33) Desperation (2006) - Obscure Stephen King Flick #10

Cans't thou say who made thee...Tak!

Director
Mick Garris

Cast
Ron Perlman - Sheriff Collie Entragian
Steven Weber - Steve Ames
Tom Skerritt - Johnny Marinville
Matt Frewer - Ralph Carver
Charles Durning - Tom Billingsley
Henry Thomas - Peter Jackson

The last movie I wanted to review in my search for obscure Stephen King movies is this 2006 TV movie starring Ron Perlman (Hellboy), Tom Skerritt (The Dead Zone), Henry Thomas (E.T.) and Steve Weber (Dracula, Dead and Loving It). 

There are definitely other obscure, or less popular, King titles out there - Willa, Night Flier, Graveyard Shift (with Brad Dourif - the man who single-handedly made The Exorcist III the only good sequel in that franchise), and Sometimes They Come Back. There's a bunch more.
Desperation seemed to be the best fit for this blog of obscure, or b-horror films, especially when considering its cast.
I didn't know this story was a movie until a few years ago. I happened to stumble upon it while flipping through used DVDs at a Vintage Stock.
Its teleplay was written by Stephen King. It was directed by Mick Garris who also directed other made-for-TV King movies such as Riding the Bullet, Quicksilver Highway, (both of which I reviewed earlier), The Shining, The Stand, and Bag of Bones.
He also directed Sleepwalkers which was written by King but not based on any of his published works at the time. So, he's no stranger to King stories. Those adaptations are hit or miss. I'd say The Stand (1994) is his best King movie - the closest one to a grand slam. Anything else that might be a hit doesn't come close.
Desperation gained poor ratings when it first aired on ABC thanks to more TV audiences tuning in to American Idol on Fox. But it's not like Desperation was the major television movie event of the year.
The movie starts off well with Peter Jackson (Henry Thomas) and his wife, Mary (Annabeth Gish), driving through the Nevada desert.
Their solitude on the lonely highway is interrupted as a police car soon lands on their tail.
The officer pulls along next to them to get a good look, and then pulls back behind them. Confused, Peter takes it slow until the police lights come on.
Sheriff of Desperation, Collie Entragian (Ron Perlman), a towering behemoth of a patrol officer with rimmed hat, black sunglasses, and leather legs, approaches their vehicle.
He's calm, collected, and intimidating as goes through the usual cop stuff. He finally asks the couple to open their trunk. When they do, he finds a huge bag of marijuana.
Entragian flies off the handle and begins shouting at them with insults and demands. Of course, he arrests them and hauls them back to town.

Ron Perlman as Sheriff Collie Entragian, Desperation.

While they're in his cruiser, it's clear there's something not right about this cop.
He tends to blank out,
and also ends his statements with "tak." His mood and mannerisms change on a dime.As he's telling them their Miranda rights, he nonchalantly throws in, "I'm gonna kill you."
When they get back to the station, they find a dead little girl inside the entrance.
Entragian then shoots Peter several times point blank in the chest, leaving him to die as he takes Mary to the holding cells.
Others have already been taken and locked in different cells by Entragian - the parents of the dead girl down stairs along with her older brother David (Shane Haboucha). David "talks to God" as he previously swore to maintain a close relationship to the Almighty after praying his friend would be o.k. after he was hit by a car while riding his bike. We see this in a expository flashback. There's also Tom Billingsly (Charles Durning) who's an old veterinarian from town.
Meanwhile, Steve Ames (Steven Weber) is driving a truck down the same stretch of desert road. He's assisting famous writer, Johnny Marinville (Tom Skerritt), who's several miles ahead of him on his motorcycle. Steve picks up a young female hitchhiker named Cynthia (Kelly Overton).
The scene cuts to Johnny as he pulls his bike over to urinate. He doesn't notice Entragian has pulled up, too, catching him in the act.
He soon recognizes Marinville and asks for an autograph. He later checks his motorcycle bag and finds a bag of marijuana - the same bag he found in Mary and Peter's car. It's obvious now where the stash came from.
Entragian beats up Marinville, hides his bike in the desert several feet from the road, and takes him to the holding cells. While he's hiding the bike, Marinville is able to contact Steve on his cell phone despite bad connections, to tell him what went down.
When they get to the police station, Entragian takes David's mom with him to a huge mine in town called "The China Pit."
The sheriff happens to be possessed by a spirit named Tak, and he needs a new body to take over as Entragian's body is deteriorating.
Back in the police department, the ghost of David's deceased sister, Pie (Sammi Hanratty), appears to him and shows him a bar of soap in his cell. David lathers himself up so he can slip through the bars.
He sets everyone free, and they attempt to find a place to hide.
At this time, Steve and Cynthia find an abandoned RV in the desert, along with Marinville's bike. They suspect something foul, so they drive into Desperation. The place has become a ghost town of dead residents, and buzzards feeding on remains.
The pair decide to explore an abandoned building where they find some historic artifact that momentarily possesses them and ignites their passions, but they overcome this trance fairly quickly. The role of this artifact and others like it is never really explained.
They run into the group from the jail, and together hide in a theater and try to find a way out of town without running into the sheriff.

Kelly Overton, Annabeth Gish, Steven Weber, and Matt Frewer in
Desperation (2006).

David see's the ghost of Pie again who leads him to a projection room where he sees old footage from the early days when Chinese men were taken to the mine and forced to work.
It's related through the footage, the film perspectives of which are not well thought out, that the miners accidentally released the demon monster, Tak, who had been dwelling deep underground.
Now the group realizes they have to fight Tak and put him back where he belongs.

Ron Perlman is laudably daunting as Sheriff Entragian. His presence
makes me want to keep watching. I found it funny every time he'd finish a sentence with "Tak." I don't think I was supposed to laugh at that. Nevertheless, he pretty much makes the movie. But once Entragian is no longer in the film, it completely falls apart, leaving me bored.
The dialogue scene in the theater is just not interesting and drags on for too long.
As the movie starts off strong and promising, it quickly rolls downhill with some dragged out scenes- particularly the scenes inside the theater. There, the group waits for...something to happen while the find a bag of sardines to survive on (for just a few hours) while they prepare for their next move.
The actors just don't seem very invested in their roles. They lack the right emotions at the proper time, except for Sylvia Kelegian as Mrs. Carver who yells at her son harshly for praying to God. Otherwise, Perlman seems like the only actor bring on the scares.
By the end of the movie, I already lost interest in what was happening, or in the characters themselves.
This is a story that would probably do better on the big screen without the limitations of what is allowable for the small screen.
I think TV audiences in 2006 got more out of watching American Idol. This is a weak movie.

Coming Up Next...
Boris Karloff is famous for his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the classic Universal monster movie, Frankenstein.
But he also did some directing as well. And my next movie from 1961 is one of his, starring Ronnie Burns (the adopted son of the late comedian legends, George Burns and Gracie Allen.)

29) Cell (2016) - Obscure Stephen King flick #9

"Our sins have overcome us, and we cannot see..."

