FILM REVIEW: Apt Pupil (1998)

Even though I said that I was going to move away from Stephen King and horror for a while, I guess I was wrong. I have not read the book version of the 1998 film Apt Pupil yet, so I will keep this purely a film review and not compare it to or mention the novella (essentially an extended short story) in any way. I really liked this movie. It was well written, and the cast was all fantastic. As always, I do write the plot synopsis down below, so if you don't want to be spoiled, you can jump to the last paragraph, which doesn't contain anything plot-related. 

The film revolves around Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro), a typical high school honour student who discovers that one of his neighbours, Arthur Denker (Ian McKellen), may in fact be a Nazi war criminal named Kurt Dussander. He blackmails Dussander with this information, telling him that all the proof he has (including fingerprints from "Denker's" mailbox) will be mailed to the police if Todd was to die. Showing his true nature for the first time, Todd tells Dussander that he will not expose him as a criminal if Dussander tells him "Everything they're afraid to show us in school. You were there. You did those things. No one can tell it better than you can." Despite his initial refusal, Dussander gives in, even taking up a semi-friendly relationship with Todd and helping him by pretending to be his grandfather when his grades slip due to the nightmares from the stories. However, through the telling of his stories, Dussander's old Nazi side begins to wake up and he begins to become increasingly dangerous, even attempting to murder. Dussander also ends up blackmailing Todd with the fact that Todd had knowledge of a Nazi war criminal but did nothing, forcing Todd to do whatever Dussander wants for him to do. Dussander's bloodthirstiness eventually leads him to murder a homeless man before he has a heart attack. Todd ends up murdering the homeless man and Dussander is discovered to be a Nazi by a former Holocaust survivor in a hospital. Although no one seems to suspect that Todd was involved with Dussander's Nazi life, his guidance counselor Edward French (David Schwimmer) realizes that the man he met was not Todd's grandfather confronts him, but is forced to stay silent when Todd threatens to spread lies about French being a pedophile. The film ends with Todd graduating and Dussander committing suicide by giving himself an air embolism.

My favourite parts of this movie are the lines delivered by Dussander and how they're reflected again in Todd at the end of the film. Lines like "I'm better at this than your are." and "And do you know what such a scandal can do? It never goes away. Not for you, not for your parents." are ones that Dussander uses to threaten Todd during the film, and Todd quotes them almost verbatim (with a few parts changed) to threaten Mr. French at the end. For me, this represented how Nazi propaganda could pull someone in and essentially brainwash them, as by the end of the film, Todd begins to become more and more sadistic and manipulative, as he was being more and more influenced during his times with Dussander.

Dussander was my favourite character in the movie, mainly because of the complexity of his character. Before being contacted by Todd, he lives a pretty quiet life, doing things that a normal old man would do. He is also EXTREMELY charismatic, hiding his darker side perfectly when interacting with other people. However, throughout his meetings with Todd, his old Nazi "personality" begins to come back, and he even attempts to burn a cat in an oven. The most clear example of Dussander's reversion is when Todd forces him to wear a Nazi uniform (Fun Fact: Hugo Boss was a member of the Nazi party and used to supply the Nazis with uniforms.) and march "for fun". At first, Dussander is very reluctant, but as he continues to march, he loses control and begins to ignore Todd completely, marching with what seemed like passion. You can watch the clip of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw_TV4-fpNg. 

Furthermore, Dussander is also portrayed as somewhat sympathetic, as even though he murdered many people and his murderous tendencies return, it seems as though he did it all reluctantly, making one question if he really is a cold-blooded murderer. When Todd asks, "What did it (killing the prisoners) feel like?", Dussander replies, "It was something that had to be done. A door had been opened and couldn't be shut. It was the end... You don't understand.". Despite his ability to be manipulative and even murderous, Dussander also seems to suffer guilt from the killings he carried out, suggesting that he only became the way he is today because he had to murder people, making him a somewhat sympathetic character in my eyes.

