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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:00 pm:   

So are there any and if so, are they any good?

And if not, filmmakers, get your fingers out!
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.163.176.9
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:03 pm:   

Two, I think. Los Sin Nombre was ok. Didn't really capture him, tho.
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Paul_finch (Paul_finch)
Username: Paul_finch

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:13 pm:   

I remember a TV documentary about Ramsey's work many years ago - possibly as far back as the early 80s. It contained various dramatised extracts from several of his stories, but these were tantalisingly brief.

Perhaps the man himself can advise as to whether these were parts of larger wholes, or whether they were done specifically for the doc.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:15 pm:   

'The Nameless' was my intro to Ramsey and I still believe is one of his most frightening books. But part of the appeal of his writing is the close association with place so I can't see it having the same impact set in Spain (as I assume it was).

It would take bleak British locations and grainy cinematography to perfectly capture the essence of his horror - and no CGI!!

What's the other film, Tony?
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Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:16 pm:   

I thought Los Sin Nombre was excellent - really chilling. It took out most of the overt supernatural tones of The Namless, but did some good things with the story and had a great ending.

The other one - an adaptation of The Pact of the Fathers - was pretty good, too.

So far, I'd say Ramsey's been served weill by cinema versions of his work.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.27.30.20
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:38 pm:   

I disagree with Tone. I think both films had more than a little of Ramsey's cloying, grubby and unsettling atmosphere. Sterling attempts to get da man on film.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.163.176.9
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:52 pm:   

It must really depend on what you see in your mind's eye - I see a lot of humour in Ramsey that never really made it into the films. Also the texture of the environments in his books is often a great part of the pleasure and point. For me the film I saw didn't quite manage to capture the things I particularly like about him. I do emphasize that this feels like a personal take. Alan Bennett Talking Heads captures Ramsey more for me, oddly enough, or something like Bergerac (which I know sounds daft and probably is).
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.27.30.20
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 12:55 pm:   

Talking Heads are certainly sinister in their twisted and disarmingly amusing colloquial way. The one with Julie Walters was very frightening.

(Btw, if you fancied giving it a go, don't try and read Julie Walters' novel: it's dreadful. I read about three pages in a place we stayed at recently (it was on the shelf): embarrassingly bad.)
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:01 pm:   

Not as good as the latest Katie Price book?
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:02 pm:   

British horrors of the 70s like 'The Wicker Man' (rural setting) or 'Death Line' (urban setting) have always struck me as Campbellian and are how I imagine any film adaptation of his work should "look".
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.27.30.20
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:11 pm:   

Why oh why do folk who've never written in their lives think they can just write a book? Is it because we all learn language from birth? I mean, you don't get so many celebrities composing music or painting pictures, do you? It's novels. Which use language - the medium of speech. I can speak. Ergo, I can write. Ergo, I can sustain a coherent literary narrative.

A damanable train of logic if ever I heard one.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.163.176.9
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:12 pm:   

Yes - those films fit, too.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.27.30.20
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:12 pm:   

Sorry, we were talking about Ramsey's cinematic potential. Forgive ranting digression.

:-)
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 82.38.75.85
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:17 pm:   

I believe one of the short stories from Scared Stiff became a TV story in the series The Hunger? Can't for the life of me remember which story it was though.

I haven't seen either of the films. I think I agree with Stephen that the association with place is important, so transferring them to a Spanish setting somehow doesn't appeal to me.

It would be great to see some of Ramsey's work on the screen - something like The Darkest Part of the Woods could be turned into an excellent screen chiller. Or, indeed, I'd love to see Ramsey do a screenplay himself ...
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:22 pm:   

It was 'The Seductress', Caroline (forgot about that).

One his most nightmarish short stories given a perfunctory rendering imo. I have both box sets of 'The Hunger' and there's some great stuff in there (Season 2 being better than 1). I quite liked the adaptation of Robert Aickman's 'The Swords'.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.27.30.20
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:23 pm:   

Darkest Part would be very hard to film.