Director
Tod Williams

Cast
John Cusack - Clay Riddell
Samuel L. Jackson - Tom McCourt
Isabelle Fuhrman - Alice Waxman
Owen Teague - Jordan
Joshua Mikel - Raggedy Man

Zombies, and cell phones, and John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson teamed up in a Stephen King movie nearly 10 years after working together in the Stephen King movie 1408 - oh, my!
How this movie adaptation of King's cautionary novel of the same name, published in 2006, came out without a lot of notice, is kind of weird. When it comes to flying under the radar, this one was so far under that radar, it was practically invisible.
With John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, and Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan, The Hunger Games) in the cast, it boggles the mind.
In Cell, directed by Tod Williams (Paranormal Activity 2) comic artist Clayton Riddell (John Cusack) is just landed at Boston airport from Los Angeles. When he arrives, he calls his ex-wife whom he previously walked out on, and his son to tell them he sold one of his graphic novels. He also makes an attempt to see his son and ex, but to little avail.
His phone dies mid-call, so he finds a payphone to call them again.
While he's on the landline phone, some kind of pulse is mysteriously sent through all cell phones causing users to convulse, foam at the mouth, and start going into violent fits of rage attacking other people and inflicting bodily harm on themselves.
As things inside the terminal escalate rapidly, Riddell and others unaffected by this pulse literally run for their lives.
Riddell makes it to the airports underground rail where he and a few other panicked travelers find that the train isn't operating.
The train operator, Tom McCourt (Samuel L. Jackson), tells them their only option is to abandoned the train because of a power outage, and there's no one in the main control room. Some stay in the train regardless, while Riddell and another guy decide to walk the tunnels with McCourt to escape the airport.
As they approach the end of the tunnel leading to the outside, they're quickly met by a man who kills the one guy. Riddell and McCourt manage to make it safely back to Riddell's apartment.
It goes without saying that any use of cell phones is out of the question.
After a few moments of useless dialogue and suspense that leads to nothing, a young girl named Alice Waxman (Isabelle Fuhrman) who lives upstairs knocks on the door looking for help.
She's panicked as she tells them she just killed her mom.
The remainder of this scene in Riddell's apartment is boring as they are basically sitting and waiting for...their next plan of action, I guess?
But what his role is in the story, and why he's appearing in the dreams of all survivors, or what his messages mean is unclear. And why it's one of Riddell's characters who's manifesting - also unclear. Does this mean that Riddell plays some kind of larger role in the string of events. Nothing along
those lines is explained.
The three of them set out to New England as Riddell wants to find his wife and son.
They camp out where they can, try to avoid the "phoners," - those affected by the pulse -  and run into other survivors.
These phoners, by the way, are somehow able to transfer the pulse themselves, using their voices. How, I don't know?
Meanwhile, Riddell has a dream of a man in a dirty red hoodie. It turns out all survivors are having dreams of the same person. He reveals himself to some as "the King of the Internet."
It turns out this person, referred to as Raggedy Man, is a character Riddell created in one of his graphic novels. But why he's appearing in everyone's dreams, what his purpose is, and what his sinister messages mean is unclear. In fact, it's never really explained.
Riddell finally makes it to his home. Inside, he finds a message from his son on the fridge written with letter magnets, letting him know he went to Kaswhak and his mom is "one of them."
On their way to Kaswhak, they run into Ray and Denise camping out in the wilderness. Ray warns Riddell Kaswhak is a trap set up by the Raggedy man, and not to go.
The ending of the movie just leaves more questions than answers. The motives behind who's responsible for the pulse remains unclear? Who actually is responsible is unclear, too. And just who this dreamy Raggedy Man is, and why he's showing up in people's dreams is one big mystery. Why any of this is happening - mystery!
Yet, somehow, some characters have answers rather quickly. In one scene, Riddell, Waxman, and McCourt come across Charles Ardai (Stacy Keach) - a private school headmaster, and a surviving student, Jordan (Owen Teague - no stranger to King adaptations as he played Patrick Hockstetter in the recent It and It: Chapter 2), have both figured out some things rather quickly when the pulse was just sent out in, maybe, a day's time.
Ardai tells the group with lazy exposition, that the phoners have developed some kind of telepathic abilities among themselves. He also concludes that a war between survivors and phoners will soon take place. How he figured all this out is beyond me.
Jordan somehow figured out that the pulse reset the brains of those infected, and they are in some sort of evolutionary development. They're the beginning of a new species. Again, he figured this out so matter-of-factly, in such a short amount of time is poor writing in my opinion. Jordan later explains that he's super smart, but still. It seems as though the movie is telling rather than showing, and that's  poor writing.

I read the book Cell  back in 2009 - a cautionary story about just how much society depends on their mobile devices, and where their dependence leaves them. According to King, it was based on his dislike for cell phones. This was before he began constantly Tweeting photos of his Corgi, Molly (aka "the thing of evil"), and being blocked on Twitter by President Trump.
I saw production stills pop up on Facebook and some movie websites before this movie was released. Having read the book, I was excited to see a new King adaptation coming out. This was before the current King renaissance we're currently experiencing. 
But news of Cell faded like any typical internet rumor, and I didn't see or hear anything about it until stumbling upon a copy of it at my local public library.
Evidently, this movie went through some kind of release hell before going straight to DVD. I heard there was a very limited theatrical release, but not at any theater near me.
What lacks here is a clear story line, kind of like the movie Mercy (based on King's short story, Gramma) which I previously reviewed.
I found myself lost on certain details, which made the end of the movie confusing.
The story also seems too fast paced with a story line too simplified for its own good.
Even though such a cautionary, or maybe socially satirical tale is timely (though critic Odie Henderson on rogerebert.com says it's late as far as movie goes - not so much King's novel), it could have been so much better.
The cell phone technology offers the story a different twist in the zombie horror genre - a genre I think is dying off...no pun intended. But the movie just falls flat in its delivery leaving wide-open holes in crucial plot points. John Cusack seemed like, well, a frustrated John Cusack. And at times, Samuel L. Jackson just seemed uninterested in what was happening.
The storyline in general brought King's book The Stand. The Raggedy Man made me think of Randall Flagg from the same book.
The suspense started strong in the airport, only to pathetically waft to the ground like a dead leaf anxious to be done with.
I shouldn't have to ask Google to explain the story to me just to make sure I understood what I just watched. And I think, despite a few moments of gore, horror fans will take the two-hour run time to treat themselves to a snooze.

Ambiguous Stephen King

 

28) Segmented Stories from the Small Screen - Obscure Stephen King #8

I'll be winding up my look at obscure Stephen King adaptations on both the big screen and the little screen. I plan (as of now) to do this review, plus two more so I can focus on other aspects of the horror genre besides Stephen King. I have a list - obscure vampire movies, deadly animals, forgotten 70s and 80s. I have plans!
Stepping away from obscure Stephen King movies, I'm turning my attention to some obscure King adaptation segments from various television shows of days gone by.
I'm not talking about Stephen King mini-series like The Tommyknockers, or The Stand, or his remake of The Shining. I'm talking about episodes from anthology series - regular horror, thriller, or suspense shows that at various points in random seasons adapted some of King's work along with other writers and such.
The new series Creepshow debuted on Shudder recently, which is fantastic. It made me wonder what else was out there in TV history - Kingwise. By the way, the first segment of the new Creepshow series, Grey Matter, is based on one of his short stories. It stars actress Adrienne Barbeau who also starred in the first Creepshow movie from 1982, in the story The Crate alongside Hal Holbrook and the late Fritz Weaver. Yeah! If you've seen it, she was the loud mouthed lady who ends up becoming "the crate's" victim. Oh, spoiler alert right there...sorry! Anyhow, I just wanted to get that observation out there.
I want to take a look at programs lost to obscurity to some degree or another. So, I'm not going to review anything current.
I hunted down some long forgotten episodes from T.V. shows no longer airing and tackled them one by one. It's all about the obscure! And I'm going to start with one of my favorite King short stories ever...

