#the jaunt

[thebadchoicemachine]

[soggyspong]

Fortress Films and The King of Horror

Fortress Films makes MANY references and connections in its two movies, like M, The Manchurian Candidate, American Psycho, Columbo, the list goes on and on

but I HAVE noticed that many connections are made to Stephen King’s work in particular! And I’ve made a list here

Concrete references

The Jaunt (1985): King’s short story in which instantaneous teleportation is invented, while the mind perceives the trip as endless— origin of “It’s eternity in there” AND “Longer than you think”!!! Similarly, the script refers to the zombies in Emesis Blue as “jaunts”

The bartenders: Dell’s appearance is a clear callback to Lloyd the Bartender, a ghost in The Shining, who offers the alcoholic protagonist a bottle of bourbon.

The red bathroom: The bathroom seen in the final scene of Emesis Blue, in the back of Dell’s, is also a clear reference to The Shining. The nature of the two characters’ interactions (Jack with the old owner and Medic with Archibald) are also very similar

Possible inspirations and absolute stretches

(these are ones I just have a feeling about but are a bit more dubious)

Partners in crime: Stephen King novel The Stand (1979) features two criminals on a hired killing spree, traveling by car through New Mexico. Chuck and Jimmy anyone?

The JFK assassination: Both Fortress Films and King have created stories centered around fictional characters’ involvement with the very real assassination of John F Kennedy

PLEASE feel free to reblog if you’ve found any more connections!!!! I’ve been able to find almost nobody talking about most of these and I really want to hear everyone’s thoughts!!!!!

[teleeportedbread2233]

how I feel including Emesis blue and the jaunt references in my writing, knowing like 0.2% of my readers will get it

[velvetvexations]

It's really amazing to me that The Jaunt has never had an adaption. I guess it's just too sci-fi than what people expect of Stephen King?

[gridzdoodle]

Did some painting (can you tell I’ve re read the jaunt)

[spaceverycool]

in the telled portation. straight up "jaunting it". and by "it", haha, well. let's justr say. My etearnity

[paperandpencilsandskips]

My favorite thing is when there is a mysterious hole

[stopaskingmetocreateanaccount]

just watched emesis blue and i keep seeing people talk about the shining references (the ghost bar and the blood elevator), but the one thing i haven’t seen anyone mention yet is that there are recurring lines from stephen king’s short story “The Jaunt”. the story is told by a father who is explaining to his family the history of the “jaunt”, or teleportation machine, that’s about to bring them to mars (iirc). we learn that the man who invented it managed to get it to work for objects, but the mice he sent through always died, despite showing no physical problems. eventually it’s tested on a death row inmate who comes out the other side, utters the words “it’s eternity in there,” and then dies. so eventually they figure out that you need to be knocked out to go through, otherwise your consciousness experiences eternity in the time (something like .00000006 of a second) it takes your physical body to go through. near the end, the father’s story is interrupted by the jaunt technicians who are coming around to put on the gas masks that’ll put them to sleep for the journey. when the father wakes up on the other side, however, he finds that his eight-year-old son Ricky, curious about what it’d be like to be awake during, held his breath when the gas was administered and went through awake. he’s gone completely insane, gouging out his eyes and screaming “It’s longer than you think, Dad! Longer than you think!” obviously this story left an impression on me, so i think it’s a really cool detail that both the lines “it’s eternity in there” and “longer than you think” are repeated at least twice in the movie. plus, one of the failed testers who went through the Respawn was shown to have gouged out eyes. a cool homage to another Unnatural Sci-Fi-Horror Box That Fucks You Up Real Bad!