I still think The Influence has the most potential.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.27.30.20
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 01:24 pm:   

Count of Eleven would be genius. Imagine that on ITV on a Sunday evening. Everyone would be talking about it.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 02:04 pm:   

"Alan Bennett Talking Heads captures Ramsey more for me"

I was just thinking that - in CALL FIRST, the man standing outside the library waiting for a student to go in with a bag so he could tell them that they couldn't is pure Bennett. Can't think of many other humourous bits in RC stories, though.
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Paul_finch (Paul_finch)
Username: Paul_finch

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 195.93.21.74
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 02:17 pm:   

A portmanteau of contemporary terror tales, in the style of the Amicus classics, would be well served by an adaptation of several Ramsey stories.

For me, our party of marooned travellers would discuss: THE SAME IN ANY LANGUAGE, THE COMPANION, ABOVE THE WORLD, ROOT CAUSE, and THE SHOW GOES ON.

(And I'm the man to do it, he adds hopefully, just in case some whizzkid producer happens to be reading).
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Steven_spielberg (Steven_spielberg)
Username: Steven_spielberg

Registered: 03-2010
Posted From: 86.27.30.20
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 02:46 pm:   

Dear Mr Finch,

Please come ahead.

Yours,

SS
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.163.176.9
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 03:20 pm:   

The humour in Ramsey's books is sort of in the observations of the world, and people, rather than anything specifically plotty. One of the things that made me love him in the first place was that I used to laugh at a lot of his stories, just before the scary bits.
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 03:45 pm:   

Hey, Paul, how did you do that!

For a second there I almost came in my pants...
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.255.131
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 04:22 pm:   

I enjoyed the film of THE NAMELESS greatly, and thought the climax did perfectly capture the spirit of so many Campbell stories... the rest of it, sure, is it exact? Maybe not, but then Campbell's work is so much more to be read, than witnessed - it's texture-rich, and cerebral, and pan-conscious (for lack of a better term) to an extent that is difficult to represent on film.

A "movie" (filmed play, actually) that seems to capture the flavor of "what happens" after any given story by Ramsey Campbell ends?... The film version of Beckett's ENDGAME, starring Michael Gambon and David Thewliss - a kind of Campbellian hell all its own, that one....

Gary, to your rant: so many writers seem to want it all both ways: if they're rejected, the rejector "knew nothing," and they keep resubmitting to other places, regardless of the rejector's pedigree or actual complaint... so what's the situation going on there?...
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Stephen Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 04:44 pm:   

Sorry, Craig, but I find Ramsey Campbell's descriptive abilities wonderfully visual and his surface plots gripping and easy to follow - always essential when adapting to cinema.

It is these qualities coupled with the cerebral/psychological nature of his "under the surface" themes (a trait he shares with Graham Greene, William Golding & all the greats) that make him such an important writer imho.

When is someone going to realise the rich seam of cinematic potential that exists in his novels and short stories. I despair...
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.163.176.9
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 04:51 pm:   

I know. His stuff just leaps off the page, is so immediate.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 75.4.255.131
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 05:04 pm:   

I mean the richness of the given line, Stephen - lots of times they vibrate with a POV, a paranoia say will imbue the color of a wall, or a particularly referenced terror will enhance the blowing of wind through the trees... that aspect of Campbell is much harder to translate to the screen, so that one can sort of experience without reading, what a RC story is... but no, plots and construction and whatnot, sure, great for films - bring them on!
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 82.38.75.85
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 05:37 pm:   

>>A portmanteau of contemporary terror tales, in the style of the Amicus classics, would be well served by an adaptation of several Ramsey stories.

