Smells like... Desperation

Show of hands... who watched the made-for-TV-movie Desperation last night? Anyone? Come on... nobody tore themselves away from whatever American Idol crap was on to watch yet another terrific Stephen King novel be destroyed in movie form? Well, I did!


And yes, it held up to form. Another terrific Stephen King novel was destroyed when translated to movie form. I wish I could say, "Hey, just stop making Mr. King's work into TV movies! THAT'S what's screwing them up!" But for anyone who's seen Cujo, Pet Semetary, Christine, etc., you know that it's not the TV part that spells doom for Mr. King's work... it's the movie part.

It's not like Desperation didn't have its shining moments (as most of King's adapted work does). Most notably, that God-Among-Men, Ron Perlman. What is it about this hulking brute of a man that commands the screen so well? I can tell you what it was in Desperation... Mr. Perlman was the only cast member to FULLY commit to his role. I mean, Ron went for it, chewing up the scenary every time he was in front of the camera, and it paid off. He was outstanding.

In a close second as far as commitment is concerned was Tom Skerritt. Tom played the resident asshole who eventually has a chang eof heart over the course of the film. These are King's weakest characters when it comes to adapting his work for the (large or small) screen. They never come across the same as they do in the books, making it impossible to feel anything for them.

The rest of the cast was capable, if not outstanding.

What shocked me most was that, for a made-for-the-boob-tube flick, there was a surprisingly high amount of gore. LOTS of dead bodies. LOTS of blood. Sufficient creepiness all around.

The weird thing is, Desperation is still listed in several places as a mini-series, yet it was played as one long, 3 hour TV-flick. What happened here? Did the network decide that it sucked too much to commit that much precious air-time too? Did they make the director cut it back to fit it into one glorious night of suckage? We may never know (until the inevitable DVD release, that is...)

Here is my A-NUMBA-1 gripe with King adaptations... the endings always suck. No matter how good the story is... no matter how solid the cast... no matter how well the rest of the flick holds up... the endings always suck. Why is that?

IT, probably one of the best King adaptations for TV, scared the hell out of me (most notably because of the incredible--and often overlooked--work of Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown). With a cast that included John Ritter, Johnboy, and Judge Harry T. Stone, you couldn't expect much, but this was one mini-series that rocked... hard! And then they went and ended it with a big steamy pile of bad fx crap that seemed so cheap and thrown together... just thinking about it again makes my blood boil! So why is it that nobody can get a King ending right? Are his "monsters" or "demons" or whatever the evil may be too abstract to translate into a visual medium? Do they rely too heavily on the readers' own fears? Could be... And if so, it's a powerful writing technique. But if not, what's the deal?

How about giving a certain independent filmmaker from Rochester, NY (hint--ME) a shot at directing one of these. I know I could at least make a flick on par with the crap being shilled right now. What do ya say, Stephen... you wanna give a guy a shot? I may not come away with The Shining, but it sure as hell wouldn't be The Storm of the Century either!

Until Nightmares and Dreamscapes is severely f-ed up in a month...
~ S. Rick