This has been covered in the comments section of my Grave of the Vampire review, but I'm hoping it will get more attention as its own post.
JimTex said...
Considering that this was based on a novel by David Chase, creator of "The Sopranos"(!), who also co-wrote the screenplay, wouldn't a remake be in order? I hate the spate of remakes nowadays, but this film is one of those that just seems ripe for it.
My response...
Since writing that review I've searched the internet for any reference to the David Chase novel The Still Life. Other than a mention at the IMDB, and a few other reviews that I suspect have gotten that info from the IMDB, I can find neither hyde nor hair of this book. I checked with Curt over at Groovy Age of Horror and he's found nothing on it either. Combined with the fact that no reference is made to this book in the film's credits, I'm starting to wonder if this book ever existed, or if it's just a factual error at IMDB that has given birth to a minor urban legend.
How about it? Anybody out there have information on David Chase's The Still Life? Anybody know how I can check the with the Library of Congress on this?
5 comments:
My source for the info, Danny Peary's 1986 "Guide For The Film Fanatic" makes note of Chase's "The Still Life" as the basis for the screenplay (pg 180). If that's worth anything.
I know the IMDB is a font of erroneous trivia and "facts".
Interesting. So reference to this book pre-dates IMDB. I've dug around a little more and I'm still turning up nothing. I wonder if perhaps Chase based the screenplay on an unpublished book.
Here's the Library of Congress catalog. No results for this book.
look for "Sci-Fi Entertainment" magazine April 1996, under Departments "Series Collection" on page 78. The article states that Mr. Chase was to adapt his novel "Still Life" into a film called "Grave of the Vampire", in 1971. The magazine's ISBN 1075-8860.
No one appears to have ever seen a copy of the supposed book, although the specificity of the title, and the fact that no one really even knew who David Chase was when the story originally appeared makes it seem authentic. Horror writer Kim Newman commented once that he had never met anyone who had ever seen an actual copy, although he knew more than a few people who had searched really hard trying to find.
Post a Comment