The Moving Finger (aired on Monsters season 3, episode 21 - 1991)


"You ever see something that wasn't there..."

Director
Ken Myers

Cast
Tom Noonan - Howard Mitla
Alice Playten - Violet Mitla
Sharon Cornell - Police Officer

This segment is the creepiest story I watched. I also read the short story it's based on, same title, found in King's short story collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes. It's one of my favorite short stories, and one of King's scariest stories in my opinion. It's simple, yet really cringy.
In this episode, Howard Mitla (Tom Noonan, The Monster Squad) finds himself alone in his apartment after his wife, Violet (Alice Playten), runs out for some ice cream.
While watching one of his favorite quiz shows, he hears scratching coming from the bathroom.
Howard goes to investigate thinking there's a mouse trapped in the bathtub. When he over-dramatically pulls back the shower curtain - no mouse! The scratching is coming from the bathroom sink.
When he peeks in, a finger is poking out of the drain scraping around.
Unsure whether to believe his own eyes, reality forces itself upon him. This happens when he gets up in the middle of the night to relieve himself. Howard peeks over the edge of the sink only to see an empty drain. He covers it with the sink's plug, but the finger wakes up, and flings the plug open. So, Howard turns the water on to submerge and hopefully drown it.
It thrashes a bit, but protrudes over the water's surface.
The next day, as his wife is called in early for work, Howard pulls out the big guns - a super dissolving drain liquid.
He pours some in, and we're treated to a point of view from down the drain.
The acid smokes, eating away at all the other-worldly flesh and bone, and whatever gunk is down there. The finger then furiously thrusts out, long and snake-like.
As Howard falls back, the finger makes its way to the bathroom floor, weaving along like a snake, and grabs him by the ankle, pulling him closer and closer to the drain.
Howard manages to break from its grasp, and finds a small, electric weed trimmer. Meanwhile, his neighbor is yelling at him to keep the noise down.
When he goes back into the bathroom, the finger is looming from the drain over the sink as though its waiting for him.
He grabs it, and begins slicing piece after piece off - blood spraying all over the porcelain and bathroom tiles.
Soon after, some random cop burst in with gun drawn. I'm guessing the neighbor called the cops. That's the only logical reason why this random cop would just show up to Howard's apartment.
She makes her way into the bathroom (gun still drawn) to find Howard in the middle of a bloody mess.
The cop tries to question him, and is interrupted as the toilet seat is hit by something underneath it. She opens it like a moron, and we see just what that finger was attached to.
In The Moving Finger, the scariness is boiled down to a single finger. But it's were that finger is that's scary. (That's not meant to sound dirty.)
What we don't see is who's finger that belongs to as it winds its way through the vast intricacies of pipes and plumbing to protrude through the sink drain.
But what I find the most scary is just how this one appendage completely changes the main character's reality for the worse. Life was as it should be, until the finger appears.
Life now will never be the same. It's scarier than dealing with a maniac killer. With a maniac killer, you have to run like hell, but at least you know what your dealing with. You can survive. With something like a finger poking out of the drain, reality becomes twisted and you have no idea what you're dealing with. What does its existence means for all of reality - the world, nature and science. It's as though everything you thought you knew now ends with a question mark. That to me is scary.
The show is a little over the top, with annoying "scary" music constantly playing through the 20-minute program. It's distracting and silly.
There's green light always shining through the windows giving the production an almost comic book atmosphere.
The acting is below par. I'm in no way convinced Howard is terrified that a friggin' finger is coming up through the bathroom sink. He's more curious that afraid.
But the fun is in the gore and the creepiness. Had the series Monsters been more popular, I bet this episode would have been memorable.
In fact, if they made this into a more serious adaptation, it would be fantastic. I enjoyed it overall.

Gramma (aired on The Twilight Zone season 1, episode 18a - 1986)

"Please, God! Don't let her wake up 'till mom gets home."

Director
Bradford May

Cast
Barret Oliver - Georgie
Darlanne Fluegel - Mom
Frederick Long - Gramma

An episode of the 80s revival of The Twilight Zone adapted the King short story, Gramma, found in his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew. 
I previously reviewed the movie Mercy which is based off of the same story.
This adaptation stars former child star and former child Barret Oliver (The NeverEnding Story, Cocoon, D.A.R.Y.L.) as Georgie who's left to care for his bed-ridden grandmother while his mom visits his brother in the hospital suffering from a busted ankle he received while playing baseball.
Georgie is afraid of his grandma, but braves the seclusion.
Once grandma (who reminds me of a Muppet from The Dark Crystal) starts calling for her tea, we can hear both Georgie's thoughts, as well as the audible memories of the turmoil grandma's presence in the house has caused the family.
When Georgie enters her room, she scares him causing him to drop her tea.

It spills through the floor boards, causing a lot of smoke. For some reason I might have missed or it just went over my head, Georgie pulls up the floor boards as lights and mist come up through the hole in the floor.
He finds some of her old books, which he takes to the kitchen to read through.
One of those books happens to be the Lovecraftian horror "best seller", the Necronomicon (Book of the Dead). Yeah....just like in the Evil Dead movies.
Georgie figures out that his grandma is actually a witch, and that's when all hell breaks lose. She calls out to him from the bedroom in demonic voice that is rather unsettling. And Georgie finally realizes just how demented Gramma really is.
The segment seemed rather scatterbrained to me, but Barret Oliver really put all he had into this small role. Bravo!
Most of the dialogue is Georgie's thoughts, composed of much exposition. It's exactly what I expected an 80s revival episode of The Twilight Zone to be - a quick "BOO! Scared you!" kind of entertainment, with a cliffhanger ending that the audience will never get a resolution to.


Word Processor of the Gods (aired on Tales from the Darkside season 1, episode 8 - 1984)

Director
Michael Gornick

Cast
Bruce Davison - Richard Hagstrom
Karen Shallo - Lina Hagstrom
Patrick Piccininni - Seth Robert Hagstrom

Michael Gornick, the director of Creepshow 2, also directed this forgotten sparkle of a Stephen King adaptation.
The plot of this segment, adapted from King's story of the same name first published in a 1983 edition of Playboy Magazine, then later published in his book Skeleton Crew is a story kind of similar to another King story, Umney's Last Case. 
I can't critique how dated this segment is. I can only critique its entertainment value and quality.
This segment stars a young Bruce Davison, who's gone on to appear in some big movie titles (X-Men, Bender, The Crucible).
Davison plays writer Richard Hagstrom who receives a word processor from his nephew Johnathan for his birthday. It's hilarious seeing this dinosaur of a computer with its floppy disks, and "execute" key, and dot matrix printer.
Hagstrom's family is such a stereotypical family. He's the quintessential aloof father. His wife, Karen, is the overweight cynical wife who watches her husband with a judgy eye. And their son, Seth, is the rebel kid, playing his rock music loud, and dismissing his parents demands with the typical teenage "whatever!"
Literally, as soon as he starts typing away at his present, Bruce discovers whatever he types becomes reality.
If he types in something that's true, and hits "delete," then that thing will be deleted from existence.

