Mutant Reviewers from Hell do
"You have the right to an attorney. I am going to kill you. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?"

2006 NR / Horror Miniseries Directed by: Mick Garris Starring: Tom Skerritt, Steven Weber, Ron Perlman

Tagline

None, unless you count "Coming up next on ABC!," this being TV.

Summary Capsule

Lessee. Small town, hidden evil, people band together, kid with special powers, does this sound like any other Stephen King stories we've heard?

Mutant Meter

Movie Store [proceeds go toward monthly MRFH upkeep]

Amazon.com: Novel

Shalen's Rating: Warning: this review contains a very explicit word which may cause insanity and death. Do not read this review. And especially do not watch this movie.
Shalen's Review: Strangely, this is my first entire Stephen King movie. I watched part of The Shining in college, and I quit on it because it was too freaky for me at the time. Well, there's certainly no danger of that here.

"They eventually stumble over a Native-American-looking dog statue that some deceased archaeologist found, which can apparently cause spontaneous orgasms. This is never explained."

Even I know Stephen King has certain things he likes to put in his stories, though I've read nary a one, and every single one of those things is here. There's a writer character. There's a kid with supernatural powers, in this case talking to God instead of being psychic. There's a set of situations that start out normal and get progressively weirder. I'm not sure if the little town with the convenient name is a King thing, or just something horror filmmakers are overly wont to do (see Darkness Falls). In any case, this film started out sort of interesting but became utterly predictable within the first ten minutes.

This is really too bad. Up to this point, I had yet to see a film with Ron Perlman in it that I didn't like, whether it was Cronos or Alien Resurrection or Hellboy. Even Ron Perlman as the creepy sheriff (and heaven knows there aren't enough of those around) couldn't save this movie for me. His character isn't around that long, and anything good or interesting or scary he presents is quickly counteracted by the presence of Cynthia and Steve. Cynthia and Steve are a couple of unnecessary tacked-on love interest characters whose purpose is to stumble around discovering things. Then — I can't count how many times this happened — Cynthia says something brutally obvious, like "Here's a doll," or "It's a hand!" This can be preceded or followed by a scream, depending on preference.

They eventually stumble over a Native-American-looking dog statue that some deceased archaeologist found, which can apparently cause spontaneous orgasms. This is never explained. Nor is it explained why, when Steve starts to pick it up to take with them, Cynthia wants him to leave it behind rather than sell it on eBay for a million dollars. None of the other little statues scattered around demonstrate any powers, and it's never explained why that one does. The whole episode is completely disconnected from the storyline. It exists only to attempt to add some prurience to a story whose other characters are married, old, or recently bereaved.

Then — spoiler — the entire set of weird circumstances, from orgasm statues to the town full of corpses to the crazy sheriff locking people up, turns out to be caused by an interdimensional rift in a mine once run by Chinese immigrants. Yep. A gateway to another dimension. Not Hell. And the evil being is not, in fact, a demon. Despite the fact that the David mentions God about twice per sentence,* Satan is not mentioned at all, in any way. God just wants them to close this interdimensional rift so the evil critter will get sucked back into its hometown. This strikes me as a pretty silly way to circumvent the tired old demon possession storyline, and it's such an obvious facelift that it removes any credibility this junkpile might have had as a film.

My advice to you as my dear, beloved fellow Mutants? Don't bother. Go watch reruns of Stargate or even, Lord help us, The Ghost Whisperer. This film is not worth your time in any way.

*Another significant awfulness about this film being the dialogue. For every cool line Ron Perlman says, Cynthia or David says something idiotic or awfully stilted. Bleh.

Ron Perlman holding bars: Proactiv works for others, and it can work for you! People staring: I may have four fingers pointing back at me, but I also have guns. You see, Son? This is what happens to people who watch this movie all the way through.

