MovieChat Forums > Needful Things (1993) Discussion > Needed a better script

Needed a better script

posted 2 years ago by CraigJamesReview (1816)
3 replies | jump to latest

“Needful Things” is a horror movie without discipline, a Stephen King adaptation that must rank amongst the bottom of the barrel. At 2 hours, it has nearly no use whatsoever, yet apparently there is also a 3 hour cut somewhere, and if you want real proof the devil exists, that’s it.

By far the best thing here is Max Von Sydow as Leland Gaunt, the imposing figure who opens up a quaint little antique shop in the Maine town of Castle Rock. He offers anything and everything for a low low price but a heavy cost and soon everyone in the town is doing what Leland really wants, which is set upon each other to produce widespread death and chaos.

The people of the town include Sheriff Pangborn (Ed Harris), his fiancee and local cafe owner Polly (Bonnie Bedelia), her mousy baker (Amanda Plummer), and a local politician (J.T. Walsh) who has too much of a thing for gambling.

Vice is only the start of the problems for many of these people; many have come to town to escape violent pasts, some are losers looking to reclaim past glories, the Catholics and Baptists are at war with each other, and Polly has crippling arthritis. They’re all easily willing to give into temptation and Gaunt seizes upon that: Von Sydow is so good at sly deviousness that the movie leaves us thankful he usually gets the most screen time.

But while he excels, most of the other characters are never the wiser for far too long- Harris is a dull hero, having little to do but wait for a silly scene where his character realizes Gaunt is the devil, just by looking at newspaper clippings. And it seems like the actors who make the biggest impression are those who succumb to highly broad overacting. Walsh, in particular, pushes paranoia to the extremes but pretty much everyone is going hilariously overboard- pushing crazy eyes or country bumpkin routines in place of real character development.

What makes it all the worse is that the film seems like just a long string of childish pranks for far too long and once things do start to heat up, they can also get tasteless (the skinned dog goes too far), redundant, and senseless. This isn’t horror so much as ludicrousness on parade. Even in terms of B-movie thrills, it offers nothing. It’s not scary, not thrilling, or even very enjoyable, and when the Devil is your most likable character, something has gone wrong.

[–] Melton (5574) 2 years ago

I enjoy it as one if the trashier King movies, I like the setup of the town and Devil setting up shop, but it never really convinces me that these items are super-special. A corny electric shock effect and flashback don’t really sell it.

It’s also not convincing that normal people would start skinning pet dogs etc. The book did a much better job of showing how the objects made the buyer feel.

That said, the cast is great, especially Von Sydow, and so is the music.

[–] ExTechOp (2770) a year ago

Funny thing ... I actually imagined Max von Sidow as Gaunt while I was first reading the novel in 1991

That was the ONLY thing I liked about the movie

Now there was no way to make this into a single movie without cutting out a lot of plot points, and that's fine by me.

What the film failed to do, as Melton points out above, is show us how the objects affect their owners and MATCH their owners' hopes, dreams and ambitions

For example, Gaunt has a scrap of petrified wood that makes you feel like you're on Noah's Ark, but it only becomes truly powerful when placed in the hand of a self-righteous Baptist bible-thumper longing to feel like she's especially "worthy"

My own very favorite passage from the novel concerns the town drunk feeling inspired to get sober just looking at a fox-tail like his father used to have.

That, to me, is the whole power of this story -- the very human notion that just having some possession, special only to you, can inspire you to do great things and terrible things

[–] PaladinNJ (21774) 2 years ago

I think it worked. A lot cut from the novel but that's understandable.