Richard types "twelve gold doubloons in a small sack" and hits the enter key. Behold, a small sack of gold coins appear on the floor.
The more he does this, the more overworked his word processor becomes. But, he manages to change his family to something more desirable right in the nick of time before the computer overheats and bursts into flames.
There really is nothing scary, creepy, or disturbing about this segment. I kept waiting for that trope where whatever you wish for has a catch - a price the victim must pay. But, nothing like that happened. Richard found something that changes reality, he went along with it, and changed things to his liking. The end!
It was a really rushed segment that didn't amount to much more than being 20 minutes of mindless entertainment.
Having a word processor, or computer, or whatever, that would change reality at your command is a cool and interesting story idea to run with. This segment only had a few minutes to play with it before the credits. Given more time, I'm sure a much better story could be told.  

Sorry, Right Number (aired on Tales from the Darkside season 4, episode 9 - 1987)

Director
John Harrison (as John Sutherland)

Cast
Deborah Harmon - Katie Weiderman
Arthur Taxier - Bill Weiderman

Remember in the movie Back to the Future, at the very beginning as the camera pans through a variety of clocks in Doc Brown's place, we catch a glimpse of a news anchor reporting on a case of missing plutonium? Well, that news caster (Deborah Harmon) is in this segment. Neat, huh!
Anyways, director John Harrison went on the direct the movie version of Tales from the Darkside in 1990. He also directed some episodes of the new series Creepshow currently airing on Shudder. So, he's experienced with King.
This segment was written as a teleplay by King for this series. The story was later included in Nightmares and Dreamscapes. 
Katie (Deborah Harmon) receives a call one night from an unknown women who's frantically crying over the phone. The phone cuts out before Katie can determine who's on the other end. She panics, and calls various family members to see if they're the caller and to make sure they're alright.
Her writer husband (writer....in a King story?) tells her to relax and they both try to figure out who called.
Everyone she suspects and contacts clearly didn't call her.
Later in the night, Katie finds her husband dead in the living room, having suffered a heart attack.
The story then pans to years later on her daughter's wedding day.
After a heart-felt talk with her daughter, she begins to reminisce about Bill, and begins to cry pretty hard.
She then recalls that when Bill died, he had been complaining of headaches and other symptoms that were clearly warning signs of a bigger, more serious health issue. Had she not ignored them and they had gone to the hospital, he could still be alive.
Katie then, in some kind of daze, picks of the phone and dials their old number. You probably know where this is going.
This segment was rather simple, and suspenseful. Though the outcome was predictable, it still made for something entertaining and intriguing. All she had to do was take her husband to the hospital. She learned that after the fact. 
It was an entertaining segment.

Obscure Stephen King

27) Disciples of the Crow (1983) and The Boogeyman (1982) - Obscure Stephen King flicks #7

"The Lord is he who walks behind the rows."

Director
John Woodward

Cast
Eleese Lester - Vicky
Gabriel Folse - Burt
Steven Young - Young Billy
John Woodward - Older Billy

I picked two movies for this post because (1) each was only 20 to 30 minutes long, and (2) they're both featured on a two volume VHS set called Stephen King's Nightshift Collection. The set includes four short movies - three of which are based on King stories found in his book of short stories, Night Shift. Why one movie, The Night Waiter (1987), in this King collection has nothing to do with King or his book is beyond me.
When it comes to obscure Stephen King movies, this set definitely fits the bill. I never even heard of them until I read an article in a recent issue of HorrorHound magazine that mentioned the title Disciples of the Crow. A quick Google search led me to this obscure collection not available on DVD.
The only way I was able to watch these movies, luckily, was on YouTube. Unfortunately, the King short The Woman in the Room directed by Frank Darabont, who's no stranger to directing other movie adaptations of King's work - Shawshank Redemption, The Mist, The Green Mile - wasn't available in English. It's found on volume 2 of this collection along with the other movie I reviewed down below, so I'll find a way to watch it soon enough.
Disciples of the Crow, based on the story Children of the Corn, is featured on volume 1.
When compared to the more popular movie Children of the Corn, which has weaved its way into pop culture spawning six sequels since its 1984 release, as well as a made-for-TV remake in 2009, Disciples of the Crow is actually a little better. This isn't saying too much as it's only a 20 minute film. It was also released before the more popular movie adaptation. Even today, people (whether they've seen the movie or read the story) use the phrase "Children of the corn" to describe country folks deemed not quite up to snuff with the rest of the society. The title has made its way into the lexicon of other book titles used as modern catchphrases - Catch 22, for instance.
Children of the Corn fails in its ending. It's tacky, stupid, and seems like an ending for the sake of an ending. That's my biggest problem with it. I'm just throwing that out there.
In Disciples, we see an opening of a dry atmosphere with a golden sun amidst the screeching of crows. We then see a young boy, Billy, perform a ritual with a crucifix in which he's making something with corn. He joins other kids, and the movie then cuts to families gathered in church. Billy sees Jesus on a stained glass window, where his face turns dark. Billy takes this as the sign to kill the adults. Before we see that happens, the scene switches to 12 years later.  
The story centers on a couple, Vicki and Burt, who while driving on a secluded road towards Jonah, Oklahoma, accidentally hit a young boy who ran out from the cornfields next to the road. When Burt gets out to see if he's ok, he finds a knife made from a corn cob, stabbed in the boy's side.
They pull through a small town which turns out is completely deserted.
It has been taken over by the cult of children, and their trip through the town quickly becomes an escape for their lives.
Disciples of the Crow has more mystery and intrigue behind it. It's too bad the movie is so short as it leaves a lot of unanswered questions. There could have been more to add, making it a better, scarier film.
The imagery is great, despite the movie's overall amateur appearance - looking and sounding (i.e. the poor dialogue) more like a film school project.
One thing I really liked over the more famous movie adaptation  was the adults death scene inside Mercy Baptist Church. In Children of the Corn, that scene takes place inside a diner, which is fine and creepy as hell. But to have it inside a Baptist church is much more dark, putting the mindset of the cult's god (he who walks behind the rows), shown through the action of the children, in a much more accurate light. We don't actually see the adults get taken down by the children as its more implied.
The movie did a decent enough job to tell its story in such a short amount of time, relying more on visuals than dialogue.
For Stephen King fans, Disciples of the Crow is a small obscure gem lost among bigger films made with bigger budgets, that's worth checking out.

The Boogeyman

"Maybe if you think of a thing long enough, and believe in it, maybe it becomes real. Maybe all the things we were afraid of as kids, you know, the monsters like Frankenstein, Wolfman, or Mummy - maybe they were real."

Director
Jeff Schiro

Cast
Michael Earl Reid - Lester Billings
Bert Linder - Dr. Harper
Terence Brandy - Sgt. Garland