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• That RV's door keeps swinging even when there's obviously no wind.
• Steven King trademark story items and incidents.
• Not a film for cat lovers. Ouch.
• You know, I don't think horror movies have had enough little dead girls in them recently, do you?
• The actor (Matt Frewer) who plays David's Dad plays a doomed Dad in Dawn of the Dead. Try and say THAT three times fast.
• Actual buzzards are pretty goofy looking up close.
• God talks to you through your dead relatives? Is David actually into Shinto?
• If you're going to plant pot on people (oh boy, another one) make sure it is in an easily identifiable plastic bag with a big smiley face on it.
• Videogame-like problem solving. Walk down a hallway from first person POV, open a creaky door, retrieve a necessary item from a corpse, etc.
• Motorcycle helmets protect you from demon, excuse me, from "being from another dimension" possession.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

No.

Your Stephen King Literary Source! [some sources: Wikipedia]

Stephen King was inspired to write Desperation as a result of a cross-country drive in 1991, during which he visited the small desert community of Ruth, Nevada, near U.S. 50. His first thought was that the town's inhabitants were all dead. He then wondered who had killed them, and the idea occurred to him that the town's sheriff had done so. In 1994, he took another cross-country trip, this time astride his motorcycle, and heard the tale of Chinese laborers who had been trapped inside a collapsed mine near Ruth. Rather than risking the loss of would-be rescuers, the Chinese men were abandoned to their fate. This anecdote was the germ of King's plot for the novel.

Desperation was released simultaneously with the novel The Regulators (published by King under the name Richard Bachman). The two novels share many similarities, most notably the cast of characters. The original hardcover versions of the novels had artwork on the cover that connected when the two books were placed side by side.

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

On 10 December 2004, a set in the Tucson Convention Center being used to film a mine collapse caught fire. Five people were injured, two of them enough to need hospitalization. The repair costs were about $250,000.

Snakes and tarantulas are shown crawling on and in corpses in the supermarket. Tarantulas will not eat anything that is already dead; like basically all spiders, they are strictly hunters. Some snakes will eat dead things, but the meal in question has to be small enough to swallow whole — they will not bite pieces off corpses.

The red, black and yellow snakes by which Mary is surrounded at one point are harmless king snakes, not deadly coral snakes. If you look closely, you can see that they have black stripes in between their red and yellow ones per that old rhyme my Grandpa from Louisiana (where coral snakes are sometimes found) told us. You know, the one that starts, "Red touches black, friend of Jack…"

Groovy Quotes

Sheriff Collie Entragian: You're an organ donor. Do you think that's wise?

Sheriff Collie Entragian: You have the right to remain silent. If you are not silent, anything you say can be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. I am going to kill you. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?

Cynthia: I mostly stick with Dean Koontz.

Sheriff Collie Entragian: What are you doing out here, and on such an unsafe mode of transportation? They don't call 'em murdercycles for nothing and I am a WOLF!

Cynthia: Yeah, well, I'm a woman. I can deal with blood.

Ellen: He saved your friend and He killed your sister. What kind of God is that?
David: I don't know what kind of God He is.

Sheriff Collie (repeated line): Tak!

David: I love you, Py.

John: Why don't you pray?
David: I can't.
John: Why not?
David: I'm too p***ed.
John: At God?
David: At Santa Claus.

Tom: I think something came out of that mine. Something that never died and never will!

Tak: Trouble with these bodies is how fast they wear out!

Cynthia: What was that?
Steve: All right, wait here.
Cynthia: Yeah, right. "Eat me," said the cake to Alice.

David: This is God's will, not Tak's.

John: You're crazy. I like that in a person.

John: Let's just say I got hit by a God bomb.

Mary: What's the plan?
David: We do what God tells us to do.

Tak: I command you to stop. Tak commands you to stop!
John: Adam Sandler commands you to stop. Ann Coulter commands you to stop!

John: I hate critics.

DVD Review

There's no DVD. At least not yet. I'm sure it's just a matter of time, since anything Executive Producer (read: showed up and said hello once or twice during filming) Stephen King touches turns to gold.

If you liked this movie, try these:

• The Shining miniseries
• It miniseries
• The Stand miniseries