For me, our party of marooned travellers would discuss: THE SAME IN ANY LANGUAGE, THE COMPANION, ABOVE THE WORLD, ROOT CAUSE, and THE SHOW GOES ON.<<

I almost fainted at the thought. That would be awesome!
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Nathaniel Tapley (Natt)
Username: Natt

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 78.149.199.212
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 06:47 pm:   

I think there is a lot of humour in the characterisations. Those are the ones that I'd pick, on the whole, for the portmanteau film I'd like to see (write): OUT OF COPYRIGHT, WHERE THE HEART IS, IN THE BAG, COLD PRINT, and DOWN THERE.

Oh, and there should almost certainly be a radio adaptation of HEARING IS BELIEVING and END OF THE LINE.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.178.82.41
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 07:14 pm:   

Why oh why do folk who've never written in their lives think they can just write a book?

I would guess it's because ghost writers do the work and anything with a 'celebrity' name associated always sells a certain amount.
Saw the awful Kerry Katona on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (yeah, I know) a couple of years back, promoting a book obviously ghost-written for her.
She couldn't even remember the title when asked...
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.27.30.20
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 08:01 pm:   

No, I'm not referring to those who use ghost-writers. I mean those who try and write their own. The Julie Walters is a perfect example . . . well, perfect in the sense of being utter rubbish.

God, it was awful.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.70
Posted on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 09:50 pm:   

Katie Price rather sweetly says 'I don't do my own typing' when asked whether or not she writes her own books. Of the clips of both her house and Kerry Katona's place, that I've seen on telly, I've not spotted any books there. And of recent pictures in the newspapers of Katie Price on holiday, she didn't seem to have a book with her.

I'm sure the Sharon Osbourne novel will be brilliant, though...

Actually, the Jonathan Creek actor fella had his autobiography out last year and is writing a novel now. When asked how that came about, he said he was doing his book tour and mentioned to the person from his publisher who was driving him around that the night before he'd had a dream that would make for a great novel. PR/driver person mentioned it to her boss and the actor fella was signed up to write it straight away.

Piece of piss this writing/publishing job, innit, guv?
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 09:57 am:   

I never saw any books in either of their houses when I was there sniffing the bedsheets.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.77.198
Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 10:45 am:   

A review of Katie Price's novel:

"I've really enjoyed all Katie Price's novels as they're so easy to read and they help me indulge my secret 'WAG' side and the desire for a bit of celeb goss, albeit fictional. Some of the lines actually made me laugh out loud - not because of the cleverly written humour but because of the cheesy cliche element and in some cases darn-right 'chavvy' literary style. I always thought Katie had help to write her novels but this one just sounds like her and until I heard her say herself on a TV interview that someone else puts the words together for her while she comes up with the storylines, I would've been sure it was all her own work this time. I did enjoy it, a great girlie read - it didn't stimulate my intellect but if that's what you want, read Dan Brown or Paulo Coelho!"
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Huw (Huw)
Username: Huw

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 61.216.49.50
Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 10:57 am:   

Yep, nothing like a bit of Dan Brown to stimulate the old grey matter.
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Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 11:01 am:   

Is that a genuine review?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.229
Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 11:14 am:   

Yeah, off Amazon.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 129.11.76.229
Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 11:16 am:   

It's literate, isn't it? Well punctuated, etc. And yet this 'reviewer' still thinks DB is intellectual fodder.

Dear me.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.70
Posted on Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - 01:44 pm:   

I read a Coelho once. The Zahir. (I'd be interested in reading another to see if it annoyed me as much, if the smug, self-satisfied narrator of the piece was a reflection of PC or him writing with his tongue in cheek.)

Never got past the first page of a Dan Brown. Too intellecthooally advanced for me...
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Patrick Walker (Patrick_walker)
Username: Patrick_walker

Registered: 01-2010
Posted From: 217.171.129.74
Posted on Thursday, March 18, 2010 - 08:01 am:   

I remember, when asked if she wrote her own books, Katie Price replying 'well I use a ghost writer, but apart from that, yes'. Hilarious. That's like saying, upon being asked if you'd really swun across the Channel, 'well I got driven from Dover to Calais in the back of a speedboat, but apart from that, yes'.

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