When you’re born and raised there will be essentially three questions you are asked the remainder of your life: 1) Isn’t Maine part of Canada? 2) You must really love lobster, right? 3) Do you know Stephen King?
Surprisingly for me, the answer to all three questions is a resounding no, but I have had the pleasure of meeting Mr. King on a few occasions, including when he would come to my video store to rent absolutely awful horror movies. He’d walk down to the store from his house (I’m sure you’ve all seen pictures of that) grab the most recent Full Moon picture from the wall, make some small talk, and then be on his way.
Each time it would happen I would recount the exchange in my head or even write it down because I absolutely knew I’d tell someone about it.
It shouldn’t come as a big shock, but Stephen King is a bit of a big deal in Maine. He’s lived in the Pine Tree State for a good portion of his life, taught at local schools, including his alma mater, The University of Maine, and now can be seen walking his dog Molly from time to time. He’s written countless books, you might have heard of them, and from those books have come many film adaptations. And while the 80’s was the heyday for “based on a novel by Stephen King,” I’m here to talk about the often overlooked films of the 90’s.
So for this week, starting today on his birthday, I’m going to review the overlooked films that have his name attached to them. I’m going to begin with a tale of Castle Rock.
Needful Things is the 1993 adaptation of the book of the same name. Written by W.D. Richter and directed by Fraser C. Heston, it tells the tale of the titular shop, where owner Leland Gaunt, played by the always wonderful and frequently sinister Max von Sydow, can make your deepest desire come true, all at a seemingly reasonable price.
The book itself was an unwieldy beast, clocking in at nearly 700 pages, but it was necessary to let you into the lives of the numerous townsfolk. In order to fit that into a two hour film, the film had to focus on the more important characters, and they chose well. Leading the pack is Ed Harris as Sheriff Alan Pangborn, the man charged with keeping the peace in the sleepy town. Joining him is Bonnie Bedelia as Polly Chalmers, local restaurant owner and fiancee to Pangborn. Working for her, making the best pies (alongside the worst accent) is Amanda Plummer as Nettie Cobb. She’s got a tough history and her days are made tougher by Wilma Jerzyck, the local turkey farmer who wants nothing more than to kill Nettie’s dog.
Throughout the film Gaunt, through his all too convenient treasure shop, is able to turn the citizens against each other, creating a spider web of lies, betrayals, and pranks that range from spreading turkey shit on sheets to murder. He might possibly be the devil himself, and while he’s got the customers he’s going to do everything within his power to burn Castle Rock to the ground.
I have to give the creators credit, they nailed small town Maine. For those of you not intimately familiar with my home state, it’s full of these tiny towns that you might drive through on your way to the beach, and if you peel back a few layers you’ll learn of secrets and grudges that run generations deep. People hold grudges and don’t forget. They might not sell you out for an autographed Mickey Mantle baseball card, but to borrow a phrase from my grandfather, they’ll go out of their way to shit in your cereal. No one in the film personifies that like JT Walsh, a town selectmen with a gambling problem and the unfortunate nickname of Buster who drops perhaps the best put down of the entire film when he refers to the local cops as a “pusillanimous assholes.” (I had to look it up to fully grasp it’s glory.)
The film isn’t perfect. It barrels through it’s plot at a breakneck speed, hoping to nail as many important scenes as possible, and Hollywood really needs to stop attempting Maine accents, as they are almost always ridiculous. Some of the acting approaches being over the top, but thematically it does well hitting on the insecurities, fears, and secrets that we do our best to keep hidden (but could explode into tragedy). As we’ve learned over the past few years, hate and ignorance can do untold amounts of damage in angry hands.
Castle Rock might be a nice place to live and grow, but it’s also a town to be wary of.
Rated 3 out of 5 stars.
