"The Man Who Loved Flowers" | |
---|---|
Short story by Stephen King | |
Country | United States of America |
Language | English |
Genre(s) | Horror, Short story |
Publication | |
Published in | Gallery Magazine (1st release), Night Shift |
Media type | Magazine (1st release) |
Publication date | August 1977 |
"The Man Who Loved Flowers" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the August 1977 issue of Gallery , and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift . [1] The story revolves around a young man who buys flowers for his love interest, but he is eventually revealed to be a serial killer who went insane after his lover's supposed death.
In New York City, during an early evening in May 1963, an unnamed man walks up 3rd Avenue. He walks past an elderly woman carrying groceries who greets him amicably as he waves back. While going down Sixty-third Street he passes by a flower store and hears a transistor radio drone about current affairs: including a woman's corpse being discovered in a river as well as a hammer murderer who has yet to be caught. Ignoring the news, he decides to buy flowers for a Norma, a woman with whom he is infatuated.
Entering the flower vendor, the old man who runs it lights up upon seeing him, same as the old woman. While talking with the young man, the vendor correctly deduces that he is buying something special for his girlfriend. The old man then offers him the tea roses, stating that his girl will love him for it. One of the men by the nearby bakery jokingly offers the man his wedding ring, which he declines.
After leaving the vendor he continues up the street, while the various people he moves past also register the lovestruck look on his face. He then turns into an alley as night begins to fall. As he takes his time down the alley, he sees a woman walking his direction from the courtyard. Claiming that she is Norma, he rushes to her and catches her attention. He presents her the flowers, but she declines, stating that her name is not Norma. Before she can finish, the man then pulls out a hammer from his pocket and proceeds to bludgeon the woman to death. It is revealed that he is the serial killer loose in the city and that the real Norma has been dead for ten years. The death of the real Norma led him to go insane, leading to his murder spree that has already claimed five victims.
Once he is finished, the man remains optimistic that he will find the real Norma one day. Believing that his name is "Love", he saunters out of the alley, confident that the night will conceal the bloodstains on his coat. He passes a middle-aged couple on the street. Seeing the romance that radiates from the man, the woman turns to her partner and makes a comment about young love.
"The Man Who Loved Flowers" was adapted in 2015 as a short film by Bricker-Down Productions. [2] [3]
There is a music videoclip called "Literatura rusa" by Jose Madero, that is based on "The man who loved flowers"
Michael Hammer is a fictional character created by the American author Mickey Spillane. Hammer debuted in the 1947 book I, the Jury. Hammer is a no-holds-barred private investigator who carries a Colt .45 M1911A1 in a shoulder holster under his left arm. His love for his secretary Velda is outweighed only by his willingness to kill a killer. Hammer's best friend is Pat Chambers, Captain of Homicide NYPD. Hammer was a World War II army veteran who spent two years fighting jungle warfare in the Pacific Ocean theater of World War II against Japan.
Hamilton Howard "Albert" Fish was an American serial killer, rapist, child molester, and cannibal who committed at least three child murders from July 1924 to June 1928. He was also known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria, the Brooklyn Vampire, the Moon Maniac, and The Boogey Man. Fish was a suspect in at least ten murders during his lifetime although he only confessed to three murders that police were able to trace to a known homicide. He also confessed to stabbing at least two other people.
Peter Kürten was a German serial killer, known as "The Vampire of Düsseldorf" and the "Düsseldorf Monster", who committed a series of murders and sexual assaults between February and November 1929 in the city of Düsseldorf. In the years before these assaults and murders, Kürten had amassed a lengthy criminal record for offences including arson and attempted murder. He also confessed to the 1913 murder of a nine-year-old girl in Mülheim am Rhein and the attempted murder of a 17-year-old girl in Düsseldorf.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is a 1986 American psychological horror crime film directed and co-written by John McNaughton about the random crime spree of a serial killer who seemingly operates with impunity. It stars Michael Rooker in his debut as the nomadic killer Henry, Tom Towles as Otis, a prison buddy with whom Henry is living, and Tracy Arnold as Becky, Otis's sister. The characters of Henry and Otis are loosely based on convicted real life serial killers Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole.
Frankie and Johnny is a 1991 American romantic comedy-drama film directed by Garry Marshall and starring Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer in their first film together since Scarface (1983). Héctor Elizondo, Nathan Lane, and Kate Nelligan appear in supporting roles. The original score was composed by Marvin Hamlisch.
The Driller Killer is a 1979 black comedy slasher film directed by Abel Ferrara and starring Ferrara, Carolyn Marz, Baybi Day, and Harry Schultz. The plot concerns Reno Miller, a struggling artist in New York City, turning insane from stress and killing derelicts with a power drill.
