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From HouseofHorrors.com Recent Reviews Stephen King is one of the most-adapted authors in the history of film. Now, his reach has extended to your television, and, this past Wednesday, a new series began on TNT. Nightmares and Dreamscapes. Four weeks of eight short stories adapted to television. If the first night is any indication, we have a lot to look forward to . . . and a bit to be worried about.
N & D opened its miniseries with two episodes.
Battleground
Wow. Wow. Just . . . wow. Brian Henson (son of the legendary Jim Henson) directs this episode, which stars William Hurt as a quiet hitman who dispatches a seemingly kind toymaker (Bruce Spence). Unfortunately, the toymaker’s mother catches wind and dispatches a clever justice. Her response comes in a mysterious package. Inside the tin box: toy soldiers with deadly aim.
The brilliance of this episode lies in its simplicity. Richard Christian Matheson adapted the story, and he doesn’t complicate anything to buff up the tale. He simply recounts everything that could and does happen in the situation, including a twist I can’t recall from the short story. The twist works beautifully, and it gives a renewed sense of antagonism to the toy soldiers. These guys are mean.
I laughed throughout the episode, but they were laughs of joy, not derision. The idea is so preposterous, but it is treated with the deepest of concern. It's a clever idea and, before long, we get wrapped up in the story: will he successfully fight the onslaught of little green men? And what does that sticker on the back of the tin box mean?
Hurt shines in this episode, and it’s impossible to watch the short without thinking of his tremendous work in A History of Violence. This role is a variation on his hitman from that movie. Here, he is a locus of sympathy. Not enough that we want his cold killer to live, but plenty enough that we don’t want him to die just yet.
His foes are brought to life with success and (again) simplicity. The special effects are obvious, but so what? The fact that they’re done at all is the real success. Even better, the soldiers pose a legitimate threat, and don’t come off as a joke, Unless Henson wants one, and he gets a few. Oh, the horrors of war.
This episode was a surprise, a completely effective, self-contained story with humor, tension, and a killer payoff. This is one of the best adaptations of King ever.
Crouch End
It was inevitable that this episode would disappoint after Battleground. What aggravated me was its boundless potential, and the way the episode squanders it.
The plot has promise: King tackles Lovecraft by having a newlywed couple take a detour in London. Lonnie (Eion Bailey) brings his wife Doris (Claire Forlani) to a small town called Crouch End for a vital business meeting. Upon entry, they get lost in the maze of empty streets.
The ball is dropped fifteen minutes into the story, when a very convenient taxi driver explains the mystery of Crouch End: it’s the site of a gateway to other dimensions, a place where different realities intersect. Since this is Stephen King, the other reality isn’t happy puppies and sunshine. Too bad the truth is revealed so soon. Once we learn what’s happening, the story works only as a series of frightening images.
Those images leap across the screen with a lack of restraint and art, twisting, stuttering, and slo-mo-ing. The camera whips and slides around without meaning or method. For every image that is evocative, there are two that go over the top and become silly. At times, this episode looks like it was edited by an epileptic on crystal meth. Things pick up a bit towards the end, when everything becomes a surrealist nightmare right out of Lovecraft. But by then, it’s just a demo reel of cool ideas, insubstantial and quickly abandoned.
The actors do what they can. Forlani projects innocence in just the right amount. Bailey has a tricky role, trying to play his character somewhere between professional and insane. He does his best, and his best is pretty damn good. The acting isn’t the problem. The problem is the lack of subtlety.
The plot is explained at least twice, and the story isn’t really deep enough to justify the hour spent on its development. By the time opportunities have come for scares, I was predicting them. By the time someone escapes, I knew the twist. By the time the . . . well, anyway. It's enough to make you stop and realize that the Lovecraftian story is more manic and absurd than the one about G. I. Joes from hell. © Copyright by HouseofHorrors.com |
