MovieChat Forums > Needful Things (1993) Discussion > One of the worst movies I have ever seen...

One of the worst movies I have ever seen!

posted 17 years ago by aj-1985
33 replies | jump to latest

I am normally a Stephen King movie fan. He's written great movies such as Carrie, Misery, and so many others. But this movie was bad. Just really really bad. I can't believe this was a spinoff of one of his books! Do I really have to write much more about it other than the fact that it was just really bad? I really can't think of anything I liked in the movie. I've never read the book and this movie makes me not want to. The only reason why I watched this movie was because it sounded like it might be interesting in the pay per view description. Maybe I should have come here to read about ppl's reviews first. I can't believe anyone would give this movie more than 1 star since it had a terrible and slow plot, horrible acting, and absolutely no climax. It was just flat all the way through. By the time I got watching the first half of it I was really pissed off because nothing entertaining really happens in the movie, like the whole movie throughout! And when something would happen it was soooo stupid. I can't believe I bothered to watch it all the way through just because I was in the hopes that something good eventually would happen. What a waste of my time! I want two hours of my life back! To anyone who may consider watching this, just take it from me that you will regret losing 2 hours of your life for watching this peice of junk.

[–] youropfor 17 years ago

I think that is part of yours and most peoples problem. You expect too much from film in a mere 1.5 hours. Books are almost always going to be better. They would have had to make this movie 3 and a ha;f hours long to come close to the info from the book.

[–] parkpunk 17 years ago

I believe that's why so many Steven King stories don't translate very well to film or T.V. Sometimes they work, but quite often they don't. Because there is usually so much inner monologue going on and 3rd person narrative. Like, pages and pages of it. It would be impossible to fit that into a movie. Most books are better than their film counterparts. That's why it's so important to get kids to read, so it doesn't become a lost art.

[–] coreylahey 9 years ago

I agree. I read and really enjoyed the book and the first time I watched this I was disappointed, but recently re-watched and liked it a lot!

[–] mafster 17 years ago

For anyone thinking of not reading the book, THINK AGAIN. Best book he has ever written. Totally passionate and wonderfully crafted. You also get this indepth scope on all the characters and by the end of the novel, you can picture the towns layout, the people, where they work, the history and so forth.

Read it and enjoy it.

"Take it easy Mary, take it easy." - From the Movie 'Fallen Down'.

[–] cje8433 17 years ago

Stephen King is one of the more overrated writers in my estimation anyway. He literally throws thousands of ideas at a wall and every so often one sort of sticks. That said, I found this to be one of the more profound and thought-provoking pieces he has done. First, the idea of enabling people to be victimized by others to obtain material possessions plays on the human condition in a way very few movies do. The reason there is little to no climax is because, frankly, this is an ongoing struggle humanity faces. At what cost are we willing to sacrifice happiness to better someone else? If you want blood, guts, gore, aliens, clowns, killer automobiles, and other things that typically go along with King's lackluster work look elsewhere...this one actually takes some thought...

[–] Dirkgently123 16 years ago

I consider Needful Things, the book(!) not the movie, to be one of the goriest from King. It's very detailed in its descriptions of the violence scenes and lures out some low sadistic feelings from the human mind. That, those feelings, I also consider to be one of the central themes of this story, I think King wants to point out that anyone can have those feelings and thats why we should have caution. It's scary how I really started to enjoy reading about people stabbing each other to pieces.

But yeah it's been like ten years since I read it, and I don't know what my reactions to it would be today.

[–] stfud 10 years ago

Lackluster work!???!!?? Have you even read one of his books? Lackluster work indeed.

[–] outterspaces 17 years ago

Thank God, I didnt read your post before watch the movie, cuz the movie was good. The book was 1000 times better and is certainly one of the King's books I will always love: exactly because there's nothing happening in the first 100 pages, but suddenly u get like a 100 little things going on all together. Did you read the book first? Do you read King's books, or why waste, not hours, but DAYS of your precious life? People are ok with other people's opinion, but not literally telling them what's best for them.

[–] lastaria 17 years ago

You cannot have seen very many movies then.
I would have this down as a pretty average movie. there are far far worse.

Chris Thorpe

The lore of the mind counts further than the words of the mouth.

