Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King (TNT, 2006)IMDB LinkI guess it takes a special kind of strength to keep watching King adaptations and constantly being disappointed. I'm now like one of those child molestation victims, that have been molested so many times, that years later, they find a sick pleasure in being abused, and after the night is over, they feel guilty, dirty, and cry themselves to sleep.
That's how this series made me feel.
Episode 1: BattlegroundWillian Hurt stars as an assassin who, after killing a toy maker, gets a gift from the same toy company. The gift contains toy soldiers.
And?
Tiny, toy soldiers try to kill the assassin, and the assassin fights back! There is a 20 minute set up for this, but the next half an hour is basically big man fighting tiny men. With tiny bullets, tiny missiles, and tiny helicopters, it might have actually been campy fun, except everything is ultra-serious here. And I do mean, ultra-serious, because there isn’t even any dialogue here. What the fuck? Are they going for the artistic angle for the toy soldier genre?
2/5Episode 2: Crouch EndA young American couple have gone to London for their honeymoon (London for their honeymoon? Morons). They go to a friend’s house for diner, and the friend’s house is at Crotch End. I mean, Crouch End. But man, wouldn’t Crotch End be a scary name for a street?
Anyway, Crouch End has something to do with alter dimensions and really bad CGIs.
3/5Episode 3: Umney's Last CaseStarts in the 1930s, in a cliché P.I. world, with William H. Macy as the cool, rugged, and street-smart detective. Everything is fine in the world of the detective, until he one day is visited by a man who looks exactly like himself, except he is dressed as a person would be dressed today. And glasses. And readers, glasses means what? He is a writer!
Nerdy William Macy explains to Rugged William Macy that he is the creator of his world, and he is going to take over. Dig?
Better than last year’s “Stranger than Fiction”.
4/5Episode 4: The End of the Whole MessI remember this being a very fun to read short story. In the movie, we are introduced to Howard (Ron Livingston) who talks about his genius brother. He films himself talking about past events, and this is told in flashbacks, most of them actually boring to watch, and to showcase the director’s ineptness, he actually contains funny sound effects (like “BOING!” when someone falls). The brother tries to make the world better through a new cure, things go wrong, and the end. Stupid crap.
2/5Episode 5: The Road Virus Heads NorthThese guys are just making random short stories, and not short stories that would seem like it would be good to see on screen. This is another example of a short story that was kind of fun to read, but there is no reason to make it into a short movie. A writer buys a scary painting, done by someone who committed suicide, and takes it with him. But the painting seems to be moving! Oooh, scary.
That’s the thing with adapting King’s ideas. They can be fun campy to read on the books, but once you visual them, it becomes very silly. And all these episodes are done in an ultra-serious manner.
2/5Episode 6: The Fifth QuarterZzzz. A con man is released from his prison, meets with his cell-mate, who dies on him because he is shot, talks about a hidden treasure, has a few shoot outs with other people for this treasure, everyone else dies, gets sent to prison, and his wife finds the treasure in an amusement part.
No ghosts or monsters or anything. Whatever.
1/5Episode 7: Autopsy Room FourKing has a huge number of short stories, so why do they insist on choosing short stories that are very hard to adapt. “Autopsy Room Four” is not useful for a shot film. It is about a man who is bitten by a snake at a golf course, becomes fully paralyzed, everyone thinks he is dead, and he is then taken to a hospital to have an autopsy to find the cause of death. In the story, the narration starts from the guy waking up, unable to move, and reading about his dread about knowing that he will be soon cut up, and not being able to say anything or indicate that he is alive. The story works because we imagine us being the same person, and how scary it will be. Like being buried alive, except you are being cut open!
In the episode, the inner thoughts are conveyed by narration, and constant narration. We basically hear the guy speak for forty minutes, and very soon, becomes very tiresome. And the director is not able to put us in his shoes, which is what the directors of most of these episodes can not understand. By adapting the story to the screen, sometimes fundamental changes have to be made, and not changes in story or character, but changes in the style of telling the story. Japanese director, Shinya Tsukamoto, made a short film of about the same length called “Haze”. In it the character wakes up, not knowing who or where he is, only that he is trapped and can barely move. In that movie, we feel the dread, not through narration, but through visuals.
When the director read the story, their only question should have been, “How do I film this into a story, and make the viewer feel the dread of being taken for dead, and ready to have an autopsy performed on?”. He either doesn’t ask himself the question or does not find the answer.
1/5Episode 8: You Know They Got a Hell of a BandHere is the thing with some King short stories. Some of them are enjoyable to read, not because it is scary, but because it is fun and campy to read about. One example is a short story (can’t remember the name) which is about a guy being stuck in a traffic in a tunnel and cars were hardly moving…until he realizes he will be stuck there forever!!! Absurd and fun to read, but can you imagine it being filmed? It would be absurd, but in a stupid way (unless the director is skilled in conveying the humor of it). In “Rock and Roll Heaven”, King wrote a story about a couple who take a wrong turn (always a bad move) and end up in a small, friendly town. Until they realize the occupants are mostly famous, dead rock and roll musicians, and they will be stuck there forever!!! Again absurd and fun to read, but can only filmed by someone who is able to show the camp fun of this. And this will especially not work when the musicians don’t actually look like actual singers. We have Buddy Holly, Jimi Hendix, Elvis Presley, and so forth, and they don’t look like their counterparts that much. They also have scary features, Buddy Holly bleeds out of his eyes, Elvis takes off his glasses and has no eyes, and Janis Joplin vomits maggots, but they are done in such a non-scary fashion. The only way this could have potentially worked if the director had lots of fun with it, making it extremely campy and fun. But like almost all of the other episodes, it’s done wrong.
2/5Total Rating: 2/5
