Director Adrian Lyne centers his movie on an unhappy marriage and misunderstands the twisted sensibility of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Many considered novelist Patricia Highsmith a difficult woman with strange, irritating habits. Not only did she drink too much and start scenes, she was also caustic with her critics and misanthropic…

Though relatively faithful to the novel, the movie isn’t just a simple retelling but actually fresh perspective of the original story. Cinematic adaptations of horror writer Stephen King’s books have varied wildly, from masterpieces (Carrie in 1976 and The Shining in 1980) to forgettable schlock (Creepshow in 1982 and Silver…

In his new movie Nightmare Alley, director Guillermo Del Toro tries to create yet another trademark dark fairy tale but avoids the ambiguous morality of the source material. If you ever wanted to run away to join the circus, the novel Nightmare Alley, written by William Lindsay Gresham in 1947…

Aided by Vincent Price, Roger Corman dared to tread where few filmmakers would go: the works of Edgar Allen Poe He was called “The Pope of Pop Culture” and the “King of B-movies,” giving many famous actors (Robert DeNiro, Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper) and many famous directors (Francis Ford Coppola…

The Hays Code couldn’t do much to this squeaky clean but entertaining film about strippers, vaudeville and murder. Whether its onstage or onscreen, sex will always sell. But burlesque stripper Gypsy Rose Lee climbed to fame by adding a saucy wit and lively banter to her act without showing nearly…

Brian De Palma’s incomprehensible adaptation of James Ellroy’s novel looks pretty but makes a mess of the story. True crime has always fascinated us. Safe at home, we can plumb the depths of human depravity, as if knowing how evil the world can get will somehow allow us to protect…

The real death in this adaptation of a neo-noir murder mystery is the novel it’s based on. Is there such a thing as an unfilmable novel? A book that can only tell its story in the written word and resists any visual interpretation? There has yet to be an adaptation…

Roman Polanski focuses on the devil worship but leaves the literary discussions of the novel behind In Roman Polanski’s 1968 horror classic Rosemary’s Baby the Antichrist wants to be a daddy, and manipulates everyone around innocent, elfin Rosemary Woodhouse to make her his baby mama. In The Ninth Gate (1999)…

This French adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel is crisp and gorgeous but doesn’t have the nerve the book does. Most successful novel adaptations require fidelity to the source, but there are exceptions. Patricia Highsmith’s novels are often used a starting point for movies that explore the criminal mind without any…