"It's not a monster. It's just a doggy."

Is it fair to judge a film alongside the work of literature on which it is based?

Believe me, I had to add a whole circle down here just for condescending assholes who run around telling everybody, "The book is so much better than the movie."

And trust me when I tell you that the only reason I want anyone literate is to read my blog or an incantation that would summon me to manifest myself in the flesh on Earth. Generally, the less you know about words, the more likely you are to gloss over the fine print in contracts. Think of it this way, if Robert Johnson had more fancy book-learnin', you wouldn't have rock 'n' roll today, nor would I have been able to subject you to embarrassing white blues.

On the other hand, everyone who made it to 10th grade figured out you can't pass an English final by just watching the movie, because there are major differences in what makes a film work and what makes a novel work.

So taking that quandary to heart, this week's Thursday Thriller is Cujo.

This 1983 Lewis Teague film is based on the novel by Stephen King. It's about a lady named Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace) who, through a complex series of most unfortunate of events, gets stuck with her 4-year-old son Tad (Danny Pintauro) for a couple of days in the middle of summer, out at the ass end of nowhere in a broken down Pinto, and a 200-pound, rabid St. Bernard won't let them out for water.

Donna's an adulteress, and her husband Vic (Daniel Hugh Kelly) just found out about her infidelity as he was getting ready to leave town on business, so he forgot to call Joe Camber (Ed Lauter) to see if he could fix Donna's Pinto. Even if he had called, Joe couldn't come to the phone, but Donna might not have tried to take her car out to his farm, where the only living inhabitant to be found was Cujo.

Is the movie any different than the book? Yes, the dog is too young, spry, and clean. This guy's too skinny, that guy's too muscly, that kid doesn't look nearly enough like yours, and no one is being big enough an asshole.


Does that mean the movie's bad? No, the book is over 300 pages long. Everyone has time to be an asshole. Movies have to stick around 90 minutes or else they become a nuisance. Some assholatry had to be cut for time, so you still get to watch a killer dog terrorize a child.

Is the movie scary? Yes.

Is it better than the book? We're talking about Stephen King. He writes some really hateful assholes. If you never read King, you're going to miss out on passages like:

At quarter past eight that morning, Gary Pervier staggered out of his house in his pee-stained underwear shorts and urinated into the honeysuckle. In a perverse sort of way he hoped that someday his piss would become so rancid with booze that it would blight the honeysuckle. That day hadn't come yet.

So should you read the book before you watch the movie? If you want to. Either way I think you'll have fun.

Cujo: The movie streams on Netflix and the novel is probably available at your local library or used book store.