You Can't Kill Stephen King (2012)

Movie: You Can't Kill Stephen King (2012), directed by Ronnie Khalil, Monroe Mann, Jorge Valdés-Iga

Watched on: Amazon Prime

Ran: 7.37 miles, 9’27”/mile, 01:09:39 (slow recovery run)

 

Rule Number 1: always be wary of films with more than one director. Oh, sure, there are exceptions, like some of the Wachowski sisters’ movies, and also anything directed by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont—don’t bother arguing with me because that is a HILL I WILL HAPPILY DIE ON. But generally speaking, a movie having multiple directors is a red flag that might indicate a lack of focus or authorial voice. And that’s why I wish I’d done my due diligence before watching You Can’t Kill Stephen King.

 

What can I say? I was in a rush to choose, I was in the mood for something a little lighthearted and goofy after the dreadalanche that was Are We Not Cats, and YCKSK seemed like it might hit the spot. I expected a self-aware spoof that parodied the tropes of the genre and specifically brought horror icon Stephen King into the mix to set it apart in a pretty crowded space. (I should clarify: I thought King and his work would feature heavily in the plot. I don’t mean I expected the actual factual Stephen King to appear in this movie; he does not, although that would have been nifty, and might have been a saving grace if done well.)

 

While I like Stephen King, most people wouldn’t consider me a fan. I’ve read maybe a half-dozen of his novels, a few of his short story collections, and his excellent book on writing. I’ve watched, and mostly enjoyed, a bunch of movies adapted from his stuff. But I’m definitely not one of those people who have memorized every detail of the man’s life and enormous body of work—which is in some sense a bummer, since those are likely the only people to get much out of the slogfest that is YCKSK.

 

It begins with mild promise, setting itself up as the expected spoof: there’s an underwear-clad co-ed running screaming through the woods until she takes a shovel to the face, Looney-Tunes-style instead of horror-flick-style. After the title card, the characters are introduced with onscreen captions revealing their horror stereotypes, such as “shell-shocked Iraq veteran” and “creepy virgin” and “attention whore.” These six friends are driving to a lake in Maine for some speedboating and cavorting in bikinis, but Ronnie—the aforementioned creepy virgin—is only tagging along because he’s stalking his personal hero Stephen King, who he’s heard lives at the lake they’re visiting.

 

However, the townspeople are transparently anxious to convince them that Mr. King doesn’t live there after all. And after an interminable wakeboarding montage (what is with all the wakeboarding I’ve been seeing in horror movies lately? Jeez, at least in the Friday the 13th remake it was topless), “token black friend” Lamont gets his throat slit while refueling the minivan at a gas station. The local cops inform the rest of the group that Lamont was killed by a wolf, but they have their doubts—especially when Lamont’s severed head shows up on a stake outside their window and they start getting picked off one by one. Monroe notices that the murders all resemble deaths in Stephen King stories, so they hatch a plan to catch the killer by exploiting that fact.

 

It’s not much of a plot, but YCKSK has some positive qualities, to be sure. For one thing, for an indie flick that didn’t have studio cash to burn, it looks better than you’d expect, and kudos to the cinematographer, because a couple of the shots were downright gorgeous. The cast, too, turned in performances that weren’t exactly Oscar-caliber, but they were slightly better than I usually see in movies of this pay grade.

 

Unfortunately, that’s about all I can list in the asset column. YCKSK isn’t remotely scary, and only barely even tries to be funny after the first 15 minutes. (When it does try, it rarely succeeds.) That’s one of the things that’s so off-putting: for a movie that sets itself up as a comedy, it’s all over the map, tonally speaking. Once the first body hits the ground, YCKSK goes full slasher-whodunit and contains less humor than a lot of straight-up horror movies sprinkle in as comic relief… but there sure is a lot of heavy drama about “Iraq veteran” Monroe’s PTSD and the strain it puts on his relationship with Lori, the on-again-off-again love of his life. The movie couldn’t make up its mind whether it should be a comedy, a horror movie, or a romance drama. Gee, it’s almost like it had three different directors or something.

 

Add to that the fact that Ronnie edges out Jar Jar Binks near the top of my Most Annoying Movie Characters list and that the film spends an hour building up to the shocking revelation which is ALREADY IN THE DANG TITLE, and, well, maybe give this one a miss. The possible exception might be if, unlike me, you happen to be a slavering Stephen King devotee. You may well enjoy spotting the zillion little references to his books, but even the casual King fan will pretty much just say, “oh, the mom and son in the diner are named Wendy and Danny like in The Shining, neat” and leave it at that. Use your judgement.

 

(Incidentally, a corollary to Rule Number 1: if two of the directors are also the lead actors, hoooo boy.)