Needful Things (1993) * A movie review by Serdar Yegulalp Copyright 1998 by Serdar Yegulalp
Stephen King is a prolific and sometimes gifted writer, but his track record with the movies is spotty. Every now and then, we get an original vision or an offbeat story to begin with, and the result is really memorable: THE SHINING, THE DEAD ZONE, STAND BY ME, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION were all strong and enjoyable. The rest of them have been by-the-numbers piffle, like this one.
What's wrong with this movie? It was lifted more or less intact from his novel of the same name, and I think that's the source of the problem. Many of his novels have become windy, overcooked exhalations to no clear purpose. Once you get your mind around the basic conceit of the story, the rest is just a taxi ride. NEEDFUL THINGS fits squarely into that category. As a movie, it's even more insufferable and dessicated than the book it was taken from.
The story opens up in Castle Rock, another of King's fictional Maine towns that looks peaceful on the outside but you just know is brimming with repressed horror. Ooo. One day a store that vaguely resembles an antique store, named "Needful Things", opens shop. The proprietor is played by Max von Sydow, who is probably the best thing in the movie, since he is always enjoyable as someone of diabolical intent. I'm half expecting a movie biography of Anton Szandor LaVey with him starring in it, and come to think of it, that would be far more interesting than anything that happens here.
Never mind. The store has in its collection of bric-a-brac various items for which all the members of the town all harbor the deepest desires. The proprietor sells them, but he is of course charging the highest possible price for them: your soul. There are other developments, too, which involve the townspeople stabbing each other in the back to curry favor with Satan.
The only person who holds out against the Big Sellout is Ed Harris, playing a police chief with an ugly past, but soon everyone else in town has succumbed and it isn't long before the whole place is going up in flames. God, I'm so sick of a movie's third act where they "solve" everything by blowing it up. It didn't work in ZABRISKIE POINT, so why should it work now?
There's not much variety in the movie, either; it's all horribly monochromatic and repetitive. Satan arrives, sets up shop, people fall all over each other selling out to the devil, mayhem ensues, movie eventually terminates on a sarcastic note. When I think about how much money and time and care goes into making any movie, and I see something like this, my heart dies a little.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews