Originally I planned to do a compare and contrast entry on the recent Dario Argento directed episode of Masters Of Horror, "Jenifer," and the original Creepy #63 from Warren Publishing tale by Bruce Jones and Bernie Wrightson. One is a great short tale, and the other a predictable bit of incredibly predictable predictability. Is that repetitive? Well, Argento and star/writer Steven Weber's take on the material is equally grating! I love many of Argento's films, but this one continues what many consider a downward spiral into ultra-blah. Myself, I enjoyed Nonhosonno quite a lot, but this and the AWFUL Card Player are shaking my faith to the core. I'll always have Tenebre and always thank Dario for it... but damn. I think that the "slow motion kitty kat reacts to horrible Jenifer" shot was something Ted V. Mikels might wonder about doing for fear of it being silly. The Masters Of Horror episode is poorly structured, overlong and mind numbingly easy to predict. No twist, no nothing... and to think, Bernie Wrightson's incredible artwork could have shown them the way...
Now, instead of doing said essay and bothering myself further with the television episode, I instead figured it would be best to let you judge. I was going to use bits of this to illustrate my points, but instead...I give you JENIFER. Enjoy it... I hope this being out there doesn't offend anyone... I'm doing it out of love for the tale. I don't know of any reprints, but every comics fan should grab up a complete run of Creepy if possible! All images are copyright to whoever they are...but come from the minds of some amazing creators.
Click for bigger images of course and have a great weekend with two true masters of horror!
14 comments:
Damn straight! I read the reprint of this as a teen in Twisted Tales and it really disturbed me. I was taken my the snaggle tooth depiction of Jennifer and the whimpering sex that followed. The Masters adaptation was a disappointment. Should have kept the story in the country...
Argento has slid too far to get back to his old glory I think. We will see about the developments in the last of the Three Mothers trilogy...
I knew I had read this before! That's why it sounded so familiar. I'm sorry to hear that argento dropped the ball, but doesn't he always do better with his own material?
Sorry, have to disagree with you here. You cite predictability permeating through Argento and Weber's adaptation, but using the pages in lieu of a fleshed-out written opinion doesn't help your case. In fact, in doing this, you've shown that the duo did indeed remain faithful to Jones and Wrightson's source material.
Argento even goes so far as to mimic a number of frames. I think if Argento strayed too far from the original story, you'd find even more reason to argue about its worth, so it might be a lose-lose situation for Argento either way with you.
I'm not making a case...I thought Argento's adaptation wasn't good so I'm sharing what I consider a far superior version :)
Besides, in the TV version they go into detail about the well to do man becoming an obsessive vagabond...and then we watch it happen with a snore (well, I snored). The original doesn't do this, but to be fair the two mediums are very different. I think time is better spent with the original story than the TV edition.
As far as Argento, I can take him or leave him, so it at least isn't some kind of disappointment about his legacy for me. I will still check out the movie, but at least I know not to expect too much.
I also read the 'Jennifer' reprint
in Twisted Tales as a teen and it
had such an impact on me that I immediately became a Wrightson addict!
Of course the TV adaptation was not as good, it would be almost impossible for it to be.
Still, I felt the episode had some good moments.
I had the pleasure of meeting Berni at a convention last year. It was before the showtime series had come out but I would have liked to have asked Berni's opinion of the episode.
Thanks so much for putting this up in original B/W...
walter
Argento's Jenifer is Fantastic.
Jenifer is Hot!
Imagine a threesome with Jenifer and that baseball zombie number 9 from Land of the dead.There's a knock on the door and it's your girlfriend:Mindy Clarke from Return of the living dead 3!!!!
Pablo!
I used to read Creepy (and Vampirella) in the late Seventies, up until 1982, it was my first introduction to horror fiction as it was, accompanied by great visual artistry. I loved reading horror comics, they were my way of getting my horror fix (because it was difficult to watch the late night films without getting in trouble from my mother - but I'd still manage to watch Vincent Price, Peter Cushing...and many Hammer films).
I watched Argento's version the other night, but tonight I'm going to view the comic (thanks to this page) as well. I did find Argento's adaptation confronting (which is good for horror I think, horror has to be confronting otherwise it's overdone cliche), they cut two scenes to make it through the censor, and I didn't mind it, although I think the sex scenes were overdone - one scene would have been sufficient (but a quarter of it did feature the sexual relationship between Jenifer and her unfortunate benefactor).
The tale was way before my time, but I was looking on the Internet and have noticed that many copies of that issue are sold out, so I'd like to first say thank you for having it up on your page.
I can't believe I didn't find this a lot sooner, sorry for this comment out nowhere, but I felt the need to say something. I was happy as hell to find this.
I've been looking for this issue of Creepy for a while now. No luck so far, but that's how it goes. I agree with you on the Argento piece at least in part, he doesn't quite capture it. That shot with the cat was a bit sophmoric.
Ah well, the search for issue 63 continues. Hasta la bye bye.
dwerenat (on livejournal)
well, having finally read the comic (many thanks by the way) I have to say I like them both, argento may have went a little overboard with the sex scenes but overall I think he stayed faithful to the power jenifer has over those who "rescue" her so I take them as two different tellings of the same story with one not being better than the other they are both good.
I never realized that the episode was based on a classic Creepy tale with Wrightson art no less. Many thanks for posting the tale in full. I love the old-hag's-face-in-the-tree touch in the opening panel. Gotta love Bernie.
In regard to our friend Dario, and I'm a huge fan of the guy's, his later work pales in comparison to his classics such as Deep Red and (his masterpiece) Suspiria. Funny how John Carpenter out-Dario's Dario with his Cigarette Burns, which ran away with the best episode honors for the first series of Masters of Horror.
The Mark of the Feast
I recently watched the Masters of Horror version and ran across this post while researching the original story.
Just wanted to say thanks for sharing the original comic. I've greatly admired Wrightson ever since I saw his Frankenstein work.
What more could you want from the TV adaptation? I thought it was a brilliant and creepy episode, and a faithful adaptation. I really don't see where Argento "failed" to deliver.
All points go to that killer artwork from Wrightson(probably my favorite comic artist Ever!)...however the look of 'Jenifer' was pretty damn close in Argento's short...not bad at all...I don't understand the hate towards it. Probably the closest I've ever seen a Wrightson character on screen!
Post a Comment