I really enjoyed this movie. Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro are great actors who work together very well, and their dynamic is genuinely believable. Ross Geller David Schwimmer portrays Edward French well, and I genuinely didn't expect an actor I knew so well from comedies (Friends, Madagascar) to portray a rather serious character so well. Schwimmer looks like he genuinely cares for Todd (Renfro) and you can also see that he genuinely looks hurt at the end when Todd threatens him.

 Despite how much I enjoyed this movie, Todd Bowden was probably the weakest part of the movie. Don't get me wrong, Renfro is a good actor, and he did portray the sadistic part of Todd's character really well. However, the rest of his character felt a little... weak. We get almost no indication that he is a star student except for his high marks briefly at the beginning, and while his nightmares and hallucinations he has due to Dussander's stories are shown well, his descent into a sadistic character was somewhat lacking. We see that Todd is already a bit unstable right from the start when he blackmails Dussander, but apart from that, his (unwilling) murder of the hobo, and his threat to Edward French, we don't see much of Todd's evil within. I've read that the novella expands much more on Todd's fall into evil and how the ending actually shows how insane Todd's become, but the movie doesn't, and that did ruin the movie for me quite a bit. While they showed Dussander's change quite well, Todd's change seemed to be almost nonexistent, which was a strange choice considering

Overall, this movie is still great. All of the actors are phenomenal and the plot itself is very interesting. The movie also has compelling characters that we can get invested in, and you do see the progression of the characters (for the most part) well throughout the film. I've always preferred horror/thriller movies with a psychological aspect to them compared to the bloody slasher films, so I really did enjoy this movie. However, I can't help but be quite disappointed that Todd's character development came out a bit too suddenly. While it didn't ruin the film for me, it took away from my enjoyment of it, as it disappointed me that the main character wasn't as complex as he definitely could be (judging by what he does in the novella). The Apt Pupil gets a rating of 4/5.

For my next post, I will be doing another film review. Although I won't tell you the title, I WILL tell you that it's based on another Stephen King story (maybe I'm getting out of hand with my King Adaptation Fixation...), so you're free to make all the guesses you want. I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

ADAPTATION REVIEW: Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park (1993)

Jurassic Park is a film beloved by many. It is the 17th highest grossing movie of all time with $841,088,300 in the box office. What most people do NOT know, is that Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World (1997) is based on 1990 and 1995 novels of the same name, written my Michael Crichton, with the sequel being such a horrible adaptation that it only has a passing resemblance to the novel with very little (but still existent) similarities. Fortunately, Jurassic Park did not suffer the same fate, being a (generally) much more loyal adaptation and keeping to the general themes and the plot of the novel much more successfully.

The film is groundbreaking in terms of technology as the dinosaurs were brought to life masterfully, and it was so popular that it received two (arguably unnecessary) sequel movies and a (completely pointless) sequel trilogy. I really don't think this movie could have been handled by anyone other then Stephen Spielburg, who was the PERFECT director for this film. Michael Crichton (the author) DID write the screenplay, but in my eyes, that does NOT justify the film being disloyal.

While I may do a separate review on the film itself someday, we do have to ask ourselves if Spielburg's film stayed loyal enough to the book or not. Since most people know the plot of the movie well, I'm just going to provide a VERY brief general summary of both book AND the film:

Plot Synopsis

John Hammond, an old, eccentric billionaire and CEO of InGen, a genetics company, builds a biological reserve on Isla Nubular, an island off Costa Rica. Due to the potential safety concerns with the reserve, lawyer Donald Gennaro calls upon three consultants, paleontologist Alan Grant, paleobotanist Ellie Sattler, and mathematician Ian Malcolm to accompany him to the island to inspect the safety of the park. Upon arriving on the island, they discover that John Hammond has cloned dinosaurs using dinosaur DNA extracted from ember, and has named it "Jurassic Park". Things seem to be going well until Dennis Nedry, a disgruntled employee of the park shuts off the system to steal the dinosaur embryos for a man named Dr. Dodgson. This sets all the dinosaurs loose, and results in a number of people getting killed, including Nedry himself. Eventually, a small group of survivors manage to bring back the power and escape the island, and they all agree that the park was a horrible idea and agree to never tell the public about this.

