Thinner (film): Book was much better than the film
I hate to be cliche, but the title of this article is exactly the truth.
I realize this is extremely common for Stephen Kin adaptations but in my youth anyway, i have very fond memories of the book and well... not so much from the film.
The year was 1996 and well, we had already been through 15 years of Stephen King films, most of which were a little less than spectacular. This was one of the ones on the middle to low end.
The story is about an obese lawyer that does something bad to a gypsy family and he ends up getting cursed by one of the magical ones of the community and regardless of what he Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke) does after being cursed, he continues to lose massive amounts of weight. Eventually Billy will approach the gypsy family and plead with them and later try to force them via violence to change what they are doing to him via the curse.
None of his advances work though and a couple of his friends are suffering the same fate but with different afflictions.
The morale of the story is to not mess with gypsys... i guess. I wouldn't anyway, but even if you are a high-fallutin' lawyer with tons of dangerous and expensive friends, that can not help you.
fat lawyer at the beginning
The movie just isn't great. I can't explain exactly why and if you were to ask fans of King's books they might suggest that the reasoning behind this lack-of-greatness is because the book wasn't that great to begin with. I don't agree with that but i will admit that a big part of the reason why I liked "Thinner" the book was because it was about 300 pages shorter than the average Stephen King Book.
You don't know the ending to this film. It has a "double-twist" both in the book and in the film versions of the story. Overall, i would say that this movie can be skipped but if you have a 5 hour flight at any point in the not-too-distant-future, reading the book "Thinner" will be much more worthwhile.
wow... trailers were really not great in the 90's were they?
Haha yes, trailers were not really a thing like they are now. I'd like Salem's lot to be made into a movie now in 2018. Being my favorite SK book, I'd really want to see it.
Lol well I haven't seen either so I guess I'll get the book then
excellent filam.
i like this actor.
The lawyer must be the one who was pictured on the cover
Hahaha, Tom Holland's Thinner is an excellent horror tale that deserves more praise than it originally got. Tom Holland is a great director in the genre and he crafts yet another terrific tale of horror based on the book by the same name by Stephen King (who wrote the book under the pseudonym Richard Bachman). The plot surrounds Billy Halleck who is cursed by Gypsy's after Helleck accidentally kills a member of their clan. Now, Billy Halleck is losing weight more and more. Holland delivers a great film with Thinner, and he keeps the chills going due to his knack of creating a tense, creepy atmosphere, which he applied in his 1985 masterwork, Fright Night. This is a well made horror film that has some great special effects and effective chills to keep you interested from start to finish. Thinner is quite frankly an underrated Stephen King adaptation and it definitely is worth seeing if you love King's work. This is an entertaining film that should appeal to horror fans. Despite its flaws, this is one of the better King adaptations and it is one of the better horror films of the 90's. At times the film is genuinely creepy and Tom Holland pulls off something wonderful with great scrip at hand, therefore this is the director's best work since 1985's Fright Night. If you're looking for an effective and entertaining horror yarn, give this film a shot. A much underrated film, Thinner deserves a bit more praise than what it actually received. This is a memorable horror film that boasts impressive special effects and pretty good acting.
copy and pasted from Rotten Tomatoes
I loved the book when I read it. It's a simple tale of revenge with a twist. Like a lot of King's work that has been adapted this fell short of matching the book in its creepiness. Although, I didn't think it was awful. There are much, much worse King adaption's out there.
The acting is pretty decent and the score works well. The technical aspects are all solid. There isn't a lot I can nitpick about on that level. In many ways, this almost feels like a made for TV movie. For the most part, the FXs are solid. This story never really needed to be super gory anyway. What the film failed to capture was the creepy vibe of the book. The hell Billy goes through as he withers away is pretty hard to capture on screen. While they do an okay job of it, it fails to reach the same heights.
The film is still watchable and enjoyable on a certain level. It's very middle of the road. I'll still throw this one on again at some point. The runtime is a plus when it comes to this one. It scratches the King itch without having to go to one of the standbys.
It's worth a watch for fans of King and horror movie junkies. Outside of that, I'm not so sure it will have a lot of mass appeal.
My Rating is also same to you : 5 out of 10
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0117894/reviews?sort=submissionDate&dir=desc&ratingFilter=0