I don't know for sure, but I'd bet that the Stephen King short story The Boogeyman, published in the same book mentioned above (Night Shift) was an inspiration, somehow of another, for the story It. There are some similarities between the two stories. Well, mostly that there's a scary monster and children are its victims.
The movie opens with Lester Billings (Michael Earl Reid, Army of Darkness) finding one of his children dead in the bathtub.
The audience follows Billings as he discusses with his psychiatrist that the monster in his children's closet is real, and it's literally killing them.
He goes into gruesome details about how he has found his kids dead in there beds at night, with the closet door open, and how helpless he has been. We cut back and forth between scenes of Lester with his family, and his sessions with his doctor.
For a short psychological horror/thriller, this movie really pulled me in. And if you're not familiar with the story, the ending is great and unsettling.
Watching a man we know is fully aware of some paranormal being manifesting in his home and killing his children, who's trying to convince his doctor of what's happening, and the madness this drives him into is the stuff of good horror and thrillers.
Sometimes the monster in the story isn't the scariest thing. Rather, it's watching the main character live with the knowledge that something horrifying and unexplainable exists whether they like it or not. Watching the main character deal with something they have no control over in such a situation is half the scare. The other half is, well, the monster itself. And trying to get rid of it may not go the way the protagonist thinks it will. But if it leads to a resolution, we're willing to cope with our losses (or, rather, those of the protagonist), whatever they might be, just so we can have that resolution.
Reid plays his role well - a helpless father facing a reality that's unbelievable and larger than his imagination can fathom right in his own home. All he can do his grasp his shotgun and try to face it for the sake of his family. This, mixed with the screams of his children begging for him to save them, makes it hard to watch. Yet his performance is well done for what it is. You can't help but feel sympathy for Lester who's left to the mercy of authorities and his psychiatrist.
Initially, I thought the title seemed too generic and silly. I mean, "The Boogeyman?" Seriously? But watching it, it makes sense. It's the looming presence of evil who's always there waiting, and that knowledge consumes your sanity.
This movie is precisely that, and the ending is unexpected. It's an ending that really throws Billings' lack of control over the entire situation in his face.
Like Disciples of the Crow, this movie is worth watching for any big Stephen King fan. It's not a movie that'll blow you away. It's more like a really great episode of Tales from the Crypt or The Twilight Zone.
This was an entertaining short movie, and a creepy one as long as the audience doesn't let the films age or production value get in the way. It's worth checking out, especially for the die-hard King fans.
 
Obscure Stephen King

26) The Dark Half (1993) - Obscure Stephen King flick #6

George Starks' the celebrity. Not me.

Director
George A. Romero

Cast
Timothy Hutton - Thad Beaumont/ George Stark
Amy Madigan - Liz Beaumont
Michael Rooker - Sheriff Alan Pangborn
Julie Harris - Reggie Delesseps

The Dark Half, based on Stephen King's novel of the same name, tends to be buried among unheard of horror movies on some streaming sights. The movie leans far enough into the "under the radar" category (a phrase I like to use a lot) despite it being directed by horror director extraordinaire - the late, great George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Creepshow.)
But unlike other Romero movies, this one ultimately falls flat despite its intriguing psychological thriller story line, and a decent dual performance by Timothy Hutton as the story's protagonist, Thad Beaumont, and the antagonist, George Stark.
Though I have yet to read King's book, the movie definitely has tropes used by King in various other stories - a writer struggling with some sort of demon whether it be alcoholism, writer's block, themselves, or in this case a psychological entity personified. Watching this brought some other of his stories to mind - Secret Window, Secret Garden, The Tommyknockers, and Misery. All these stories share such a trope.
In the movie, author Thad Beaumont writes suspense novels under the pen name George Stark. However, he plans to retire his pseudonym, which he declares to his fanbase, and to all the literary world. A photojournalist takes a picture of him standing next to a mock grave with Stark's name on it - a final symbol of George Stark's death.
Shortly after this all takes place, Stark is suddenly real. I mean, he's a real physical person. And he murders the photographer, Homer Gamache, who shot Beaumont and the fake grave for the news story.
Other people surrounding Beaumont begin to get bumped off, making Beaumont a prime suspect for Castle Rock Sheriff, Alan Pangborn (Michael Rooker - Guardians of the Galaxy, Walking Dead.)
There's evidence to suggest Beaumont is responsible, especially his finger prints being found at crime scenes. Pangborn doesn't arrest him as there's proof of Beaumont being elsewhere at the time of the murders. Even Pangborn begins to agree that something abnormal is taking place.
We learn early on in the movie that Beaumont had a parasitic twin who died in childbirth.
There's a scene that shows a fetus developing in Beaumont's brain. That part was creepy, but its purpose left me confused.
As Stark kills more and more people, Beaumont learns Stark is that twin that supposedly died at childbirth. Yet, somehow, Stark is an entity controlled by Beaumont's writing and his goal is to stop Beaumont from ultimately killing him (i.e. ending his series.)
The movie doesn't go deep enough into this interesting story. How is Stark Beaumont's parasitic twin yet controlled by his writing? The movie just introduces the premise, gets through it with little explanation, and then ends suddenly. It had potential to be a memorable movie, but it missed a great opportunity. Sad!
The story was really intriguing. Some major elements needed more substance and explanation. It's implied that Stark is a paranormal entity.
Sparrows play a part in the movie as harbingers of souls to the afterlife. And they're used to take Stark back to hell. Yet, he's the parasitic twin? Is he the ghost of the twin who somehow, through ghost magic became entangled in the identity of fictitious George Stark? I'm so confused! Please, movie, explain this to me!
The Dark Half had potential, but just missed the pot. The movie tries...really tries...to be that memorable psychological thriller. The movie had a great cast including Hollywood legend, Julie Harris (The Haunting, East of Eden).
Amy Madigan plays Thad's wife, Liz Beaumont. While I wouldn't say she was bad in this move, I liked her better in Uncle Buck. Hers wasn't a standout performance, but she was good in role along side Tim Hutton.
With the presence of Timothy Hutton who won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for the movie Ordinary People (1980), along with Romero's and King's name slapped by the title, The Dark Half tries to be as deep and serious a movie as other King adaptations of that time frame such as Misery (1990), Stand By Me (1986). It missed the bulls eye by a huge gap.
If only more time was given for in-depth story telling, The Dark Half could have been a much better movie. Perhaps so much so it may have been a movie up there among other popular King movies. Maybe? Otherwise, it's now a movie lost among unknown, obscure horror titles on Hulu.

21) Quicksilver Highway (1997) - Obscure Stephen King flick #5

"Do you have time for a story?."

Director
Mick Garris

Cast
Christopher Lloyd - Aaron Quicksilver
Matt Frewer- Charlie/ Dr. Charles George
Raphael Sbarge - Kerry Parker/Bill Hogan
Missy Crider - Olivia Parker/Lita Hogan

During a lecture I watched on YouTube sometime ago, I recall Stephen King saying to an auditorium of listeners that while the world considers him to be a deep, prolific, perhaps enigmatic writer, he on the other hand considers himself to be a casual guy who just writes for fun. With some of his short stories like You Know They Have a Hell of a Band (a story about a town inhabited by famous dead rock legends), or The Mangler (a story about a possessed laundry press), or Chattery Teeth (a story about a pair of novelty wind-up teeth that seeks revenge), it's easy to see that...yeah...King writes often for the fun of it. And he does it well.
Anyhow, Quicksilver Highway is a made-for-TV anthology movie based on King's short story Chattery Teeth published in his short story collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes. The second story in the film is based on Clive Barker's story The Body Politic found in his book collection Books of Blood. 
I think this movie title got lost in the mix of many other made-for-TV King movies aired the same decade.
The star of the movie is Aaron Quicksilver (Christopher Lloyd.)
When it comes to Christopher Lloyd, I get a strong impression he is an actor that just loves to act and take on different personas. Aside from his more notable roles in Back to the Future I, II, and III, The Addams Family, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Lloyd has taken on less notable roles in movies like, well... Quicksilver Highway, Dennis the Menace, Piranha 3DD, and Santa Buddies.
It seems that as long as he gets to act, he'll take a role for the fun of it. If this is the case - I'd be willing to be money it is - that's admirable. And no matter the role he's taken in his acting history, none of them have hurt his long-successful career.
There's a contrast between his on-screen performances and his personality during interviews and public appearances. He's generally soft spoken and reserved, and comes across as shy. He's just the opposite of his eccentric Back to the Future character Dr. Brown who's loquacious and animated.
So, like all other movies I've seen where Lloyd pops into frame, I was happy to see him appear in this movie. "Oh, right on...Christopher Lloyd is in this!" That's my customary reaction in his glorious screen presence. He's enjoyable and fun to watch.
The movie starts with a bride and groom, Kerry and Olivia (Raphael Sbarge and Missy Crider), stranded on the highway in the middle of a desert. Since traffic is nearly non-existent along this stretch of road, the groom decides he's going to have to hitchhike to find a gas station.
Olivia, meanwhile, has to wait..and wait.
Night falls, and finally headlights appear. It's a Silverline trailer-what else? Aaron Quicksilver gets out to assist, with his gentle yet strange mannerisms and clothing that looks like he shops at a geriatric Hot Topic. He invites her into his trailer so she can eat. Oddly, his trailer is more lavish, roomy, and luxurious than the outside would indicate.
He then starts to tell her a "true story" about a hitchhiker and some chattery teeth. I haven't yet read King's short story this segment is based on. I was told the TV version (as is customary with 90s horror television) is tamer. This part of the movie leans a little too much into the boring and completely predictable realm.

