Reel Horror

SCIFI Wire sat down with Eli Roth (The Show's favorite director) to discuss Grindhouse, and revealed his concern on taking on Cell due to King's track record with hating the movie adaptations of his books.

"My first question when I adapted it was, 'Can I deviate from the book?'" Roth said in an interview in Beverly Hills, Calif. "It's Stephen King. Am I going to piss off Stephen King? He was mad at Stanley Kubrick [who adapted King's The Shining], I don't want him mad at me. And, finally, Stephen King was like, 'Do whatever you want.'"

Um, that doesn't sound like an endorsement to me. The sound I hear is a cash register. I'm sure King heard it too.

Roth said that he would necessarily change elements of King's book, while maintaining other elements. "I love the opening [scene]," Roth said. "But I also want to keep, ... not necessarily that same chaotic tone, but I want to keep the tension of the opening 40 pages of the book going throughout the whole film and introduce other elements. Because I think the book, for me, where it loses tension is where suddenly you don't feel like the phone crazies are trying to kill them. ... I find that it's finding other ways to make it so you still feel the tension that any second you could get killed [and] carrying that throughout the whole film."

There are few phrases that strike fear in to fans of books more that "introduce other elements." Most of the time it involves a kid that saves the day. Not saying it will happen here, but, seriously, this could go horribly wrong.