October 25, 2010 — Back in the colicky, jaundiced infancy of O.T.I.S., I visited the home of Stephen King, with “visit” being defined as “hung outside his gate and snapped pictures.” My friends hate when I visit them, too. Based on the emails I’ve received since posting it, the resulting article has become one of my more derided ones.
Of course, even though I’m not really into Stephen King’s work, I am certainly into the way he’s staked a claim in the real-world environs of his home state of Maine. With the many Maine locales that King has featured in his books or which have been used as filming locales for the movies inspired by his work, he’s basically annexed the state for his own personal empire.
I dedicated a whole section in my recently published The New England Grimpendium to New England horror movie filming locales, so I again got the opportunity to write a few more pages about Stephen King-related sites, specifically regarding movies based on his work that were either entirely filmed or had some part filmed in Maine. These included Pet Sematary, Creepshow 2, Graveyard Shift, Thinner, and the two mini-series Storm of the Century and The Langoliers.
So, since this inaugural Halloween of The New England Grimpendium is drawing to a close, here are a few pictures from three of those abovementioned movie locations, most of which didn't make it into the book, along with a couple of other King-relevant Maine pictures.
Happy Halloween...whether you find King tepid, revelatory, or in-between.
The 200-year-old, still-working Bartlettyarns Mill
in Harmony stood in for Bachmann Mill, with its giant bat.
Brad Dourif wuz here.
I took this from the wrong end of the street, but this is Dexter,
where the monster delivery man in Creepshow 2 parks its van right before
the wrap-around story of this anthology movie turns animated.
where the monster delivery man in Creepshow 2 parks its van right before
the wrap-around story of this anthology movie turns animated.
In this exact spot in Mount Hope Cemetery in Bangor,
Stephen King cameo'd as a minister presiding over a funeral.
This set of stairs found itself briefly in the movie and
is a good landmark to use to find the other sites.
This Civil War monument was not featured in the movie,
but it's still a cool artifact of Mount Hope Cemetery.
Nor was this Civil War monument. But, holy cow, why not?