The Works of Stephen King

[underjoyed]

sugarhigh said:

Crouch End was pretty crappy and I place all the blame on the shoulders of Claire Forlani. Cannot. act. for crap.

Yup. Battleground was reasonably good, but I only got about halfway through Crouch End before turning off the TV. I knew the suspension of disbelief wasn't going to happen for me when I nearly fell off my chair laughing at the bad CGI that had been spackled over the face of the One-Eyed Cat From Another Dimension. What the purple hell was that?

Oh and yeah, Claire Forlani was - as usual - a duck-faced liability.

[petals]

Crouch End was a disappointment. The CGI was really well done in Battleground, so I don't know why it had to suck so much in CE.

And I really liked the fact that the main character said nothing during the whole hour of Battlegroud. Neither did the toy maker.

I don't know who the woman was in CE, but the guy was in Band of Brothers, right? Because he's the only reason I stayed through the whole thing.

[underjoyed]

petals said:

I don't know who the woman was in CE, but the guy was in Band of Brothers, right? Because he's the only reason I stayed through the whole thing.

That's funny. Both of the characterizations of the couple bugged the snot out of me. Mr. underjoyed kept asking me, every few minutes, "Is that guy gonna get eaten? Is it soon?"

ETA: None of which will dissuade me from watching the next installment.

[scarlet]

Battleground was really well done. I loved the little nod to "Trilogy of Terror" with the crazed Tiki Doll in the souvenir collection. In comparison, Crouch End came off super-cheesy. I definitely realize there has to be a suspension of disbelief when watching that type of story, but between the dopey looking one-eyed cat and that weird visual-echoing effect, as seen through that dullard Claire Forlani's eyes, it really was dreadful.

Of course, that won't stop me from being front and center for Part Two next week!

[marywebgirl]

What I found disappointing about Crouch End was that the set up was very creepy and could have been great, but to have the big bad be a giant squid? WTF?

Battleground was great. I kept switching sides as to who I was cheering for, which I'm hoping is because the writer/director made it that way and not because I'm evil.

[petals]

Crouch End has never been my favorite King story. I'm not a huge fan of H.P. Lovecraft, either, and his work is the influence for this story (that's why the big bad is a giant squid monster , MaryWebGirl.)

And I didn't like the main characters either, underjoyed. I just thought the guy was attractive. So I really only sat through it for my shallowness.

[iceblink]

I haven't watched "Crouch End" yet but isn't that a Cthulhu mythos-related story? That would probably explain a squidlike thingy.

[underjoyed]

petals said:

And I didn't like the main characters either, underjoyed. I just thought the guy was attractive. So I really only sat through it for my shallowness.

Eh...that's as good a reason as any.

iceblink said:

I haven't watched "Crouch End" yet but isn't that a Cthulhu mythos-related story? That would probably explain a squidlike thingy.

Yeah, it is. So based on Lovecraft's overblown descriptive narrative, a squiddy creepy-crawly would be true to the mythology.

(King, however, has no excuse for the giant, inter-galactic death-spider he conjured up for "IT." That was all his own doing.)

ETA: Possibly unnecessarily spoilered because for all I know people recorded it to watch later.

[Deleted]

Yeah, the guy in Crouch End was Eion Bailey, aka Webster from Band of Brothers.

I didn't like Crouch End either, but I didn't like the short story so I wasn't really expecting to.

[iceblink]

I liked the photography and score for Crouch End but oh dear, the acting was teh bad.
And Claire Forlani needs a good square meal or ten.