Another week, another movie.

This one sucked!

More below the cut.

Ok, so, The Dark Half. Hmm.

First, to get it out of the way, I had to watch the pan and scan version on this one. I purchased a box set of MGM released King on Amazon to get the now-somewhat-rare Needful Things DVD, and didn’t notice that The Dark Half, and fortunately only The Dark Half, was cropped.

But, the DVD in this set is the only one I can find for Region 1, so it would have been this way from Netflix too; apparently Region 2 got a 1.78:1 version, but it’d cost me 50 bucks plus shipping to get that, so.. not going to happen.

Sundays with Stephen is far too snooty and above-board to use torrents either, so there.

(On a better movie I might have cared, but fortunately, I didn’t lose much.)

I will admit to having read a review of this movie before watching it that may have slightly colored my perceptions (I was looking for more information vis a vis the aspect ratio issue). I’d like to think I would have felt the same way without it, though, because THIS FILM MAKES NO BLOODY SENSE.

The laughable plot is full of absurdity, stupidity, and is completely implausible. Not the supernatural stuff, which only really amps up after you’ve lost all interest anyway; I mean the day to day, mundane human details that, normally, King, and his movies, handle quite well.

To start with, this movie stars Timothy Hutton as Thad Beaumont, a writer and professor at some small Northeastern college or other. He’s just quit writing a lengthy series of violence-porn novels under a pseudonym to go back to writing the artsy but less appreciated stuff he prefers; so far it’s going well, and he has the support of his publisher and editor, as well as a doting wife. Unfortunately, things start to go awry when a skeezy New York grifter figures out his identity (or to be more precise, has it told to him) and blackmails Beaumont: pay up or the world learns that he is in fact the man behind George Stark, torture-porn author extraordinaire.

A short digression here: I believe I’ve talked before about the saga of Richard Bachman, Stephen King’s own alter-ego, who was uncovered by a fan (or series of them), and who King felt compelled to drop, even ‘kill’ off, in the late 80s. According to everything I see online, there was no bad blood between King and his own superfan, a man named Steve Brown; certainly no blackmail. Nevertheless, a few years later, out comes The Dark Half, with this.. somewhat similar sounding plot.

If I was Brown, I’d be a little flattered, a little confused, I suppose.

Then again, it seems to be a theme with King that he takes his own life and makes it dark, twisted, and supernatural for his stories, which I should discuss at length sometime.

Ok, well, Beaumont, like King, decides to admit his alter-ego and symbolically kill him off. The difference comes when this alter-ego apparently comes to life, and people who have wronged him start to die. Duh-duh-DUH. Is the author an insane killer, or is Something Spooky Going On?

This would be all well and good if it didn’t lose all contact with planet Earth. After the first death, the police come to Beaumont and confront him: his fingerprints, you see, were all over the victim’s truck.

In the victim’s blood.

So, you know, in the real world, he’d be spending the rest of his life in prison. Instead, he’s inexplicably free, not even on bail! This process repeats itself when they find the second victim, tortured to death, with, again, Beaumont’s prints in the victim’s blood all over his apartment.

Even after additional people start dropping like flies, no one arrests Beaumont! What? We’re supposed to believe that his friendship with small Maine town Sheriff Pangborn (remember that name folks) keeps him out of the slammer?

After, oh, the third or fourth murder, I was yelling at the screen to lock him up. It’s only at the end of the movie, with piles of bodies and dead cops to boot, that anyone tries. Honestly…

So, yeah. I found it hard to concentrate, or care, when the supernatural doppleganger element turns up. Sorry if that spoils anything for you; yes, there’s a supernatural element. Oddly though, it doesn’t resolve the main character’s problem or absolve him of guilt. It does however lead to a stupid, dragged out supernatural conclusion with bad CG reminiscent of Children of the Corn‘s equally Deus Ex Moronic ending.

Oy.

I had higher hopes for this film, as it was yet another Romero-King collaboration, and those have generally been good (Creepshow, Tales from the Darkside the Movie). I guess this one can go on the Creepshow 2 pile though. That makes them 2-2.

Timothy Hutton does a servicable turn as Beaumont; nobody else is particularly memorable in a good or bad way, though Kent Broadhurst is back (he was the grieving dad in Silver Bullet, whose son found out that for Stephen King, gazebos are remarkably dangerous).

This movie is about two hours long, but it feels a lot longer, like any good torture. Oddly, the acting and the camerawork and all that is fine; that leaves you as an audiencemember to focus solely on the stupidity of the plot.

Unless you too want to scream at your screen, I recommend skipping this one.

Last Week: Catpires! Incest! Sleepwalkers
Next Week: Needful Things, the death of Castle Rock, or something.