As told in my column from the last week of November, Stephen King was one of the first people contacted by writer/director/producer/special effects legend Greg Nicotero in 2018 when he began developing creepshow Anthology series to stream on Shudder. Due to the importance of the origin creepshow A film in King’s career (the first film made based on a screenplay he wrote), Nicotero felt it necessary to use one of the author’s short stories as source material for an early episode.
King responded to the request with two suggestions, and Nicotero ended up directing an adaptation of “Gray Matter” for the first half of creepshow Series premiere. The other option that was offered was a “survivor type”, and the showrunner didn’t think it was possible to properly bring it to life with the budget available.
“Survivor Type” – Originally published in the 1982 multi-author horror anthology the horror It was later collected in the 1985 King omnibus The ship’s crew – seems like it would be an easy adaptation, since it’s about one man who’s shipwrecked on a small island. But Greg Nicotero found this perspective deceptive. Talking to den geek The director explained that in 2020,
I realized that as much as it sounds like going to a small desert island and a movie, it wasn’t within the possibilities of our project. We didn’t have a lot of money, and I didn’t want to green screen everything… So we put the “survivor type” aside and said, “Okay, listen, maybe we’ll find a way to do that for Season 2.”
As things turned out, Greg Nicotero was able to adapt the Survivor genre faster than that. When the COVID-19 pandemic delayed production plans creepshow For the second season, the filmmakers collaborated with the Octopie animation studio Creepshow animation special, which was developed in time for Shudder subscribers to view on Halloween. No longer having to worry about the cost of a live-action production, Stephen King’s short story was chosen as source material for Joe Hill’s double feature “Twittering From The Circus Of The Dead” (a fun easter egg since Hill, credited as Joe King playing Billy in the narration Comprehensive by George A. Romero creepshow).
Creepshow animation specialfeaturing voice stand by meKiefer Sutherland premieres October 30, 2020. In addition to being a notable King adaptation in that it’s the first to be animated, it’s also a grotesque nightmare worthy of the story on which it’s based. If you have a weak stomach, you may not be able to stomach this week’s Adapting Stephen King.
What is a “survivor type”
Like serial killers, cannibalism is a real-life, shockingly horrible thing that really doesn’t need any additional dressing up by horror writers. The idea of a human eating another human’s flesh is fundamentally obscene, and guaranteed shock in any piece of literature—from the Bible, to Jonathan Swift’s “Modest Proposal,” to Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter series.
But, of course, Stephen King’s mind took that concept one step further: It’s distasteful for one person to eat another person, but what if someone goes to eat their own flesh? In the notes section of The ship’s crewthe author reflects that he had randomly considered the idea of cannibalism one day, and “[his] Muse once again emptied her magical bowels [his] head.” he explains,
I began to wonder if a person could eat himself, and if so, how much he could eat before the inevitable happened. So utterly revolting was this idea that I was so mad with pleasure to do more than think about it for days—I was reluctant to write it because I thought I could only spoil it. Finally, when my wife asked me what I was laughing about one day when we were eating hamburgers on deck, I decided I should at least take him for a test drive.
In search of realism, Stephen King discussed the idea of a “survivor type” with his next-door neighbour, who was a retired doctor. The author asked if a person could live and support themselves by eating their own body, and when the doctor replied in the affirmative, he asked what effect the trauma of the surgeries might have. King paraphrased his response as the first paragraph of the short story:
Sooner or later, the question arises in the profession of every medical student. How much trauma can the patient tolerate? Different trainers answer the question in different ways, but cut down to the most basic level, the answer is always another question: How bad is the patient’s will to survive?
Richard Payne, born Richard Benzetti, is a surgeon and criminal who finds himself in serious trouble after he boards a cruise ship from Vietnam to San Francisco transporting $350,000 worth of heroin. The boat ends up sinking after an explosion on its deck, and the protagonist is left stranded on an island “190 paces wide at its thickest point and 267 paces from one end to the other.” He has limited medicines and supplies, but no emergency rations, and as he records his daily experiences in a journal, he vows to destroy them when help arrives.
Waiting to be rescued, Richard is initially able to feed himself by attacking seagulls and eating them raw – but they are rare. Things take a turn when he breaks his ankle trying to signal an airplane, and has to have his foot amputated to prevent infection. His hunger intensified, he decided to eat the cut appendage.
As the days go by, the heroin he takes can only quell his hunger for so long. Slowly but surely, while going completely insane, he begins to eat as much of his own body as possible to survive. He eats both legs up to the thigh and then cuts off his earlobe. Last to go are his precious hands—the hands that gave him his livelihood—and his diary concludes with his assessment that “they taste like a lady’s fingers.”
How does Creepshow’s animated show “Type Survivor” differ from Stephen King’s short story?
A short story being adapted as an episode of a TV anthology is a natural fit between source material and medium, but Greg Nicotero wrote and directed Kind Survivor in Creepshow animation special Has extra scope to be loyal due to major creative choices. Kiefer Sutherland does not provide voice for Richard Payne so much as narrating the journal entries he writes during his experiences on the island. The adaptation is practically an audiobook mixed with an animated comedy, with the audio sections being King’s own words.
In the end, there are only two significant differences between the special and the short…and they really aren’t that significant. The first is the fact that Richard isn’t technically alone on his island at the beginning of the story. The corpse of a woman is also washed up on the small sandbar, and is called “Gloria”. At one point, he has a hallucination (Faina Sanchez) urging him to eat her body, but a storm washes it away before he can follow his vision’s commands.
Obviously, this is not a revolutionary change, but I would argue that it is a smart one. Ocean liners tend to have a lot of people, and while it’s true that the whole point of the story is that Richard has a much stronger survival instinct than most people, it makes sense that at least one other person/body would end up on the same island he landed on. In which.
Another deviation from the source material that I’m going to highlight is an admittedly gruesome detail regarding the parts of himself that Richard eats before he starts chewing his fingers. In the short story, the protagonist mentions the mutilation of his legs and earlobes, but an extra piece that the adaptation throws out is the surgeon’s nose. He definitely brings out the sentiment he shares when he notices his reflection in the water and describes himself as a “skin covered skull.”
I will add that the amendment does not include Richard’s repeated remark that he plans to destroy the journal he is keeping before anyone has a chance to read it, but 99 percent of what is in Creepshow animation special It comes directly from what Stephen King published.
Is this king worthy?
the way it is, Creepshow animation specialThe Survivor Type adaptation is powerful. It’s not state-of-the-art animation, but the style fits the story effectively. It’s not as gory as it could be, as the sequences of Richard eating himself are kept to a surprisingly minimal level, but it will still make your stomach growl. Best of all is certainly Kiefer Sutherland’s performance, perfectly capturing the character’s initial grit and confidence and effectively sending him into a frenzy.
Perhaps the salient criticism I would level against it isn’t a fair one: I wish it wasn’t an animated movie, and instead the filmmakers found a way to budget for the live-action adaptation. As much as I like the style (being drawn in comic is a nice extension of creepshowfull atmosphere), it’s not a particularly different way of presenting the story than the audiobook I’ve already compared it to.
Further in that regard, the most disappointing thing about the Survivor Type adaptation is the fact that it was made by Greg Nicotero – a man who will go down in history as one of the greatest special effects artists to ever work in the film industry. I can only imagine the magic it will realistically work in transforming the actor over the course of this story…and I have to imagine it because it’s not something that gets saved Creepshow animation special.
Because it is doubtful that the creepshow The TV show will eventually work on a live-action “survivor-type” version to pair with the animated one, and the hope of seeing such an adaptation rests on producing another anthology series/movie and getting the rights/permission to use the Stephen King source material. However, Greg Nicotero’s creativity has a special place in the auteur’s legacy in Hollywood.
How to watch your Creepshow animated movie
The most direct way to watch Creepshow animation special Is to get goosebumps (Opens in a new tab) Subscribe and stream with the rest creepshow chain, but that’s not the only option available to do. You can rent/buy them digitally via online outlets incl Amazon Prime Video (Opens in a new tab)And the google apps (Opens in a new tab)And the Voodoo (Opens in a new tab). There is also a physical media option for all Stephen King collectors, where the special feature is included on file creepshow Season Two Blu-Ray (Opens in a new tab).
Coming into the new year next Wednesday is a brand new Adapting Stephen King edition, and I’m getting a look at the third and final title of 2020: a CBS All Access/Paramount+ limited edition of Platform. While you wait for my feature next week, you can explore my previous columns by clicking on the banners below.
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