film adapted from Shirley Jackson’s seminal novel The Haunting of Hill House (1959)¹. Spielberg would produce the 1999 remake of The Haunting, whilst here King’s original idea would finally find its form in an entirely original story, a four plus hour mini-series, directed by former stunt man, former stunt coordinator, and the director of Stone Cold (1991), an action movie attempting to launch the film career of American football player Brian Bosworth. Craig R. Baxley would become a regular director of Stephen King mini-series during the 2000s, there is nothing but playful humour in the later reference.

Effectively this does reimaging Jackson’s seminal supernatural novel and original version of The Haunting, if by way of influences in real life. One clear influence is the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California, home of Sarah Winchester, the widow of firearms magnate William Wirt Winchester. Alongside stories of the mansion being haunted, it was also a building Sarah Winchester had constantly under construction, building mazes and weird unconventional additions to the building which it can be legitimately possible to get lost within.

A college professor Dr. Joyce Reardon (Nancy Travis), with a very liberal attitude to the paranormal, is self funding an expedition to Rose Red, the equivalent to the Winchester House but with a significantly larger body count in its tragic history, and absolutely the example of something so evil you should just torch the place rather than enter it. Deciding regardless of the risk to collect together a group of psychics, she wishes to prove ghosts exists with what eventually develops into the maddened zeal of Captain Ahab and a white whale. Among the psychics brought into the manor is Annie (Kimberly J. Brown), who gets a prologue introducing her, who is a trope in King’s work, that of figures with disabilities or significant ostracization in society possessing unnatural abilities. As someone born with autism myself, I was concerned – with childhood memories of Dreamcatcher (2003), a notorious King adaptation for the silver screen where, alongside “shit weasels”, there was Duddits, a disabled character with unnatural abilities which was broadly dealt even from the perspective as a younger viewer. This was more so the case here as Annie is explicitly depicted as autistic here and could be a misfire. Thankfully it is not the case – she would be on the more severe spectrum in difficulty in communication, not directly communicating with people, acts of repetition which even I do which offer comfort or pure enjoyment (her obsession with Glen Miller, to rearranging dominos, which do not come off as broad. As a character among some broad (and questionable) stereotypes, she comes off well. Even when characters start making more crueler comments on her, as a person who would need to be in care even if her paranormal abilities are more advanced, it comes from when feces hits the fan and it comes clear. As someone ultra-gifted to the point she can rain stones from the sky, placing her into Rose Red, which can use her, was like bringing a nuclear missile to Godzilla, so the tone does not feel insulting but contextually when other characters start to lose it and others have already died.

The broadness of some of the characters here is an issue in other cases. Among the psychics is Emery (Matt Ross), whose pre-cognitive warnings from ghosts about Rose Red are useless when he has all the bills to pay from his mother’s overspending, even if you leave the fridge a bloodbath. His mother herself is a broad take on the domineering mother which you can accuse as being a tasteless stereotype, the large figured and overprotective stereotype with no real point to her but to be a grotesque domineering stereotype. Rather than say, for a good example, what “mother” is to Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), this plays to stereotypes of ugliness which have not aged well. You will also have the surprise that, with an arsehole stereotype of a rational skeptic in Dr. Carl Miller (David Dukes), a fellow professor who wishes to bump Dr. Reardon off her tenure for her “irrational” believe in ghosts, King punts a figure totally opposite for what he has done with Christian zealots. Some may be angry about him, but let us be blunt, Marcia Gay Harden’s Christian fundamentalist in The Mist (2007), one of the more acclaimed King adaptations from the 2000s, was also a broad one-dimensional stereotype, but with the unfortunate reality that too many Christians are terrible examples of their faith, making it more digestible to kick them in the gonads in horror films for many as they are more frequently a problem in modern politics and culture. It posits, the more of King’s work I have grow up with, a family collecting the films and mini-series, and reading his work, that the author just despises holier than thou figures of all types, authority for him delusional, especially as, initially sympathetic, the Captain Ahab comparison is perfect for Dr. Joyce Reardon. He is entirely sympathetic to the psychics themselves, all likable and with real powers among those here, but Reardon’s hair trigger temper on the subject of the supernatural warns that, wanting to prove it, she will sacrifice people and eventually be burnt by the supernatural fire she wishes to claim. King follows a well worn trope in horror, a good one, of the dangers of acquiring unnatural knowledge without realizing the respect and risk than entails with the occult.

The mini-series is a broad, brash haunted house metaphorically, not subtle in the slightest and spooky like a jaunted spooky train ride in four plus hours, split over three parts originally. Aptly the setting is cool, like a great haunted house, including its influence from the Winchester Mystery House in some of the more unconventional sets built, such as an upside down room or the tiny model version of Rose Red in the lounge. A shame is felt that they could have lent on the optical illusions of the location, even on a TV mini-series budget, especially as one of the aspects that Rose Red has is its ability to expand and change rooms to trap victims. A lot of the first half, taking a part before even getting to Rose Red, is bringing up the back-story of the home, which becomes more a nicely ghoulish series of disappearances, deaths and a man choking to death on an apple. Even if there is some violence, and severed fingers, the lack of gore, and only a subtle nod to the morbid and decayed, feels like an actual haunted amusement attraction, especially as the mini-series is ambitious (despite the seams being visible) in using unsubtle CGI for evil statures or bees. The difference is that, as a story, it is a spooky movie allowed to be more fleshed out in its longer length, and that this is a haunted house ride where you get to go with Julian Sands, the British actor arguably the highlight as a likable English psychic who takes to the environment with common sense and white.

