And I wonder what the sellers claim about the product quality: "Utterly pristine"? "Tattered but salvageable"? "In perdition condition"?
--9:34 P.M., July 8th
Getting back to Ghost Story, the subject of Tuesday's post...
Peter Straub's bestselling novel was given the cinematic treatment two years after its 1979 release. The film featured some nightmarish images, impressive "Make-Up Illusions" by the legendary Dick Smith, and a spooky old house that looks like it might have been vacated by The Addams Family. But the screenplay severely truncates and reworks Straub's complex plot (e.g., key Chowder Society member Lewis Benedikt is left out of the film, and there is no mention whatsoever of the manitou). This is a movie that's begging to be remade, perhaps even as a cable miniseries or series. The venue (film or TV) would no doubt determine the level of actors employed, but here are some of my casting choices for the main characters:
Frederick Hawthorne: The ever-likable Harrison Ford seems perfectly suited to the role of elderly protagonist (and he'd have no problem pulling off Frederick's jacket-and-bow-tie look).
Don/David Wanderley: Sam Rockwell, who played dual roles so well in Moon, would excel as the pair of revenant-haunted twin brothers.
Eva Galli/Alma Mobley: Her recent turn on American Horror Story proved that Kata Mara knows how to do vengeance from beyond the grave.
Sears James: Crotchety yet full of gravitas? Paging Jeff Bridges. Alternately: Frasier's John Mahoney.
Lewis Benedikt: Who better to play a handsome but aging ladies' man than Tom Selleck?
Gregory Bate: As Shane on The Walking Dead, Jon Bernthal showed he could radiate menace with the best of 'em.
Here's a trivia game for readers of the classic Peter Straub novel. The letters comprising the answers to the four numbered clues are drawn from the pool below (suggestion: jot down the letters on scrap paper and then cross them off as you go; each successful answer will improve your chances of coming up with the correct responses to the other clues). Those letters contained in brackets ([ ]) can then be unscrambled to form the answer to the BONUS question.
The letter pool:
D I K N R S B I L F
R C F O B H Y D C O
G I T V W T I R L D
O E D W I N E O U E
A N R T L H N I T O
B A O E R Y G M
1.Name of the group that meets to share ghost stories:
