What Scares You?

For over a century, audiences have been entertained by horror films. Over time, horror films have adapted and changed into our society's standard of liking. The question that filmmakers have been trying to answer is, why do people like horror films so much? The answer lies within a semi-breakdown of psychoanalytic theories. It seems to be that whether you are watching a horror film just for the thrill of it, or trying to accomplish your fear over a specific "creature", as long as you are in a safe confinement, you want to watch a horror film. As humans, we know in the back of our minds that horror films aren't real, so it makes it a little easier to be able to watch things that scare us. Horror films help us identify what we are truly scared of and what we are not scared of.

Love Creates Horror

Love Creates Horror:

    In a book to movie comparison, we talk about the well-known author, Stephen King. Stephen King is anticipated to release a sequel to his successful novel, The Shining. King talks about how he is nervous about this particular sequel because the common thought of the general public about a sequel is, "It cannot be as good as the first one,". King has matured as a writer since The Shining hit bookstores, writing it at age 28. This experience should give King a slight advantage to make his sequel as successful as the first book.
Some worries King face are knowing his audience and their mindset to a sequel. "The fear is that people will come back expecting that kind of scare as grown-ups and that just never happens," King explains. King emphasizes that to really scare his older audience, he will have to make the novel in a honorable way, letting the audience get emotionally invested into the characters. "What I want the audience to do is fall in love with these people, and really to care about them and that creates the suspense that you need.. Love creates horror." If King does get his audience to fall in love with his characters, than he is more likely to have a successful sequel that he hopes for. 

Faithfulness to what?

The overall goal of a film maker is making the translation of faithfulness of literary text successful.

There are multiple features to take into consideration when translating the parent text. If there are two love interests that the audience falls in love with, you must be able to display that chemistry throughout the movie’s entirety.

• a turning point: a major fight scene
• the theme of the entire book
• the enemy
• the main point of the book
• main characters and their chemistry

Comparing translation with a scene from 'Safe Haven' the film, to the book: This scene in the movie is towards the end of the film where Katie has a flashback of Kevin (her abusive husband) having dinner with her and she upsets him in the smallest way. He gets enraged and starts to abuse her. He pulls a knife on her and she has to fight back or she will get killed. She has to stab her husband in the ribcage to get out of his death grip (it’s very violent)- she nearly escapes. In the book, the suspense builds up and keeps the reader on their toes. The book also incorporates details about the abuse.

I think in translating the film to the book it was successful capturing the "dark scary" scene. The film did have suspense that kept your focus and made you feel sympathy for the victim in the scene. I think the film did translate very well from the book and gained the respect it deserved. However, the intense suspenseful scene could have been a bit longer, building the anticipation more, which would've equaled the book's intensity that was well-known.  

Adaption or Translation

It seems to be the "trend" to compare movies to books in this day in age. Books like The Hunger Games, the Harry Potter series, and the Twilight Saga are widely popular and world renowned. The book sales and movie sales both entail multi-million earnings.

It seems to me a movie tries to capture the essence of the book that the audience fell in love with. The hold up for movies trying to hold to the books standards is the time frame. With books, there is no time frame to capture all the ideas, emotions, and surprises that come with an extraordinary novel. As for movies, in order to make an extraordinary film, it has to be in a reasonable time frame, so you don't lose your audience's attention.

I believe it is possible to establish a less subjective more impartial apparatus to help determine the merits of literature-based films. As for creative directors, it takes a fine talent to establish the same plot and key events as in a popular film, with their own little twist to the film, while capturing the audience's approval. Can a director throw in surprises in the film that were not in the novel to cause controversy and give their film more publicity? Seems like a savvy business move to me.