Honestly, now that I actually think about it, the movie deviates from the book quite a bit. But what they stuck to the book comes up next:

The Loyal Factors

The movie manages to get most of the cast fairly accurate: Ellie Sattler is the paleobotanist who takes an active role is stopping the dinosaur while also  Ian Malcolm in both cases was a Chaotician with a tendency to ramble on about Chaos Theory, and he was indeed the only person with enough foresight to predict that the park would fail. Ray Arnolds (John Arnolds in the novel) is a chain-smoking, chief engineer of Jurassic Park who is killed by the raptors. Robert Muldoon is still the game warden of the park who is constantly distrustful of the raptors, but his role is mostly cut out. Dennis Nedry is the overweight, unorganized, arrogant computer programmer of the park who cuts off the power to steal dinosaur embryos, but is killed by a dilophosaurus later on. Henry Wu is still the Chief Geneticist of the park who fills in missing strands of the DNA with amphibian DNA, but like Muldoon, his role is largely cut out. John Hammond is the eccentric and childlike billionaire and owner of JP & InGen, but his story is heavily changed as well. Although Alan Grant, Tim & Lex Murphy, Donald Gennaro, and Lewis Dodgson are original book characters, their characters were changed so much that I will discuss them more in the next section.

Apart from the characters and the plot summary I mentioned above, the movie really doesn't bare much similarity to the book otherwise. I will discuss my thoughts on this more later on, since I do have an opinion of my own on some adaptation related things. Now on to the next section, where I will talk for a while about what the movie changed or left out all together:

The Disloyal Factors

The movie DID deviate heavily from the book most times, so I will only cover the MAJOR points that actually mattered to the overall plot of the book.

Foremost, the tone (and the subject) of the book and movie are a bit different. The movie was a thriller with a side message about not messing with nature and science. The movie was definitely a thriller first, and a cautionary tale later. The book however, is the opposite. The first few pages of the book are actually dedicated to the increasing genetic experimentation, and it becomes more and more transparent as you read that the book's really a cautionary tale about the dangers of unchecked genetic experiments and trying to play God, told through a thriller story. It makes sense that the movie decided to cut down most of the cautionary stuff because it probably wouldn't have worked well in the movie if they kept rambling on about why playing God is wrong, and Jeff Goldblum got the message across well without being too boring.

The movie fails include some book scenes that actually had some HORRIFYING implications. A major plot point in the book was that there were dinosaurs that had actually escaped from the park and was going around the mainland eating babies. Not only that, the group also discovers that the raptors (and pretty much all the other dinosaurs) were breeding, and a few of them had gotten on a boat to mainland (which was actually mentioned briefly the movie), but they do manage to stop the boat on time. Because of the escaped dinosaurs, the Costa Rican government held the survivors so they could help combat these dinosaurs. The movie also mentions The Lysine Contingency, which essentially makes it so that the dinosaurs can't survive without the lysine provided by the park workers, but the book later points out the dinosaurs have survived by eating lysine-rich foods, which made that a completely pointless measure. 

The fates of most of the people on the island is actually changed, so I will summarize all the changed fates: Ian Malcolm, John Hammond, and Henry Wu die on the island while Donald Gennaro and Robert Muldoon survive, which are actually opposite in the movie. There are also other character changes and omissions that I will talk about as well.

Ian Malcolm's death is quite interesting, as he does feature heavily in the next book and movie. Crichton originally had no intentions to write a sequel, but after the popularity of the first film, AND the popularity of Malcolm (portrayed by Jeff Goldblum) pressured him to write a sequel and revive Malcolm by writing "he was only mostly dead and was saved due to surgery", when in the book he was pretty dead. Hammond's death was one I liked because of how unlikable his character was. He was still generally a jovial, eccentric showman, but at the same time, he was an egotistical prick who took more concern in the safety dinosaurs then the people, REFUSED to hear Malcolm at all (while the movie version was more open-minded), and even when everything was going to hell, he kept talking about "reopening the park". So needless to say, it brought (mostly) everyone no sadness ]when he was killed by the procompsognathus. Wu actually sticks around in the book to help the group stop the dinosaurs, and he actually has an argument with Hammond about making the dinosaurs more domesticated, while Hammond refused to even consider it, and interestingly enough, this part is somewhat (I'm not sure if intentionally) paid homage to in Jurassic World when Wu discusses the I-Rex with Simon Masarani. Alas, the book Wu, despite being a more likable character, is ripped apart by raptors in his heroic attempts.

