The thought of Kevin Smith (director of Clerks and Chasing Amy among others) taking on a horror movie for his next film has been stuck in my craw ever since the news started making the rounds on the internet a while back. Now I know why - Smith should really be making a film adaptation of Spider Kiss instead. It’s not just that I hate bullshit “slasher” flicks in general but also that I would hate to see Smith’s immense talent wasted on such pointless pap.

Now I know you’re asking yourself what the hell is Spider Kiss anyhow, and why are you spouting forth such crazy ideas? Let me enlighten you dear readers. Spider Kiss is a book — that’s words written or typed on paper for all you Web 2.0 junkies — and a damn good one at that. So good in fact, that it must be made into a film and Kevin Smith is the best candidate to do it justice.

To put this in perspective I generally think books should be left as just that, with the exception of the occasional Stephen King tome. In fact the only book out of the hundreds upon hundreds I’ve read, besides Spider Kiss, that I feel is truly worthy of a movie is Wicked, the stellar effort by Gregory Maguire that chronicles the further adventures of The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz.

Rumored to be loosely based on the career of Jerry Lee Lewis, Spider’s Kiss is rich in detail as it follows the fictional rise and fall of teenage heartthrob and musician Stag Preston. While the book is full of dramatic license, Harlan Ellison’s take on the dark side of the music business is startlingly, and sadly, all too realistic. This is rock and roll fiction that would have made Hunter S. Thompson proud in its unflinching truthfulness.

In addition to Stag Preston, the book chronicles the lives of the men who discover him and the feelings they face when they realize what they have created. The characters of PR hack Sheldon “Shelly” Morgenstern, and the “big man” Colonel Jack Freeport, are beautifully written and even the book's secondary characters are hard to shake from your memory thanks to Ellison’s terrific anti-prose style. As someone who has worked in, and studied, the music biz for years I can tell you Ellison knows of what he speaks.

I was highly skeptical about this book when I received it, as it is one of the only books to be included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but boy-howdy was I wrong. It’s like a literary version of Almost Famous and Tom Petty’s highly underappreciated concept album The Last DJ all in one. Originally published in 1961 as Rockabilly this is a great read that would make an even better film and is just as potent today as I’m sure it was when it was first published.

So how about it, Mr. Smith? This could be even better than “the story of a man and his monkey.” I can easily see Jason Mewes, in his first mainstream dramatic role, as Stag Preston. You could cast Jason Lee as “The Colonel” and now that you’re a bonafide, talented actor yourself you could tackle the role of “Shelly” yourself. Read the book and tell me I’m not on to something. Please leave the horror films to the “dirt merchants” - you have way too much talent for blood and gore. A tale of rock and roll excess would be much better.