| Black Comedy / Horror | MPAA:R |
There's a saying that goes, There's something rotten in Denmark. Well, there's something rotten in Castle Rock, Maine, and that something is Leland Gaunt and his new shop Needful Things. Needful Things is subtitled The Last Castle Rock Story, because in the book, most of the town is blown up. The book is also over 700 pages long in paperback form. The book on tape comes on more tapes than the collected works of Beethoven (ok, so it's 18 tapes - but it still takes 24 hours to listen to). So it's understandable that the movie only blows up a building or two (they didn't blow up anything in The Shining, and the hotel's destruction is one of the most vividly described parts of the book). It's also understandable that the movie leaves out a large chunk of characters, because with the exception of Ace Merrill, you never miss them. But again, due to size constraints, the movie loses when compared to the book.
The story? Well, it seems that this fella' opened up a store that seems to have just the thing anybody needs. Say you've got a collection of baseball cards and only need a Micky Mantle to finish it out? Well he's got it. An extremely rare ceramic figurine that you lost several years ago, well what do you know, there it is. Why, he's even got a cure for arthritis, should you need one. What does this all cost? Pennies! Ok, maybe the owner would like you to do him a little favor, play a little trick. Muddy some sheets, place tickets in a house, kill a noisy little dog, put an envelope full of money on the sheriffs boat. No big deal. Unless of course the owner of the sheets has a history of assault, and is feuding with the owner of the dog, who herself is a former mental patient. Maybe the person who got the tickets is a embezzling town official, who has a family history of mental illness. And maybe someone's been whispering to the sheriffs girlfriend that he's not exactly as honest as he seems. And maybe everyone goes nuts, and goes out looking for revenge. Murderous revenge. And maybe, the only person who figures it out, is the only person who doesn't buy anything. And maybe, the owner of the store, and creator of this mischief, isn't an ordinary person.
The cast is quite good. Whenever I read the book, it's always Ed Harris I see as Sheriff Alan Pangborn, no one else. And Bonnie Bedelia fills out the role of the almost forty, but still a dish, Polly Chalmers. Amanda Plummer is an excellent Nettie Cobb; to a guy from the Midwest, she seems like the perfect New England nut case. Max Von Sydow has just the right blend of urbanity and utter disregard for human life that is the person (or whatever he is) of Leland Gaunt. But, while Valri Bromfeld (the sister on Grace Under Fire) has the right personality for Wilma Jerzck, she doesn't have the size implied in the book. And in other plot inconsistencies, having Polly run a cafe instead of a sewing shop isn't too big of a deal, but a woman who has crippling arthritis (which is how Gaunt gets his claws into her) shouldn't be carrying around a full coffee pot... not without screaming in pain anyway. Alan isn't supposed to meet Gaunt until the big showdown at the end, when he pits his white magic against Gaunt's black. And finally, why can't anyone get Castle Rock right? They always make it seem like some tiny, forsaken hamlet by the ocean, with a population of about 40. Where is the town square? There's supposed to be a town common with a bandshell, a municipal building, Polly's shop, a Western Auto, a hardware store, a video store (where you could rent this movie I suppose) a barber shop, a Leverdiers (drug store) across the commons from where the Emporium Galorium used to be, which was close to where Needful Things ended up. Castle Rock should be the town where the Witches of Eastwicke was filmed (or maybe you could just move Mayberry to Maine, it's the same type of town), but nobody ever films a King flick there. Don't get me wrong, I thought the film was a hoot, just as it's supposed to be. Not everything Stephen King writes is dead serious (or serious dead for that matter), and this film is a fine black comedy. As Leland Gaunt said, We're having some fun now.