Sg.hu – City of Horrors – Stephen King is never boring

Sunday, October 13, 2024 11:56 am

The City of Horrors has become a true classic vampire film, which will not be for everyone, but despite its faults, it is still entertaining.

So far, Stephen King’s novels have been adapted in two ways: brilliant, cult (The first part, Prisoners of Hope, Death row, 1408) or in a way that also skimps on the quality of TV movies (Langolier, Maximum Overdrive, The second part). City of Horrors is an early King novel that has already been adapted for television, and it didn’t turn out badly. Production of the new version began in 2019, as a result of the success of the AZ films that exploded the bank at the time, but production did not go nearly as well.

So much so that the final result ended up on HBO Max and unfortunately, after watching it, it is understandable why. There is a small town where a mysterious antiques dealer arrives – and a writer who spent his childhood in the town and came for inspiration. However, the former is a vampire and slowly begins to take over the city and transform the inhabitants.

To be honest, City of Horrors is my favorite King epic, along with AZ and Doomsday, but it must be admitted that this story is already very dusty. And if the makers don’t want to change anything, then unfortunately this dust will bother the viewer’s eyes. Because although they didn’t change almost anything about the story, unfortunately the same is true for the execution.

The idea, according to which instead of presenting the depressing small-town life, we get a classic vampire film, is not bad anyway, since at least the classic rules apply here. They die in sunlight, they don’t have superhuman strength, garlic and stakes and crosses have a bad effect on them and they change after a bite. Moreover, their implementation was very well resolved, especially the shining cross or certain transformations (or their prevention).

However, the story itself is very rambling. The story of the writer Ben is exciting, what happened to his parents provides an interesting background, but unfortunately his story doesn’t get anywhere. At one point, they seem to have forgotten what they started with. The other is the love story, which is also very crappy. The relationship between the characters is not built and the dramatic ending is more ridiculous than touching or scary.

At the beginning, the inhabitants of the city slowly disappear, and then at one point we notice that everyone who lived and moved disappeared in a matter of seconds. This is somewhat understandable, since the film is still quite long with its 1 hour and 54 minutes running time, but more introductions could have been included, since we can’t worry about those we don’t know. Or, if the goal is action-packed horror, then the time could have been spent hunting down the residents in a nice slow motion, but instead we have to watch Ben goof around.

City of Horrors was produced under the supervision of James Wan, so the film itself is very well shot, the cinematography is impeccable and the location is also atmospheric. Among the scares, there are also truly terrifying ones, but unfortunately, they are mostly ridiculous. The main vampire is a bit nerdy rather than scary. But then why did I write in the introduction that the film is entertaining?

Well, because it is. City of Horrors has many flaws, but it’s great material. It’s great to see classic solutions professionally photographed and polished. At first, it’s not even certain who will survive, as they take figures off the board without thinking, that we wouldn’t have thought of. Despite this, not everyone will like the film’s dusty effect, but it’s still worth giving it a chance. It’s a typical TV movie, so it would have been a mistake to send it to the cinema, but it’s in the right place on the small screen. 6/10