Red Dragon is a psychological horror novel by American author Thomas Harris, first published in 1981. The story follows former FBI profiler Will Graham, who comes out of retirement to find and apprehend an enigmatic serial killer nicknamed "the Tooth Fairy". The novel introduces the character Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer whom Graham reluctantly turns to for advice and with whom he has a dark past. The title refers to the figure from William Blake's painting The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun.
Darna Mana Hai is a 2003 Indian Hindi-language anthology horror film. The film consists of six different short stories. It stars Nana Patekar, Vivek Oberoi, Aftab Shivdasani, Shilpa Shetty, Sameera Reddy, Isha Koppikar, Saif Ali Khan, Sohail Khan, among many others. Upon release it met with extremely negative response, despite that it was a cult classic movie. Later in 2006 Ram Gopal Varma, the producer, spawned Darna Zaroori Hai, a sequel with a different ensemble cast, six new cinematographers, seven different directors. Only Rajpal Yadav and director Prawaal Raman were back from the previous installment. Darna Mana Hai has been dubbed and released in Telugu with the same title.
Batman: Two Faces is a DC Comics Elseworlds comic book, published in 1998. Written by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, with art by Anthony Williams and Tom Palmer, the story is based on the novel Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. A Victorian-era Bruce Wayne tries to purge both his own evil side and that of Two-Face, while a serial killer named the Joker roams the streets. A sequel, The Superman Monster, was published in October the following year.
South of No North is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, originally published in 1973 as South of No North: Stories of the Buried Life by John Martin's Black Sparrow Press. South of No North also is a play that debuted off-Broadway in 2000 based on nine stories from the book.
Raymond Martinez Fernandez and Martha Jule Beck were an American serial killer couple. They were convicted of one murder, are known to have committed two more, and were suspected of having killed up to twenty victims during a spree between 1947 and 1949.
One Lonely Night (1951) is Mickey Spillane's fourth novel featuring private investigator Mike Hammer.
"Miss Atomic Bomb" is a song from American rock band The Killers. The track was sent to mainstream radio on October 23, 2012, as the second single taken from the band's fourth studio album, Battle Born. It topped the Rolling Stone Readers' Poll for the Best Song of 2012. It has been remixed by The Chainsmokers.
Rebeca is a 2003 Spanish-language telenovela produced by Venevisión International. The telenovela was written by Alberto Gómez and stars Mariana Seoane and Ricardo Álamo as the main protagonists with Gaby Espino portraying the main antagonist.
Mr. Mercedes is a novel by American writer Stephen King. He calls it his first hard-boiled detective book. It was published on June 3, 2014. It is the first volume in a trilogy, followed in 2015 by Finders Keepers, the first draft of which was finished around the time Mr. Mercedes was published, and End of Watch in 2016.
Juan Díaz de Garayo y Ruiz de Argandoña, also known as "The Sacamantecas", was a Spanish serial killer active near Vitoria, Álava, who strangled five women and a 13-year-old girl, and attacked four other women during two different periods, 1870 to 1874 and 1878 to 1879. A lust-motivated serial killer, Garayo first killed prostitutes after hiring and sleeping with them consensually, but grew more disorganized and violent as time went on, attacking, raping and murdering women that he saw walking alone in the country. His last two victims, murdered in consecutive days, were also stabbed, and the second was disemboweled.
Will Graham is a fictional character and protagonist of Thomas Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon. Graham is also the protagonist of two film adaptations of the novel, Manhunter (1986) and Red Dragon (2002), and the television series Hannibal (2013–2015), which adapted various parts of the Hannibal Lecter franchise.
Joseph "Joe" Goldberg is a fictional character and protagonist of the You book series, written by Caroline Kepnes, as well as the television series of the same name, where he is portrayed by American actor Penn Badgley, by Gianni Ciardiello, Aidan Wallace and Jack Fisher as a youth, and as his inner self by Ed Speleers. Joe is a serial killer, stalker and former bookstore manager who, upon meeting Guinevere Beck at his workplace in New York, develops an extreme, toxic and delusional obsession with her. After moving to Los Angeles to escape his sordid past, he meets avid chef Love Quinn and falls into his old habits of obsession and violence in order to avoid the fate of his past romantic endeavors. As his troubled marriage with Love falls apart, he abandons his life in the United States and moves to London where he begins tracking down the Eat-the-Rich killer, while managing an infatuation with Kate Lockwood.
"Man With a Belly" is a short story by Stephen King. It was published in Cavalier in December 1978.
Open 24 Hours is a 2018 horror film written and directed by Padraig Reynolds.