Chattery Teeth involves salesman Bill Hogan (Raphael Sbarge-again) who finds a pair of novelty wind-up teeth in a roadside gas station. The owner tells him they're broken, and lets him take the teeth free as it's Bill's son's birthday.
As he's getting back in his van, Bill reluctantly picks up a hitchhiker who, in the middle of their travels, decides to rob him. That's when Bill realizes there's more to those broken teeth than he realized.
The second story takes the audience to an amusement park where we witness Charlie (Matt Frewer) pickpocketing as many folks as he can.
This isn't the first time Frewer appeared in a made-for-TV King adaptation. He played the role of  "Trashcan Man" in The Stand - one of the best TV adaptations of a King novel, by the way!
I remember Frewer from Disney's Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. He's most well known for playing the iconic 80s character Max Headroom.
Charlie is the next person to run into Aaron. This time, it's inside a sideshow of unusual objects. Aaron shows Charlie his "hand of glory" - a candle made from a human hand, burning on each fingertip.
This takes the audience into the next story, The Body Politic. This tale, which plays out as silly when it probably isn't supposed to be, is much more fascinating to watch.
Frewer plays Dr. Charles George, who finds that both his hands have developed a mind of their own, and are plotting to rebel against him. They literally communicate to each other while he sleeps. It's hilarious to watch this "hand acting." Am I supposed to take this more seriously - watching two hands sign and speak in high pitched voices to each other.
He chops one off, and it runs away. Eventually, his missing hand convinces other hands inside a hospital to "be free" and leave the bodies they're attached to. And, they do. "Hands, everywhere- UNITE!"

It's a crazy idea for a story, in a nice way I mean. There's surely some underlying statement being made - the hand rebelling against the body. It's an interesting take on what if the hand did actually rebel!
The entire movie is what I call "made for TV scary." It's tame. Very tame, making the scare factor more laughable than anything. I can't really blame the movie for that though. Television censors where what they were in 1997. But despite all that, the second act of the movie was much more enjoyable than the King portion. The story was much more interesting. It was like watching a fan film for Thing from the Addam's Family.
Outside of Lloyd's presence in the film, The Body Politic is the only other memorable thing about Quicksilver Highway. Haunted wind-up teeth just didn't do anything for me.
All in all, this Stephen King movie funny in parts where I'm sure it's not supposed to be. I could easily see these stories played out on a Friday night thriller program on 90s Nickelodeon like Are you Afraid of the Dark - yeah, remember that show?
King really hit a high peak in the 90s with TV movie adaptations. A large number of series based on his material aired back in this decade- It, The Langoliers, The Stand, The Tommyknockers, The Shining, Sometimes They Come Back, Trucks. All this on top of the 12 theatrical releases between 1990 and 1999 that were based on his work.
But these prime-time movies were either hit, or miss - wide miss (cough, cough, Langoliers). I just don't think prime time television, with its censors and what not, was ready to, or capable of, really making a solid King TV movie. Quicksilver Highway seems like proof to me. There were a few exceptions (i.e. It and The Stand).
Director Mick Garris had previously directed another Stephen King adaptation in 1992 - Sleepwalkers (I might get to this one later). His name as a writer can also be found in the credits of Critters 2, Batteries Not Included, and Hocus Pocus.
Quicksilver Highway is worth watching for audiences who are fans of King. Otherwise, it leans a little too far in the ridiculous category to be taken as a serious thriller. If it's not meant to be taken as ridiculous, then bravo!

Why this?

19) Dolan's Cadillac (2009) - Obscure Stephen King flick #4

"The view from hell is clear and bright. The sun is black. The night is radiant. Good is evil, evil is good. Sweet insanity understood."

Director
Jeff Beesley

Cast
Christian Slater - Jimmy Dolan
Wes Bentley - Tom Robinson
Emmanuella Vaugier - Elizabeth Robinson

Stephen King's short story collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes is my favorite of his collections. In fact, what I consider to be his scariest short story, The Moving Finger, can be found inside.
The book also seems to be the basis of a handful of obscure film and television adaptations. Dolan's Cadillac is one of them.
I had no idea this movie existed until I searched for "Obscure Stephen King movies."
It was a direct-to-video release, which is probably why this movie has been under the radar.
But it's certainly no small production, as it features Christian Slater and Wes Bentley.
During a horse riding trip through the desert near Las Vegas, Tom Robinson's (Wes Bentley) wife, Elizabeth (Emmanuelle Vaugier) witnesses a human trafficking deal that ends up with three people murdered.
Little does Elizabeth know, notorious thug - a nightmare among nightmares - Jimmy Dolan (Christian Slater) is in charge of this crime. It's Dolan she sees shoot and kill two coyotes (human traffickers) and one trafficking victim.
As she rides away, while being shot at, she loses her cell phone. One of  Dolan's people finds it, resolved to "take care of the problem" on Dolan's command.
She and Tom go to the authorities, but tell them nothing the police haven't heard before. The police fill them in on their pursuit of Dolan, and what kind of person he is, especially towards people willing to testify against him.
The couple are later admitted into witness protection after they find the dead body of a human trafficking victim, with her lips sewn shut, in their bed - a message from Dolan telling the Robinson's to keep quiet.
All the while, Elizabeth has been having dreams of becoming pregnant.
While in the protection program, she wakes up during the night vomiting - a sure sign she's finally expecting a child with Tom. So, she rushes out to buy a pregnancy test.
Tom rushes after her as she gets in the car. When she starts it, the car explodes.
Tom takes her death really hard, resorting to drinking, and succumbing to despair. He breaks down and purchases a hand gun.
He also starts following Dolan around, learning his routines and trying to find a perfect opportunity to gain revenge.
During an attempt to shoot Dolan, he discovers his Cadillac is bullet proof. This leads Tom to exact another, even more terrifying kind of revenge. One that will make Dolan surely pay for his crimes, especially Elizabeth's murder.
It's not necessarily an intense film that'll blow audiences away. It is entertaining, and captivates just enough.
Some lines, especially from Wes Bentley, seem very scripted, but Christian Slater's role as Jimmy Dolan is fantastic. Slater seems to take his role seriously, putting what he can into his portrayal. He's a character worthy of hatred, and Slater makes the audience do just that. It's a role for Slater that shouldn't be forgotten.
Wes Bentley seemed to just roll through his portrayal of Tom Robinson. Some lines seemed too scripted at first, but improved slightly towards the third act. For a character who's life changed for the worst in nearly a wink of an eye, I wasn't convinced by his portrayal at just how much turmoil he was in. It was hard to tell where his effort was- in seeking his revenge, or just getting through the movie?
Nevertheless, the movie is overall truly entertaining, with the right amount of intrigue to keep interested until the end.
Though the movie is more of a crime thriller than a horror movie, it carries just enough "horror," Stephen King style, to be included on my blog. All in all, Dolan's Cadillac deserves a little more attention as it's definitely good enough for a Friday night movie.


Ambiguous King

17) Mercy (2014) - Obscure Stephen King flick #3

"Even the darkest things in life can be a blessing."

Director
Peter Cornwell

Cast
Shirley Knight - Mercy
Chandler Riggs - George
Frances O'Connor - Rebecca
Joel Courtney - Buddy
Dylan McDermott - Jim Swann

Leave it to Stephen King to take those things we hold precious, such as the family Saint Bernard, or the privacy we treasure despite the vulnerability we endure when going to the bathroom (i.e. King's Dreamcatcher) and turn them into something frightening which may linger in our memory forever. King has a fair number of tropes he's turned into his own proverbial shower scene from Psycho.
In the case of the 2014 movie Mercy, (who's heard of it?) it's the relationship between a grandmother and a grandson.
This is taken from King's short story Gramma found in his anthology book Skeleton Crew. 
I found this title when searching for an episode of The Twilight Zone reboot series that ran from 1985 to 1986. There was an episode titled Gramma from the first season also adapted from King's short story. The episode featured Barret Oliver (Bastian from The Neverending Story) as the main character, George. I had planned to review the episode.
For an obscure title, Mercy is not without some big names - Chandler Riggs (Walking Dead) as the main character, George, and Shirley Knight (As Good as it Gets) as his grandmother, Mercy. It also stars Dylan McDermott and Frances O'Connor.
The movie starts off fairly strong in intrigue and shock - an opening shot of a young woman having a baby inside her home as her husband does himself in with an ax to the head - but it's mixed with what sounds like lighthearted narration from George. It doesn't fit together well.
He has a strong relationship with his grandmother, Mercy. When she becomes sick, Mercy has to live in an old folk's home.
However, after some time passes, the nursing home informs the family they don't want to care for her anymore. She's become to strange for their staff. And Mercy has to come back home. Her daughter, Rebecca (Frances O'Conner) who's a single mom, and her sons, George and Buddy (Joel Courtney) come to live with her as her caregivers.
Despite just how much grandma isn't herself, George tries to really be there for her. The worse her health goes, the darker things become. The situation finally boils over as evil secrets begin to emerge, revealing Mercy's demons, her sinister past, and the hell that's behind her decline.
Riggs portrays his 13-year old (give or take) character taking care of his declining grandma as best he can. His performance is fairly solid. He had a big part to play, and pulled it off well enough. The effort is there. The other performances come across as forced and lacking enthusiasm, especially from grandma herself. 
The tension and turmoil within the family was a well done detail to the story. As evil influences have been at work with grandma for years, the devil's footprints (figuratively speaking) have trekked through the family since their beginnings starting with Mercy, and it shows. It was a small detail that may or may not have been intentional, but it was portrayed and it made sense. Mercy's secrets are slowly revealed at just enough pace to have kept me interested.
But as the final act commences, things became confusing, with elements strung together. George runs around too much in and out of the house. Small plot points come up with little or no explanation as to their purpose in the story.
Throughout the story, George converses with the "girl next door," a young girl roughly the same age, to help him think out his difficult situations. We learn right away she's someone only he can see and hear. At first it seems like a coping mechanism, but the ending reveals who she is, and it leaves a lot of unanswered questions.
Needless, to say, the movie ended on a lackluster note - unsatisfying.
If it just had better writing, it could have been a true hidden gem of a Stephen King movie. It entertained me overall until the end where, sadly, just like grandma, it just gasped its last and fizzled out.
It's laughable that the Twilight Zone episode had a darker ending than the movie, which changed the ending of King's original story altogether. Perhaps if it kept King's original ending, Mercy would have been a better film.

The Twilight Zone season 1 episode 18

Barret Oliver as George in the 1985 Twilight Zone episode Gramma 

Ambiguous King

15) Riding the Bullet (2004) - Obscure Stephen King flick #2

"Fun is fun, and done is done."

Director
Mick Garris

Cast
Jonathan Jackson - Alan Parker
David Arquette - George Staub
Barbara Hershey - Jean Parker
Erika Christensen - Jessica Hadley


I've seen this movie twice before, and still couldn't remember much about it, especially the plot. The third time wasn't the charm I hoped it would be.
Though the story line that deals with death is fairly good, perhaps slightly reminiscent of King's story The Body which went on to become Stand By Me, this movie relies unnecessarily, and way too much, on jump scares-some of them laughable.
This one is based on the novella of the same name. What was also laughable was just how hard this Stephen King movie tried to be a Stephen King movie.

The plot
It's 1969, and a young artist (who wasn't an artist in the sixties?) named Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) - a University of Maine student - has a fascination with death. (Who didn't have a strange obsession with death in the sixties?)
He also thinks his girlfriend, Jessica, is trying to breakup with him - a thought that doesn't seem to be based on anything except his paranoia.
While sitting in his bathtub the day before Halloween, smoking weed, Alan stares intently on a razor blade and plays with the idea of slicing his wrist. And who should walk in right at that moment as he caresses the blade against his skin, but the Grim Reaper himself.
Death encourages Alan to do the permanent deed, while the murals painted on his bathroom wall begin to chant, "cut, cut, cut."
Alan accidentally cuts himself just as his girlfriend and a group of his friends barge into the bathroom with a cake to surprise him on his birthday. (Who wasn't barging into bathrooms with cake in the sixties?)
Alan wakes up in the hospital where Jessica berates him for his attempted suicide. She also scored him tickets to see John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band up in Toronto.
The day after he's released from the hospital, Jessica tells him he has a wall around him, and he again realizes she was going to leave him.
More "good news" comes when Alan gets a call letting him know his mother had a stroke. He has to forego the Lennon concert to visit his mom.
We see flashbacks via hallucinations of his childhood, and just what his relationship with her was like.
Alan starts hitchhiking to Lewiston, Maine. His trip starts off with a lift from a wannabe hippie/ Army deserter, who ends up crashing his VW.
Meanwhile, he sees a billboard advertising "The Bullet" roller coaster at an amusement park called "Thrill Village." He flashes back to a moment when he begged his mom to take him to ride the Bullet, only to chicken out thanks to the screams of the riders, just as they're next in line to get on. His mother slaps him on the head for being a wimp. This unfinished event consistently plays throughout Alan's trip to Lewiston to see his mom.
He then makes his way through a cemetery where finds a grave with the name George Staub. There's a picture George on the headstone.
Alan continues trying to hitch a ride, when someone almost immediately picks him up. He soon realizes that his new driver is actually George Staub (David Arquette) who's grave and picture he just encountered.
Though Alan realizes his driver is a dead guy, he tries hard not to let George catch on to this fact.
But George does know that Alan knows he's dead, because dead people always know everything, and their ride together ultimately boils down to an ultimatum for Alan. He must pick who will live and who will die. Alan, or his mother?