Donald Gennaro is also largely changed. Gennaro seemed to have been given all the unlikable character traits from the other characters. While Gennaro WAS excited at the prospect of making money from the Park, he was also very concerned about the safety of it and was genuinely there to investigate the park further, getting furious with Hammond when he brought his grandchildren (who I'll discuss more later), because Hammond was attempting to turn this into a weekend excursion. He also didn't run away when the t-rex got loose (Which was something that Ed Regis, a character entirely omitted from the movie did), and spent the rest of the book attempting to own up and actually hunt these creatures down, eventually surviving. While he still isn't the most likable character, he was still MUCH better then his movie counterpart. Now Muldoon, actually lives up to his credentials as a Kenyan hunter and actually did stuff. In the book, he owned a military- degree LAW Rocket Launcher (rather then just that one shotgun), which he demanded to have as a safety measure, and he ran around with it blowing the legs off of raptors. That actually made Muldoon one of my favourite book characters, cause he pretty much took out a lot of the raptors with those, and he made more contributions in the book.

Grant liked kids in the book because they had the same fascination with dinosaurs that Grant had. I'm not sure what was the point of them giving him a story-line of not liking kids. Lewis Dodgson actually works for a rival company of InGen's called Biosyne, which has a whole history behind it concerning botched up genetic experiments that had some serious consequences. Dodgson is technically the main antagonist of the books, as he returns in the sequel to cause more issues. Tim & Lex are switched in age, and the computer skills are given to Lex instead, who is actually SIGNIFICANTLY more annoying in the book, constantly complaining. Nedry's backstory in the movie is: "Hammond got cheap on me." In the book, Hammond hired Nedry, but constantly added tasks that wasn't in the contract. When Nedry threatened to quit, Hammond threatened him with lawsuits and wrote to Nedry's other clients telling them that Nedry was unreliable, forcing Nedry to continue without extra pay. And you know what, I sympathized with Nedry, who's supposed to be an ANTAGONIST. Crichton really did an amazing job developing his characters more that was lacking in the movie.

While the movie showed that the Park was ready to go, the book's Park wasn't even close to opening, with multiple sections of the park being closed due to issues they encountered along the way. One of these sections was the Pteratops Lodge, which was a treetop hotel in the aviary, but was closed because the Cearadactylus in the aviary were extremely territorial and were attacking people. This wasn't included in the movie (most likely due to technological restraints) but were paid homage to in JP3 and Jurassic World. The difference between the book's and movie's endings is also an interesting topic to discuss. In the book, the Costa Rican Air Force came in and dropped NAPALMS all over the place, destroying everything. The movie has a much... calmer ending, with the survivors just escaping the island and just deciding to leave the dinosaurs alone. I'm not sure why this change happened, but I suspect it was so they could set up sequels, while Crichton realized that since the book's whole point was that the dinosaurs didn't belong there, them all dying would be the only logical option.

Now that I got through that really long section explaining what the writers ignored from the book (strange since the author helped write the screenplay), I will be talking briefly (as possible) about my personal opinions on both the book and the movie and move on to my final conclusions, rating the book, the movie, and the adaptation out of five.

