# Crap book, decent movie

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crap-book-decent-movie/254643>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 12, 2004, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crap-book-decent-movie/254643 "2004-07-12T01:48:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 5

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crap-book-decent-movie/254643/81 "2004-07-14T14:17:43Z")

</div>

> [@Lamia](#):
>
> I’ve mentioned this one before: **The Hunger**.
> 
> Not by any means a great movie, I wouldn’t even call it a _good_ movie, but it’s solid two-star vampire fare. For a long time I was puzzled as to why the movie wasn’t better, since so much talent went into it. There was a good cast, a good director, a good score. So where did they go wrong?
> 
> With the source material! I read Whitley Streiber’s original novel because I foolishly hoped that the book would be better than the movie and provide me with the “good version” of an enjoyable but mediocre story. Turned out to be one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I was determined to complete it though, so I sat down and plowed through the whole thing in about two hours.

Thanks for this. I never got around to reading it even though I **loved** the movie…although admitedly at the time I would have paid to watch David Bowie clip his toenails 😛 . Then I was put off by Streiber’s alien abduction crap. So my prejudicial assumptions are comfirmed 😃 .

Dr. Strangelove.

Based on the book Red Alert, that apparently did the whole story seriously. Since every reference to the book seems to talk about nothing but the movie, it doesn’t seem to have much to say for itself.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2004, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crap-book-decent-movie/254643/82 "2004-07-14T15:00:22Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> Based on the book Red Alert, that apparently did the whole story seriously. Since every reference to the book seems to talk about nothing but the movie, it doesn’t seem to have much to say for itself.

Yeah, I’ve got two copies of the book – one with the cartoony pre-movie cover, the other a more serious post-Fail Safe cover. It plays it straight, although that “Peace on Earth/Purity of Essence/P.O.E.” thing is in there in the form of “John Fitzgerald Kennedy/Joe(Stalin) for King/JFK”.

And, after the film came out, Peter George rewrote the book as **Doctor Strangelove** , more in the spirit of the film. (I have a copy of that, too.)

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/crap-book-decent-movie/254643.md?page=4)