I have read many of the stories in Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes. I am not familiar with Autopsy Room Four and as far as I can tell, there is no such story in the book. Maybe it was added in an updated printing. Regardless, I did find Autopsy Room Four interesting, but yet I feel I've already seen this scenario on The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. A guy is a corpse in the morgue, only he's completely awake and aware of sensation. See? It sounds familiar, doesn't it? Well, here's the difference: the man is NOT dead -- he was bitten by a snake and is paralyzed. His heart is beating and he is breathing, only its barely detectable. It was okay, but not really one of Stephen King's best.
Next they have You Know They Got A Hell of a Band. I recently read this story and I have to say that it felt darker and more creepy when reading it. Putting it on the small screen was great for visualization, but it sort of detracted from the relationships between the character and the "oh my god" sort of feeling worming through your stomach at various times. For example, a waitress slides a note to the main character and when she reads it, it says: "Get out while you still can". When reading a story, I really put myself in the shoes of the characters. You already knew something was odd here, and it IS a short story by Stephen King, but that feeling of your stomach trying to crawl into your bowels is missing from the smallscreen. Stories like The Stand were successful conversions (although SO MUCH was taken out) but some simply cannot be based on how they were written. This is supposedly to be about characters and the realization that you are in big trouble and that it is creepy and wondering if your husband is running away with the car, or if he is going to wait for you -- all the paranoid thoughts and feelings one might have in this hokey (yes, the premise is a little...errr...lame) story. Overall, they kept most things the same, but perhaps it was the lack of true resemblence to the residents of Rock and Roll Heaven that really killed the kick of this story. Neither story (Hell of a Band and Autopsy Room Four) seemed like it needed an entire hour to tell.
I am a huge fan of Stephen King's, but that is not to say that I love absolutely everything he writes. The Mangler, which was a movie, was just about the stupidest story ever. Sometimes he's on (The Stand, Hearts in Atlantis, The Gunslinger series) and other times he's just not. All of his stories are written how I like them, with great characters and dialogue, but sometimes the plot is convoluted and contrived.
Tags: Stephen King, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, Hell of a Band, Autopsy Room Four, The Stand
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