We know. You're not surprised. But call me surprised that the very people who will be bringing Stephen King's short story to life are the same masterminds behind the most recent onslaught of the senses (at least four senses, anyway), A QUIET PLACE. What are the chances....
THE BOOGEYMAN Was Simply a Short Story Stephen King Wrote for His Anthology NIGHT SHIFT Back in the Day
And now we're going to see it on the big screen -- as a motion picture. Lovely.
The premise is easy enough: a man recently loses all his children to a creature lurking in the closet. So, the Boogeyman.
The interesting thing about this is it's the eleventh short story of Stephen King to be adapted into film. That's impressive. It's not terribly easy adapting a short story into a film as you see, for example, 1408 (the short story) is a whole lot different from 1408 (the film). A lot of fleshing out involved.
My Worry Is That This May Be a Massive Misfire for the Makers of A QUIET PLACE
As the boogeyman has been quite the staple of horror stories for quite some time now. We had that lackluster 2005 film of essentially the same title, and then of course who can top SINISTER? Perhaps Stephen King's short story can.
Truth can be much more frightening than fiction. Such is the case of the incident at the Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles -- the death of Elisa Lam. And that's proof that while many a horror mind such as Wes Craven can come up with the terrors of Elm Street, nothing beats reality at times. In fact, many of the best horror films and stories end up inspired by real events.
So What Is the Death of Elisa Lam?
Paralyzing, really. And still quite the mystery. No one understands. But on January 31, 2013, there was footage of the lady herself, a blogger traveling the West Coast. She was seen in an elevator at the Cecil Hotel, as you see here:
Interesting. Right? After this footage, Lam literally disappeared. She was checking in with her parents daily until after the 31st. Then dead silence. And no one knew where she was.
Some theorized she was having psychotic episodes of some kind. Others thought she was demonized, possessed by the Devil or some other evil spirit. And still others surmised that there were assailants out of the camera's view, people you couldn't see beyond the scope of the camera inside the elevator. It's hard to tell.
That's Not Even the Freaky Part, as Mysterious as This Footage Is:
Around that same time Lam was having this 'issue' in the elevator, other residents in the Cecil Hotel started complaining about the weirdest thing: the water supply.
Several stated during the eight days of the investigation into the disappearance of Elisa Lam that the "shower was awful," and that when you "turned the tap on, the water was coming black first for two seconds and then it was going back to normal" with the H2O tasting "horrible."
It was at that time on February 19 that a hotel employee decided to climb up to the roof of the Cecil Hotel just to investigate the establishment's water storage tanks....
That's where that employee found the decomposing...naked body of a lady. It was Elisa Lam. And all of her personal items were found nearby.
Chalk It Up to Just an Accident, Right? (The Autopsy Stipulated It as Such)
But hold on a second.... Reports after the discovery showed that access to the roof was secure with an alarm and lock. So it begged the question -- how did Lam get up there in the first place?
We can get into the apparent history of the infamous Cecil Hotel, too: "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez, a serial killer found guilty for 14 murders back in the '80s, actually lived on the 14th floor of that same hotel for several months back in 1985. Jack Unterweger, another serial killer actually was accused of killing three prostitutes in the Cecil Hotel back in 1991. Unterweger then killed himself while imprisoned in 1994. In 1962, a female guest leaped to her death from one of the hotel's windows, not only killing herself, but a poor pedestrian below.
So, essentially, we have a real-life 1408 a la Stephen King. Yay. Remind me not to stay at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles, please.
Stories like this don't just come out of nowhere. It's almost existential. Paranormal. Perhaps the man, the master of horror, saw a rupture in time and was able to foresee something through the words of his stories. Come to think of it: this actually sounds like one of his stories! Like when the horror novelist writes a story and it comes to life, miraculously. Shudder at the thought, yet it mesmerizes you. Stephen King does that to you, man!
Well, He Just Did It, and Now He's Pulling the Plug on Himself!
We get it, though. It's shocking when you predict something, much to your own horror. It's no secret that Stephen King has been completely against Donald Trump being President, so much so that he even posted to his 2.5MM followers the actual plot line of his "newest horror story" about Trump actually becoming President. It was a simple start:
"Once upon a time, there was a man named Donald Trump, and he ran for president. Some people wanted him to win."
Potentially very good. See below. It turns out that the announcement is official according to the Carrie Bradshaw of the Sanderson bunch (Sarah Jessica Parker): there will be a "Hocus Pocus" sequel, premiering on Disney+.