Personal Opinions

The Novel:

I really enjoyed the book. It was well written, and it had a nice mix of likable and unlikable characters. It also toes the line slightly concerning the main antagonists of the movie. While you see that Dodgson and Nedry (who's a very sympathetic character) cause most of the problems, you also have the raptors as ruthless killing machines, but you ALSO have John Hammond, who essentially caused Nedry to turn against him and became greedy for money. Throughout the novel, I felt like I had to root for the humans to survive, but was also kind of hoping that Hammond wouldn't survive. However, Malcolm's rants do go on for a long time and gets rather dull and annoying very quickly. Not only that, Crichton doesn't write some of the scenes very well. He merely describes what's happening, but fails to convey the emotions of any of the characters, which did make the scenes a little dull sometimes, but it is still a great novel. I like the message that Crichton delivered in this book, and although it did seem extremely preachy, they may just have been because of my annoyance with Malcolm in the novel, but still, it is a good message considering the increasing leaps science has been taking these last few decades. Overall, the Jurassic Park novel gets a 4/5.

The Film: 

The film is one of my all-time favourites. It has great actors, great directors, and AMAZING special effects. While I didn't like that they decided to take the concept and make rather unnecessary sequels, as a standalone movie, it's still fantastic. I've always loved dinosaurs, so seeing them brought to life so well on the big screen was a great experience for me. What more can I say? I loved this movie from start to finish, and I loved everything about it. It's obvious to be that the Jurassic Park (1993) film gets a 5/5, no question.

Overall Assessment

Despite being a disloyal adaptation, I honestly don't think it matters because the movie was made so well that it being a disloyal adaptation doesn't matter. It stands on its own perfectly well, and by taking out much of Malcolm's rambles, it was overall more enjoyable to me. Although I prefer my adaptations to be very loyal, I also tend to give it a pass if the adaptation itself is an outstanding film on its own and it did not need to rely on the book much to do so. Jurassic Park is a great example of this, as even though I really enjoyed the novel, I loved the movie even more. Although it would have been cool to see some of the scenes from the novel into the film (like the rocket launcher scene), I still love the movie for what it did, as it remained faithful enough to Crichton's original work, but they managed to also make an original movie out of it. Not only that, they did get the main point of "don't play God" across, without needing Malcolm lecturing the other characters every five minutes. Even though Crichton's novel was good, I understand that it would not have translated well into a movie since it wasn't quite written to be purely a thriller, but more to be a cautionary tale on the dangers of uncontrolled genetic testing, so I completely understand and support their decisions to change the plot.

As an ADAPTATION ONLY, Jurassic Park gets a 2/5, but keep in mind that it being a bad adaptation does not mean it's a bad movie. I do genuinely think that it being a bad adaptation actually made it a better movie, and while it doesn't win any awards for book accuracy, it still followed the book well enough so that I have no major complaints about the movie, and it also got across the author's original message as well, which I think is really important for an adaptation. Even though the movie got the general stuff, it still wasn't very accurate to the book at all, which is why I gave it a low score. Despite that, I still heavily recommend you to read the book if you are a fan of the movie, and vice-versa. I read the book after watching the movie, and I still really enjoyed it, and it remains one of my favourite books.

Now that I'm done this adaptation review, I will be going back to novel & film reviews for a while. I do have an idea of what I'm going to review next (because I've been watching a lot of movies recently). I may also do a short (DEFINITELY SPOILER-FREE) review of AVENGERS: Endgame. I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

FILM REVIEW: Nosferatu (1922)

The story of Dracula is one that has been told and told again countless times over the last century. Based on the novel by Irish author Bram Stoker in 1897, Dracula has been adapted into films countless times, the Count himself being portrayed by notable actors such as Bela Lugosi, Sir Christopher Lee, and Gary Oldman among many others. In this one, I will be discussing a lesser-known adaptation of Dracula known as Nosferatu, a silent German film made in 1922, technically making it the first film featuring "Dracula". The reason I say 'technically' will be explained more later. And I understand that most of you probably won't be quite as willing to watch this or expect a positive review out of me because this is an ancient silent film, but please, just sit through this review.

