Book Lair discussion

Well I am watching the movie adaptation of Cujo.

There's some differences so far. Cujo got bit before meeting the Trentons, Donna is blonde and Kemp is not what I envisioned at all. Not sure what to think of him socializing with the entire family like that and he shook over the net after losing, which he totally didn't do in the book.

Victor drove up to the expensive mechanic on his own, postman mentioned Joe Camper, and next thing you know he is driving there with his wife and kid. No idea how that happened.

I am enjoying it, the movie is very 80s eh, trip down memory lane!

Hmm Vic finding out about Kemp like that... Meh. Well I guess it works for the movie but I still prefer the book version :P

Gawd what they did to that dog *gag*
Gross!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it, Kandice and everyone else!

I saw it last time a few years ago. I remember feeling that the changes they made were kind of essential to the visual media.

I've read a ton about how they "made" Cujo the actual dog. They used four St. Bernards and a Rottweiler. They couldn't get the St.s to look menacing enough so they painted the Rotty to look like one for the close ups of the face and eyes. They used some concoction for the foam that the dogs loved the taste of, so that was a huge challenge! They also had to remove the tail in a lot of the scenes because the St.s were always happy and wagging theirs.

Funny, right?

Even though Dee was a blonde, I really felt she may have played the very best King character on screen ever. She certainly rivaled Bates Wilkes in my opinion.

Oh well that explains why the dog licked himself so much - yuck!! >.<

Nice trivia! I really enjoyed reading that, thanks.

I find that the tail wagging adds to the creepy factor, actually. I remember reading about it in the book as well. And there was at least one scene where that happened in the movie, I think when he is murdering Gary. But yeah I guess in the long run it wouldn't make much sense.

Yeah she did very well, very expressive, and I believe movie Donna made a better mother than the book one.

I agree that most changes made sense in the movie adaptation but some lacked context like the one I mentioned regarding the drive to the car shop and there was just much more build up in the book, like Vic not being sure where his wife was and in the movie he blurts out that she was going to the Cambers.

How did you feel about the ending?

By the way, the movie is available here if you want to check it out: http://ffilms.org/cujo-1983/

I think the movie ending was a total cop out! The book ending was pure King, but I can see why they changed it.

The one change in the movie I really dislike is Steve shaking hands over the net. I hadn't remembered that, but you mentioned it and that seems like an unnecessary change.

Thanks for the movie link!!

My pleasure!

And yep, totally agree.

I think Steve Kemp is the character they changed the most dramatically in the movie.