[–] aj-1985 17 years ago

Well I will not say that I am the biggest movie buff out there because I am not, but I will say that I've seen my fair share of plenty of movies just as much as the next person. I wouldn't call this movie average IMO, but perhaps you may be right and perhaps there may be movies that are really, really far worse... but the reason I'm downplaying this one so much is because this movie simply has no climax. I was expecting much, MUCH more from something that was based off of one of Stephen King's novels. I'm not necessarily saying that this particular novel of Stephen King is stupid because perhaps it may actually be a great novel. Perhaps this novel just really didn't translate well into film and it should have been left alone. I can't really tell you because I have never read the book. All I know is that this movie makes me not want to read the book. I don't know what the reason is, but this movie was just bad. There was so much wrong with this film from the acting, to the story, to the lack of "horror"..... there were just so much wrong with this film. Honestly I would rather watch "The House on Haunted Hill" twice and we all know how bad that movie is! OK, maybe not watch it twice lol but this movie sure ranks as badly as that movie.

[–] LibertarianSoldier 10 years ago

This was definitely average taking into account it's from 1993.

[–] SoTyred 17 years ago

It was a terrible adaption. For every one thing they got right, they got 10 things wrong. They remake all the good movies, and this movie that could easily be remade *right*, they don't touch.

Since Rob Reiner did Stand By Me, they should get him to do an adaption and lure Sutherland back to play Ace. He's in the novel, and plays a major part.

**Skin that Smokewagon and see what happens!** Tombstone

[–] morgana-31 17 years ago

I agree this was a bad adaptation. The book was one of my all time Stephen King favourites, and what this film failed to deliver was that that you often end up being owned by your possessions rather than owning them.

,,,,,SPOILER......
And the movie also failed to show that the Needful Thing each person received was not what the owner perceived in to be.

Love is never having to say you're sober.

[–] SoTyred 17 years ago

Yeah that is just one example. I'm glad I came here, I moved up Needful Things on my -re-read' pile.

**Skin that Smokewagon and see what happens!** Tombstone

[–] brittannie19 17 years ago

You say King's "written great movies," but keep in mind Stephen King has written very few screenplays (the main ones coming to mind now are Storm of the Century and Rose Red), he did not write the adaptation for this crappy movie, he wrote the book it was based on. From there it's up to the screenwriters and directors to create a product that doesn't suck. That being said, if you like to read then by all means read this book. I found it to be an extremely quick read and I absolutely loved it. It's one of my top King books. I thought the movie was absolute *beep* I could hardly stand it and thought it would took talent to make an even worse adaptation. So give the book a try, it's excellent.

[–] holt-lover 17 years ago

Needful Things is one of King's best books, especially since when it was released it was his best novel in years and would remain so. This was after the disappointing Dark Half and before Gerald's Game and Dolores Clairborn, none of which were as good as his mid-80's string of books which were his best work (It, Tommyknocker, Dark Tower: Drawing of Three, Misery, etc.). Too bad the movie cut out the some of the best parts about how people respond to their objects. Guess I'll have to find the TV version and edit it into the theatrical version.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] billhawk03 16 years ago

I agree Max Von Sydow played a great Gaunt. I understand going into adaptations of King novels they will not be near as in depth as the book. I was irked by the things they changed for no reason, bad acting and no development of major themes in the book. Why was it Mickey Mantle instead of Sandy Koufax? Why did that card cost 95 cents instead of 85? Why was it still a Mickey Mantle card when Ed Harris looked at it? Why did the kid not die? The Baptists vs. the Catholics marching through the streets in the book was great. Could have been played out with very little extra work. The little mention from Ridgewick was just lame. Why did the Jerzycks live out in the country on a turkey farm? Why did he throw apples instead of rocks? I could go on and on. Almost nothing was the same. Little things like that just bugged me. Why make things different when you do not need to? This is hands down the worst adaptation of a King novel. The novel itself was absolutely fantastic. In the Lord of the Rings they obviously had to leave out content, but they hit on the major themes. They did not just change things to change them. I waited years to watch this until I actually got around to reading the book. This movie was an epic failure.

[–] ciprianl 10 years ago

Exactly! "Why did that card cost 95 cents instead of 85?" They ruined the book! I don't want to live anymore, etc.

[–] intrepidami 13 years ago

I have to agree with cje8433. If you write stories about a million subjects, some things are going to stick to the wall, a lot aren't. That is exactly what this guy has done. His best movie adaptions have come from short stories! Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me. It's because of them being shorts, it gave decent script writers license to fill in the blanks wherever they wanted, making dialogue and situations that translate far better to screen, than what King writes.

King does get into pages and pages of dialogue, switches a scene and 5 more pages of talking. It's great for books, but it translates to My Dinner With Andre when done in movie form. If they truly tried to adapt one of his books you know what would happen? Everybodied complain that the characters revealed too much.