My thoughts
I've seen this movie twice before, and still couldn't recall much of the story line, or what events took place between the beginning and the end.
Mick Garris directed another, more obscure, Stephen King movie 12 years earlier - Sleepwalkers. I'll try to get to that one later. He also directed the Stephen King television movie Quicksilver Highway (1997) which stared Christopher Lloyd - get to that one, too! He's no stranger to comedic horror/ thriller. He was a writer for Disney's film, Hocus Pocus, which has gained a cult following lately. Riding the Bullet was lackluster.
The scary part, in a loose meaning of the word, don't come until Alan's ride with George, and the ultimatum he's left with. There's no way out of this one.
The movie relies on jump scares, and there's too many of them. Some of them occur within seconds of each other. I recall three consecutive jump scares in a row - the most I've seen in a single scene. It becomes a comedic gimmick before it just gets tiresome and stupid.
This movie has that coming of age motif found in a few Stephen King movies. This time around, it's a little saturated with the same flashback of Alan wimping out of riding the Bullet coaster when he was young. I understood that the Bullet was a sort-of premonition to the life or death decision Alan will have to make in the future. But the flashback popped up again and again in case I forgot the symbolism, or the title of the movie?
As he contemplates just how much his mother, who's on the brink of death, did for him growing up, in the midst of his ow fascination with death, he realizes death isn't as glamorous as his mind made it out to be. On top of that, Staub is making him pick a death - himself, or his mom.
This scenario is really a fascinating contemplation on death, and how it's viewed. It's compared to what death really is and how it affects other people. It's another story element King has used before in stories like Pet Sematary.
Alan does develop in this movie. Otherwise, the movie tries way too hard to be scary, doing a poor job of it.
I understand slapping Stephen King's name on the poster gives the audience an expectation to be frightening. But this movie made it comical, and that's not what it really intended to do. This was like watching a Hallmark version of a King movie. It was a good story line, a different take on the reality of death, but a dull and clunky presentation. I haven't read the story, but I would imagine, based on the movie, this must have been a depressed phase for Stephen King.
Watching Alan struggle with his ultimatum, as George Staub starts shouting for him to make a decision "now" or Alan and his mom are both goners, was the highlight of the movie
None of the acting really stands out. Jonathan Jackson doesn't play Alan with any personality, even when he's scared.
Too many cheap tricks and random thoughts distract from the real drama at hand. No wonder I forgot about this movie after watching it twice before.

Ambiguous King

12) The Mangler (1995) - Obscure Stephen King flick #1

"There's a little bit of me in that machine, and a little bit of it in me. We are the life blood of this town. We all have to make sacrifices." 

Director
Tobe Hooper

Cast
Ted Levine - John Hunton
Robert Englund - Bill Gartley
Vanessa Pike - Sherry Ouelette
Daniel Matmor - Mark Jackson


I know this movie about a possessed laundry press, housed inside the steamy, sweaty, Gartley's Blue Ribbon Laundry Service, was trying to be scary and suspenseful. But other than that, I really don't know what this movie was setting out to do.
A film about a demonic press is, without saying, over the top. It just wasn't the movie that the three horror icons who's names are attached to it (Director Tobe Hooper - Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Poltergeist - Robert Englund, Freddy Krueger himself, and of course Stephen King - everything Stephen King has ever written) should have done together. Oh, and it has Ted Levine from Silence of the Lambs.
I'm baffled a little that this would be the movie for these horror giants to come together on.
King's original story of the same name can be found in his collection of short stories called Night Shift. He wrote it from his experiences, and from I read somewhere, as a bit of a payback for lousy work conditions as he worked in a laundry facility. Maybe as a short story, it could be a fun read.
I'll add here that when it comes to creative writing, King himself said in a lecture that writers should write for themselves, and write for fun. Case and point - The Mangler.
Bill Gartley (Robert Englund) operates a laundry service. And we see how insanely uncaring and, ooooh, evil he is when his own niece, Sherry, severely cuts herself on the machine. She drips blood onto its tread as she tries to dodge an old refrigerator some movers are doing a poor job of carrying. Both her hand and the fridge touch the machine, giving the press both a demon and a taste for blood.
Later on, one of Gartley's employees, the elderly Mrs. Frawley, gets stuck onto the tread as she tries to open a container of antacids which spill onto the machine while it's on. Rather than letting them go, or asking to have the machine turned off, she struggles to pick them up.
She get's pulled in, and what comes out on the other end is a bloody, folded mess that was once Mrs. Frawley. 

In comes Police Investigator John Hunton (Ted Levine) who, despite being the standard tough, no-nonsense cop, can't stomach the remains of Frawley.
To me, this is were the ridiculousness comes in. I understand that if such a horrific accident had taken place in real life, obviously police would be present to investigate the situation.
For all practical purposes, and as far as witnesses go, such a death would be considered accidental.
Hunton, however, really delves into an investigation, while his brother-in-law, Mark, (a demonologist) tries to convince him that something supernatural is at play. It really starts to become forced by this point.
It's hard to take Levine's character seriously. Just what his drive is into an investigation that looks completely accidental on the surface is unclear. He doesn't believe in demons and such. And no fowl play is involved. But Hunton is determined to dig something up.
During the investigation, Mark figures out that the icebox may be what was possessed by demons. And sure enough, it was. So, the demons are expelled from the ice box, but the work isn't finished.
They both learn that Gartley and other people in town have been sacrificing their virgin daughters to the press on their 16th birthdays for wealth and power. How this little tradition came to be isn't explained. Nothing is explained. Anyhow, Gartley had plans to do just that to Sherry.
Meanwhile, Mark discovers that the antacids that Frawley was taking (and Hunton is taking, too, because he stole them out of Frawley's purse during the investigation) contains deadly nightshade.
Nightshade, according to Mark's Book of the Occult, is just the ingredient to feed the demons and bring the machine to life. Hunton and Mark proceed with an exorcism which is as ridiculous as it is intense.
The machine then comes to life, and chases the pair around the facility. Unfortunately, the money must have run out by this point, because what's supposed to be the climax is more like the last few seconds of a deflating balloon.

Robert Englund as Bill Gartley

Just like the flatulating sound of a balloon sputtering through the air, the last act is enough to make anyone laugh. It's hilarious to watch grown men perform an exorcism over a machine, and then watch terrible depiction of a laundry press chase people around, breathing fire.
It doesn't seem like any of the actors are really enjoying their roles. Robert Englund does make a great villain. His character is the embodiment of the machine itself - uncaring, unsympathetic, and completely self-interested. Englund's acting makes the most sense. He's playing it in just the right amount of exaggeration - a caricature of exaggeration itself - that's suitable for a movie about a demonic laundry machine.
But nothing about the story or the climax impressed. It just went from silly to painful.
This movie was trying to be too many things at once. With Stephen King's name behind it, The Mangler tried to raise itself on the pedestal where other King movies have been placed, with its want of respect for being a story written by an author who's often taken as a serious writer. Meanwhile, it was trying to be an over-the-top film. In short, it was taking itself seriously while at certain points, it didn't want to be taken seriously. And the dialogue was all over the place.
None of the actors could work off each other. It was a mish-mash of styles with none of them very convincing, save for Englund who seemed to be the only one who understood just what kind of a movie this was. Three masters of the horror genre (and Ted Levine) had one chance to make a laundry machine scary, and what was left was a forgettable mess. Nothing dazzled. Nothing left its marked.
How this flick spawned two sequels is a testament to Hollywood clearly not understanding what audiences want...or don't want.
The Mangler mangled a perfectly good Friday night for me, leaving me with no real scares.