Most people are probably familiar with Nosferatu from an episode of SpongeBob Squarepants. Graveyard Shift, where the infamous creature appeared it in at the end briefly. Now, the history of how this film got made is actually a very fascinating one. The filmmakers did not have the rights to portray Dracula on screen, so they ended up making a vampire ("Nosferatu" meaning "Vampire" in Romanian) film based heavily on Bram Stoker's novel. In order to avoid heavy lawsuits, they changed many of the character's names, most prominently Count Dracula to Count Orlok. Despite their 'precautions', Stoker's family sued the film company, and the court ordered for all copies of Nosferatu to be destroyed. Somehow, a couple of them survived, allowing us to watch this film today.

So what did I think of Nosferatu? I certainly found it an enjoyable watch. I wouldn't call the film exactly 'terrifying', but it was certainly quite off-putting. Big kudos goes to Max Schreck (Count Orlok) for being a brilliant actor the whole way through. Although the Count's introduction and death is rather underwhelming to say the least, Schreck definitely made it believable that he was an undead monster. A major factor attributed to this is definitely the makeup, which was done very well on Schreck, transforming him into a very creepy monster. Max Schreck also brought to the role a certain style of walking that was very disconcerting. I don't quite have the words to describe the walking style accurately, but it was sort of robotic/zombie-like, and Schreck didn't move his upper body at all, so you get a very strong impression that Schreck is portraying this undead creature that doesn't belong in this world, and that really was one of the most creepy parts of the movie for me, especially the infamous scene where Count Orlok unstintingly stalks up the stairs.

The acting by the rest of the cast was very good. Although they couldn't speak, their non-verbal acting was very good for the majority of the cast. Being black & white and having technological restraints and such, the film couldn't quite carry the tone it needed for parts of the movie. For example, the scene where Count Orlok feeds on the boat crew takes place in the middle of the night, but due to the technical restraints, it looks like it takes place in the day, which can seem strange because later in the movie, the Count dies from the sunlight. Apart from the technical errors, the movie seem to suffer from a few pacing issues, with some scenes dragging out longer then perhaps necessary, but there were scenes that were very well filmed and certainly added to the creepy aspects of the film. I know it doesn't matter to this review, but I'd also like to add that the movie was surprisingly rather faithful to the novel... up to a certain point, and then it removes the final portion of the novel.

Overall, Nosferatu certainly wasn't unwatchable. I definitely didn't HATE it, but I don't think it's a movie I'll watch again... It did a good job being off-putting, but it wasn't particularly horrifying for me, but that's probably because of the 100-year difference in the audience, considering that the movie apparently gave nightmares to many people when it first came out. The movie is also supposed to be watched with a live orchestra, so that may have played a factor in adding to the terror as well. I'm not telling you to go out of your way and make this movie a number 1 priority for you to watch or anything, but if you are a fan of horror movies and especially if you are fan of vampires and specifically Dracula, this is a movie that I don't think you'll regret watching. Personally, I haven't seen too many horror movies, and I'm not particularly a big Dracula or vampire fan, so this movie was okay for me. It wasn't horrible, but it wouldn't be something I would watch again anytime soon. Still, despite my personal feelings, it still doesn't change the fact that it's still a well-made and decently watchable movie in today's time. My final score for this movie is: 3/5.

So THAT was my review of the horror classic Nosferatu (1922). I'm currently not sure on what I'll do for my next post, but I think it will be an adaptation review, and departing from my recent horror-related posts, I have the perfect book & movie in mind. I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur

NOVEL REVIEW: The Outsider (2018) By Stephen King

Recently, I've been on a Stephen King reading spree, and while I'm currently reading Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Something that I will be reviewing), the last book I read was King's 2018 work, The Outsider. The Outsider is the most recent book by King and general plot wise, it's actually VERY similar to IT, because the main antagonist is a creature very similar to It. I will attempt to keep this review spoiler-free, but I will be mentioning some of the major plot points. However, I did read the book with a lot of the plot revealed, and it didn't take away from the experience by any amount. However, if you do not want to be spoiled, I suggest you skip to the last paragraph, which is just my overall thoughts. Without further ado, here is the plot: 

