Perhaps one of the most audacious adaptations of the works of Stephen King is Haven, a new Showcase Original series about a somewhat haunted female FBI agent and some very strange shenanigans in small-town Maine. The audacity stems from the fact that Haven is loosely based on King’s 2005 crime novella The Colorado Kid—a novella notable for being about an unsolvable mystery that indeed remains unexplained at story’s end. Herewith, a series of blogs examining the hows, wherefores and whys concerning various adaptations of Stephen King’s works. Adaptation is a slippery skill, and those who play with it often change not just the rules but the game itself, as the residents of a small town called Haven, and a dead guy nicknamed ‘Colorado,’ know all too well…

Haven Blog, Part 4:
YOU ARE MY SON, SHINING, MY ONLY SON, SHINING
by Gary Butler

As Haven episodes go, “Fur” and “Sketchy,” airing tonight at 10pm ET/PT, are two of the better stories in terms of high-concept supernatural powers—animals as remote-controlled killers, an artist’s sketchpad that can affect reality—but are admittedly limited by their FX budgets. While CGI has come a long way over the last couple of decades, it still has a long way to go; computers require direction and creativity from those programming them, and can’t just give us cool imagery at the touch of a button (as “Sketchy” demonstrates: art needs artists).

Perhaps it is the subject matter of animals in “Fur” that brings to mind Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film of The Shining, adapted from Stephen King’s 1977 horror classic about a haunted hotel. In one very effective section of King’s novel, young hero (and psychic) Danny Torrance wanders into one of the hotel’s grand gardens, where hedges have been clipped in the shapes of various animals. With each step Danny takes deeper into the garden, he hears a shuffling sound, over his shoulder—but whenever he turns around for a look, everything is still. Before long, he realizes not only that the animals are converging on him, but also that they can only move when he is not looking at them.

It’s a powerfully claustrophobic scene in a powerfully agoraphobic novel. The topiary animals apparently would have cost an, ahem, king’s ransom for director Kubrick to adapt to film, given the limitations of special effects in that era; there is also a valid argument that multiple stances for multiple animals would have proven costly in terms of mere time investment, all for a sequence that would barely last minutes. And, as the otherwise-excellent 2007 episode “Blink” from the Dr. Who TV series proved, to sculpt only a handful of the monsters—in this case, statues of weeping angels—and then try to suggest movement by filming the creatures from different angles is practical, but ineffective. In the end, Kubrick instead used a ten-foot-tall hedge maze (in which film crew members are reported to have become lost, themselves).

Much has been made of King’s dismissal of Kubrick’s film, even if that opinion has softened over time. Regardless, it was the first adaptation to cause the author to feel protective of his works in the hands of other creators and other media—an interesting take on the father-son relationship that is central to the novel itself.

It’s also worth noting that when King approved a second adaptation of The Shining, for TV in 1997, the hedge animals were back. Critics and fans largely agreed, though, that the animals were less effective because they were actually shown moving, via overhead camera shots; sinister, sure, but not full-on, back-turned, nowhere-to-run scary.

Back to Haven: “Fur” is a fun, X-Files-ish episode—really, isn’t this the case with all of the episodes in this series?—and it scores extra creative points for vesting a local taxidermist in an EC-style horror situation (as in, 1950s comic books such as Tales from the Crypt, which was a major influence on King and the subject of his 1982 homage film Creepshow).

Still, “Fur’s” finale could have packed a bit more visual punch; maybe they should have used static hedge animals instead? As well, the over-arching mystery of the potential father-daughter relationship between FBI agent Parker and the ‘Colorado Kid’ has failed to evolve for many consecutive episodes now. With only six episodes remaining, there’s no doubt whatsoever that the Kid’s story will finally come to the forefront, and soon. Given King’s take on Kubrick’s Shining, though, and the fact that his novella, The Colorado Kid, is the source of inspiration for the show, this can only be a good thing for all concerned—the viewers in particular.

TWO WEEKS FROM NOW, Haven Blog #5: EC DOES IT—STEPHEN KING AND HORROR COMIC BOOKS