In terms of King works, adaptations or original ones, the broad strokes in characterization and wishing to have a complete lack of subtlety in the premise, neither next to The Haunting or the Shirley Jackson source material, are not going to leave it as appealing to the more acclaimed adaptations. The Shining (1980) this is not, and infamous King hated that adaptation and a 1997 TV mini-series properly told the source novel, so what he considers the appropriate tone for a story of a haunted house may not appeal to everyone. Personally there was a lot of fun for me here, in mind to that comparison to a literal haunted house ride than a profound psychodrama.

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1) Stephen King's Rose Red Was Originally A Remake Of The Haunting, written by Michael Kennedy and published for Screen Rant on March 5th 2021.

Michael Jackson's Ghosts (1996)

 

Director: Stan Winston

Screenplay: Stephen King, Stan Winston, Mick Garris and Michael Jackson

Cast: Michael Jackson as the Maestro / the Mayor; Pat Dade as Pat; Amy Smallman as Amy; Edwina Moore as Edwina; Yasiin Bey as Dante; Seth Smith as Seth; Kendall Cunningham as Kendall; Loren Randolph as Loren; Heather Ehlers as Heather

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #224

 

You're weird. You're strange. I don't like you.

I will start this review by saying, since this is covering a Michael Jackson related project, if any reader wishes to skip the piece, go ahead. Jackson is a complicated figure, frankly a paradox. His allegations of sexual misconduct with minors has made him a much more difficult figure to think of in the public eye, but for myself that aspect of Jackson is not the focus of today. It has to be kept in the back of the mind, it cannot be ignored, but it is still not the focus of this obscure entity in his career, a short extended music video which does admittedly have some unfortunate turn of phrases that evoke the reality. The last thing you want through the power of hindsight, in which the parents of a couple of boys and the mayor of a small town enter the gothic home of the Maestro (Michael Jackson), demanding him to leave as an unwanted outsider, is some of the dialogue having unfortunate innuendo, including his secrets with the boys. For what is in fact an attempt to outdo Thriller, the legendary 1983 music video shot by John Landis which became one of the most iconic things of Jackson's career, the last probably wanted is obscurity and unfortunate mirroring to real life.

Jackson was not only one of the most successful musicians of his time, but also a cultural phenomenon, which means that we are stuck in a scenario where his music still plays on the radio but the real man has been challenged by the likes of the documentary Leaving Neverland (2019). It says a lot about Jackson as well that, if one was to step back from the uncomfortable subject of whether you think he is guilty or not, his superstar success beyond just music is a strange thing in itself. Starring in Disney theme park attractions helmed by Francis Ford Coppola, videogame tie-ins, collaborating with Sega, even getting Jarvis Cocker to storm your performance, Jackson's career like many big mainstream figures when considered has a lot of strange tie-ins and work to capitalise on his success. Some of it is entirely his, like Ghosts, where he attempted to push his passions or ambitions in such a project with direct involvement. Others like Moonwalker (1988), a strange mainstream theatrical, a drama mixed with music videos and live footage which eventually involves Jackson even having to transform into a car to rescue children from evil Joe Pesci. Even before you get to fan culture, or work and documentaries made after his death, even the ones condemning him in honestly still riding on his star status whether their moral purpose, Michael Jackson just like an Elvis Presley or a non-musical star like Bruce Lee exists in a place where crossover success or legendary status means stuff can appear for television or the cinema in your name which is peculiar in the future to look at¹.

Ghosts is the same, though it has never been re-released on DVD, as elusive as Captain EO (the Coppola theme park film) but without an obvious factor to its absence from available, nothing as obvious as a Disney Theme Park ride project being a roadblock to licensing. Ghosts, in its background, is marked by being around the time some of the first accusations of indecency with children began in the early nineties, an uncomfortable parallel with a plot where he plays an isolated count beloved by children but about to be chased out of town by the locals, one of which who is the Major played by Michael Jackson himself. His doppelganger in elaborate makeup who calls himself a freak and loathes him is probably the strangest aspect, as much because of the makeup effects, and for the unintentional psychodrama with the real Michael Jackson you cannot ignore even if the viewer places it on themselves. The psychology behind this casting choice is strange even without the context, either way a bit too real for what was meant as a sequel to Thriller. Even without this darker real life history too, this was around the time Jackson's plastic surgery and its physical results became an issue, and infamously the time Jarvis Cocker invaded the stage during his live performances of the Earth Song at the 1996 Brit Awards and literally waved his arse in protest to him, a sense of the King of Pop becoming a far more easier target of derision.

Against this, an elaborate music video with large scale dance choreography and special effects, also had to follow from Thriller, the song a legendary piece of his career but the video as iconic as you could get. Ghosts, stemming further from Jackson's love of horror cinema, is amazingly obscure considering that, to top what came before, legendary special effects creator Stan Winston is helming the film, with the narrative and screenplay gestating from Jackson himself, Winston, Mick Garris, famously a go-to director for Stephen King adaptations at this period, and the legendary author Stephen King himself. Said final result however, barring being released in front of theatrical screenings of Thinner (1996), a very weird and misanthropic adaptation of one of King's novels from his "Richard Bachman" days, is likely to be unknown by many who even know about Moonwalker.

Ghosts in itself, whilst never going to top the Thriller music video and is shackled to the innovative digital technology that has dated, is nonetheless a spooky and fun experience. Between Stan Winston and Stephen King of all people being collaborators on the project, it would have been difficult to fail miserably at the project, and between Jackson turning into a dancing CGI skeleton and the elaborateness of the dance sequences, it adds to the fever dream mentality that has arguably been found in all his work. He never lost the power, despite everything, to make the most expensive music video in Scream at one point in this era, never lost the power to even have Ghosts made, or fill such work with strange idiosyncratic detail. With history, many of which were could be summed up from a musician who always stayed a child by all accounts, the same mentality of just including various things because he thought it would be awesome for fans as it was for him. Even that idea of him as the child-man is however one which should be questioned

Despite having had a theme park called Neverland built and a Peter Pan persona put on him, other accounts also suggest Jackson as a very adult man, one who was also a ladies' man too, one who especially when it came to the content of his music vastly contrasted the persona placed onto him in how adult the lyrics were. Ghosts also shows the schism between the innocent persona, including all the problematic baggage, and the very adult themes his pop music had. The album this mostly promotes, Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix (1997), is a great album, if bearing in mind (as with HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I (1995)) he inexplicably included remixes and greater hit compilations as part of the albums alongside original material, Blood on the Dance Floor a case where the first five songs, the original works, are the real concern for anyone to listen to the LP. They are used in this film for its jaunty haunted house spectacle, and the New Jack Swing trend that influenced them is of the era, but actually hearing the lyrics of Ghosts and Is It Scary make them very dark songs. Even in mind to the later being originally for Addams Family Values (1993), Is It Scary's refrain of "And if you wanna see eccentrialities / I'll be grotesque before your eyes" is very ominous in terms of the derision Jackson was getting at the time, and the controversies with accusations. Ghosts, which plays horror metaphors to someone tormenting Jackson and terrorising him, is for me arguably one of the best songs in his output but also a really twisted exposure of his psyche, provocative and likely so on purpose at a vulnerable point of being dogged in his real life.

It really contrasts a film of a heightened spooky play, where all the horror tropes, like Jackson stripping his skin off to dance as a skeleton to the ghoul backing dancers climbing on the ceiling, is for fun. That and having himself mirrored by the Mayor, and all the times both call each other freaks throughout the short film, really expose too much by accident of a psychological profile. Within a film where an uncredited Dave Chappelle with his over-the-top scared villager acting should be of attention for how absurd it is, instead most people with some context of the musician's history, unless you watch the film as a fan for fun, are going to be unpicking some much psychodrama intentionally there and accidentally exaggerated.

The added factor to bear in mind is that Jackson was always incredible as a dancer and as a musician, making the controversies and debate around him more difficult, but also making sure even Ghosts is even more striking. Whilst they have got horror allusions, the songs here are all effectively fuck-youds to all the accusations and criticisms he got which, contrasting a man with a childlike wonder who built a literal Neverland with almost a split personality, a grown man who spits out stinging lyrics whilst dancing better like anyone could. Like Prince, who was going through his the Artist Formerly Known as Prince era at this time, they were both very eccentric individuals who however backed up these decisive personalities by having music few were good enough to produce and stage magnetism few ever possessed. Jackson's story is difficult to deal with, even in mind to the fact his childhood was also terrible, but it is fascinating to watch a man whose psychological makeup and his output, but in quality of the work and the psychological underbelly, were equals in their density.

Whether its defendable in Jackson's case is entirely up to you, but hoping one day Ghosts can be watched in a better quality, it itself was a fascinating piece of the man's career and worth the experience. It is also, with an example like Moonwalker, just one of many of these titles of his in existence. Ghosts, in spite of its obscurity, was meant to be a mainstream release, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival² even, a rare case of a mainstream production entirely fed by a voice's singular obsessions and the curiosities as a result. Whether the truth of the man behind this film,  digging into this stuff even for amateur armchair psychology will be compelling.

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1) Moonwalker, which was unavailable in the US but was released on DVD in Britain, is a completely indulgent project at the height of his fame. Where Jackson inexplicably demanded he turned into a car at one point to fight Joe Pesci, worth mentioning twice because that dramatic segment also has the incredible Smooth Criminal dance sequence, perfectly summing up an example of weird celebrity ephemera at its best and peculiar at the same time.

2) Linked to HERE.