In a fictional town of Flint City, Oklahoma, English teacher and Little League Baseball coach Terry Maitland is arrested by Det. Ralph Anderson for the horrendous rape, murder, and mutilation of 11-year old Frank Peterson. Despite multiple eyewitnesses and DNA evidence against him, Maitland continues to protest his innocence because he has an ironclad alibi placing him at another city miles away at the time of crime, and he is even caught speaking on a news video. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Det. Anderson finds Maitland's case suspicious enough and launches an investigation into it, Hiring Private Eye Holly Gibney (From Mr. Merecedes & the Bill Hodges Series) to investigate. Slowly, Det. Anderson and Holly begin to uncover a malevolent creature of supernatural origins from ancient Mexican legend known as El Cuco, which seems to be the cause of all this. Holly and Det. Anderson, along with few other determined individuals, set out to hunt down the monster, the cause of all this trouble...

I really enjoyed this novel overall because of how much it reminded of IT, just generally in terms of the main antagonist. El Cuco was very well built up and I liked that King used a real-life folklore as the inspiration for his villain. All of the characters were very well developed, and throughout the course of the novel, I genuinely began to care about the fate of some of the characters and became very much invested in others. The plot was full of suspense and it worked well as a thriller-mystery novel. I'm not sure if this was meant to be horror or not, but other then the rather graphic descriptions of the crimes, the book wasn't particularly scary to me, but the suspenseful way King wrote the novel was still very interesting. I also really loved that King brought in Holly Gibney, and how her introduction into the story wasn't forced and it really felt natural and normal. The book was very, VERY good, except for one MAJOR complaint: the ending was very disappointing. The book did an amazing job building up the suspense all the way up to the climax, but the final confrontation with the antagonist was very anticlimactic. The antagonist (AKA the outsider) is set up as this deadly, cunning, mastermind, but doesn't really do much other then just talk a lot. I liked the idea of the characters having to follow the antagonist's trail, so having the outsider not appear directly much was, I think, a very good choice. However, when the outsider DID show up, it was very disappointing. It doesn't do much, and although it left a bloody trail behind, it actually doesn't do much throughout the actual novel. All of its actions took place BEFORE the events of the novel took place so the readers don't actually get much of the outsider the entire book. What we DO get of the outsider however, is still reasonably good. Like I said, the confrontation between the outsider and the protagonists were rather disappointing, but apart from all that the outsider is written very well as this terrifying, vile creature, which I really liked, and I hope to see more characters like the outsider in future King novels.

In conclusion, The Outsider is a very well-written Stephen King Thriller-Mystery with very compelling characters and an engrossing plot. Despite the major flaw I discussed earlier that I found with this book, I still thoroughly enjoyed it and I found this to be one of the most interesting Stephen King novels I read. The characters were again, very likable, and even in terms of the antagonists, they were so well-written that you were constantly invested in their actions, and I don't think there was a single character in the entire novel I found boring. Even the most minor of side characters who were in it for only a couple of pages managed to be very distinct in my mind thanks to King's fantastic writing, and I like that all of the major characters do get some sort of closure. While being very similar to IT and Mr. Mercedes, The Outsider wasn't as overly descriptive as IT, being only 560 pages, and had a fairly simple but still interesting plot like Mr. Mercedes. Although I am by no means an expert on King (considering I haven't read most of his works), I found this novel to be one the best that I've read so far. Normally, a novel this good would warrant either a 5/5 or a 4.5/5, but unfortunately, the flaw I discussed earlier did throw me off of the book quite a bit. So my final score for The Outsider will be 4/5, but don't let that stop you from reading the book. It's still an amazing novel and it's always amazing to see that Stephen King is pumping out masterpieces at his age!

So I guess that was my second post... This will be more or less the general length of future film and movie reviews. Be on the lookout for my next review, which will be coming shortly in the company of Count Orlock! I always will enjoy hearing from all of you, so if you have any comments, feedbacks, opinions, suggestions, etc., please feel free to comment, and I WILL respond to ALL comments!

Your Most Faithful Blogger, 

The Connoisseur