Review – Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers

In my review of Stanley Kubrick’s version of this tale I’ve already expressed bewilderment that King would go to all the trouble to have an outstanding movie remade. I re-express that bewilderment here. It’s not that this is a bad movie. Indeed, in the world of the prolonged, made-for-TV miniseries this is actually one of the better denizens. The script is better than the original. And few would argue against the assertion that Rebecca DeMornay has a bit more “screen presence” than Shelly Duvall. That notwithstanding, there’s a lot of surplus junk in the story this time around. I know that’s necessary for the intended format, but even so a lot of the script is repetitive or otherwise unneeded. The characters are more developed, but at the same time the treatment of the Torrance family (especially Jack) is sentimental to the point of seeming saccharine at points. And it goes without saying that the small screen version is nowhere near as visually impressive as the Maestro di Color’s production. Mildly amusing