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"Nightmares and Dreamscapes," a collection of eight one-hour
mini-movies based on stories by Stephen King, comes to
DVD this week after airing on TNT this past summer. It's the latest
of numerous King-based television productions dating back to 1979,
many of which the horror master himself has been involved with. A
number of such projects, including "The Stand" and "It," were critical and ratings
successes. But even some of those in which King had direct creative
input, as the screenwriter and/or executive producer, have met with
the same disdain that has greeted so many theatrical attempts to
bring his work to the screen. Why is this?
For one thing, King's prose sometimes works better in the
imagination than on the screen. An evil cosmic spider that's
millions of years old might induce shivers on the page, but just
looks like an oversized rubber bug on your TV set. Plus King's
colloquial Maine dialogue, often a pungent trademark of his stories,
just doesn't sound as convincing coming from the mouth of a former
"Wings" star. Finally -- and perhaps
most importantly -- it's tough to build a true sense of dread when
the next Preparation H commercial is just a few minutes away.
Yet, if you rate King's output according to the great Rod Serling -- who once
said that about a third of "The Twlight Zone" episodes he wrote
were fine, another third were passable, and the last third were dogs
-- than old Steve isn't doing all that badly ("Nightmares and
Dreamscapes" follows pretty much the same pattern). Here's a
rundown of the King of Horror's previous television terrors, from
first to worst:
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'The Stand' (1994)
King's most popular novel went through development hell as
various writers and directors tried to distill the 800-plus page
tome down to a two-hour movie. A protective King finally adapted the
eight-hour miniseries himself, which turned out to be a genuinely
frightening and moving saga of good and evil duking it out after
most of mankind is wiped out by a plague. Director Mick Garris gave the film
an epic quality despite some unfortunate casting (um, Molly Ringwald as the
female lead? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as a
prophet of doom?), and, although the budget also let him down
occasionally, this is one of King's true screen gems, period --
small or big.
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'It' (1990)
Screenwriter Lawrence Cohen and
director Tommy Lee Wallace did a
fine job boiling the massive (1,100 pages) "It" down to a two-night,
four-hour miniseries, stripping the book to its essential plot of a
group of friends who must battle a hideous, ancient monster first as
kids, then years later as adults. As with "The Stand," it's often
hard to take sitcom stalwarts like Harry Anderson ("Night Court") and John Ritter ("Three's Company") in serious roles,
but Tim Curry steals the show
as Pennywise the Clown, the monster's "human" manifestation. Sadly,
its "monster" manifestation, that giant stop-motion spider, is
actually the funny one.
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'Salem's Lot'
(1979/2004)
The only King book to be filmed twice for television, the
author's tale of vampires overrunning a small Maine town is one of
his most enduring classics. It's a split decision on which version
is better, the '79 CBS two-nighter or TNT's more recent four-hour
update. David Soul was perfect in
the original as hero Ben Mears, but the movie's king vampire was a
silly "Nosferatu" knockoff. The remake
retained more of King's multiple storylines and characters, but
added some annoying "modern" upgrades and unnecessary back
stories. Maybe the third time will be just right
...
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'Desperation'
(2006)
This single-night, often gripping three-hour production benefits
heavily from the presence of Ron Perlman ("Hellboy") as the sheriff of
Desperation, Nevada, who is driven by an ancient demon to pull over
and murder anyone driving past his desolate town. Like King's novel,
the faithful TV version starts slowing down when Perlman exits
halfway through, and really gets wheezy when an angelic young boy
leading the survivors goes all "Oral Roberts" on us. But Mick Garris
still pulls off a nice level of dread, the characters are worth
caring about and the tale is well-told -- all elements
noticeably absent from recent big-screen
horrors.
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