Week 4: “The Importance of Horror Novelizations”
“I love horror novelizations!” – There I said it. This is probably not something you would
expect from a die-hard horror fan like me since novelizations of films are the
bastard child of the publishing world.
If you don’t know what these are or are confused by “films based on
novels” here is my definition. A
novelization of a film is a novel specifically produced from the screenplay or
film that it is based on as a way to allow fans to enjoy films that they loved
in an alternative way. They are produced
as a tie-in to the film and a subsidiary way for studios to make more money and
profit from a film. They are usually
exactly like the film it is based on and usually written by hack writers just
doing it for a paycheck. So why, do you
ask, do I love them?
There are two really good reasons.
Reason number one is that novelizations can sometime be
written by some amazing authors and be better than the film because of
this. One of my favorite authors Alan
Dean Foster is behind such iconic novelizations like Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, John Carpenter’s The Thing (not to be
confused by the original novel “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr.), Dark Star, Alien Nation, Starman, The Last Starfighter,
Terminator: Salvation and countless
others. These are some amazing reads
that add to the story and characters and give the reader an additional
experience that just watching the film cannot.
Keith R.A. DeCandido is another one of my favorites for his
novelizations of Resident Evil and
its sequels Apocalypse and Extinction all of which add more to the
universe of the films and expands my enjoyment of the films themselves (he also
wrote the novelizations for Darkness
Falls, Serenity, and countless Star
Trek novels). I’ve never cared for
the film Resident Evil: Apocalypse
but after reading the book I watched the film a second time and enjoyed it a
little more. One of my more recent
favorites has been The Woman by Lucky
McKee and Jack Ketchum which is a sequel to one of Ketchum’s film Offspring that was produced simultaneously
as a book and a film. Anyone who knows
me knows that one of my favorite horror franchises is Child’s Play and Matthew J. Costello’s novelizations of Child’s Play 2 and 3 were among some of the first ones I ever read as a child (I still
have them on my shelf to this day along with countless others). I love to immerse myself into the worlds of
some of my favorite horror films and novelizations are a great way for me to do
that.
The second reason why I love novelizations is because since
they are usually based on the screenplay of a film rather than the actual film
itself (since the novel is probably written simultaneous with production of the
film) it is very common for a novelization to include stuff that was cut out of
the film before it was released or contain major changes that can sometimes
make the novel a whole different experience.
This is exactly what happened with Foster’s Alien 3 novelization which differs significantly from the final
film which had major changes done to it due to the director (a young) David
Fincher and the studio not agreeing on the final edit of the film (FYI – the
Dark Horse comic book adaptation of the film also differs from the final film
as well). There are whole character arcs
and changes in the Resident Evil novelizations.
More often than not, most novelizations are a plot point by
plot point exact replica of the film and by inexperienced or incapable hands
this can make for a tedious read (I know because I’m still trying to get
through John Shirley’s novelization of Resident
Evil: Retribution which is not written with the same style as DeCandido’s
previous books). Sometimes they may even
be unnecessary as just about every major studio film has a novelization whether
we care to know it or not. Sometimes
you’ll come across a great one while other times not so much.
I buy novelizations based on whether or not I enjoyed the
film and wish to go back to that world in a different way. I never buy a novelization of a film I have
yet to see because why bother to read a book based on a film I didn’t
like. The exception is if I like the
writer (i.e. my reading of DeCandido’s Resident
Evil: Apocalypse) but this is rarely the case as I love Foster and there
are a ton of novelizations of his I don’t ever plan on reading. I will say that as a horror fan, you should
read horror just as much as you watch it whether it be novelizations or
original novels. Horror can be enjoyed
in so many different ways so don’t fail to overlook even one of them.
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