Needful Things (1993)

As an horror lover I never have been a too big fan of Stephen King or his horror movie adaptations, since I find his work to be very formulaic but I've always enjoyed watching this pleasant light little movie.

Without its fun the movie probably would had been a really terrible picture. If the movie had been all serious some of the moments within the movie for sure would not had worked out and would had been painfully bad and laughable instead. But it's as if the movie had foreseen this and went with an often light and pleasant approach instead. The movie never takes itself too serious, for which you can also thank director Fraser Clarke Heston, who indeed is the son of screen legend Charlton Heston.

The movie has a good story, in which the devil in flesh, played by Max von Sydow, is setting people up against each other by letting them perform tasks for them, so they can get their 'needful' thing from him. The story is nicely constructed and build up and shows a different but interesting portrayal of the devil, as a man who uses people their own sins to set them up against each other and let them commit horrible acts, without ever getting dirty hands himself.

The movie has a pretty amazing cast with actors such as Max von Sydow, Ed Harris, Amanda Plummer and J.T. Walsh all involved. Von Sydow plays a great role and so does Ed Harris, though for a 'main hero' he just doesn't have quite the screen time you would expect him to have. Also great was J.T. Walsh in a crazy role in which his character more and more starts to derail. These were the kind of roles he always was best at.

The movie has a kind of cheap look over it. A kind of look you would perhaps more expect from a TV movie, which might be due to Fraser Clarke Heston inexperience as a director, though it also is definitely true that this movie was just fairly cheap made and got never aimed toward a large audience and in many countries never made it to the cinemas.

Simply one fine and enjoyable movie, that you just don't need to take too seriously.

8/10

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Fmovies: Needful Things (the movie) revolves around the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. A businessman named Leland Gaunt played adequately by Max Von Sydow opens a small antiques type store called "Needful Things" and has some very unique and special items for certain folks in the town. His only purpose to be in town is to wreak havoc with the folks in Castle Rock. He does this by trading special goods for certain pranks from the city people turning everyone against each other and poisoning their town. I think it's important to try and separate a movie from it's source...in this case the unequaled Stephen King Novel. Unfortunately I finished the novel hours before watching the movie adaptation which must bring the inevitable comparisons. I do believe even on it's own, the movie lacks something...character development. We don't know anything about these people, and for being a Stephen King story this is unfathomable. King always spends hundreds and hundreds of pages getting us to delve into a town, it's people, each person and all their personalities. This film attempts to ignore all that and go straight to the root of the story which is an ancient evil (in this case made plainly out to be the devil) who wants to destroy this town. King created Needful Things in part to destroy elaborately his creation that is Castle Rock, the film simply wanted to take the so called best parts of that and recreate it. This film is not as good as it should be in part because of the fickle nature of movie goers who can't stand to sit in a theatre for longer than 1 hour 30 minutes. For justice this film would have to be a mini series of a MINIMUM of 4 hours. The plus sides were most definitely the cast. Ed Harris played a strong, and powerful Alan Pangborn and Bonnie Bedelia was an intriguing yet sadly underused Polly. Sydow played a decent Leland Gaunt although the script could have done so much more for him. The supporting cast including JT Walsh as the already off balance Danforth (Buster) Keaton was nicely done. The film just left me begging and crying for a full adaptation from the book. I understand the writer or writers attempted to pull together the best they could but they fell short from an incredible book that has too many important elements that were left out. The film is enjoyable and probably moreso if you haven't read the book. It just always feels like it's missing something. It's worth checking out especially if you enjoy King movies. 6/10

A strange person comes to a little town named Castle Rock(similarly the name of this movie production) , he's a shopkeeper(Max Von Sidow) delivering fantastic objects to the people, but the items surge an evil forces , terrorizing and originating wreak havoc. The sheriff(Ed Harris) suspects on the scheming seller and owner an antique shop, then he now encounters himself in the middle of a mayhem. The perplexing sheriff attempts to warn everybody his hidden intentions and malignant powers .

The fantastic picture packs weird events, fantasy, irony, some of humor and is quite entertaining. Cast is frankly excellent as Ed Harris, Max Von Sidow, Bonnie Bedelia and magnificent support cast as Amanda Plummer,Morgan Shepard,Ray McKinnon,Don S Davis and the deceased J.T. Walsh as an overacting character. Atmospheric musical score by Patrick Doyle including frightening chores coincidentally to Jerry Goldsmith's Omen film and colorful cinematography by Anthony Westman. This is an acceptable big screen directorial debut for Charlton Heston's son, named Fraser C Heston though the outcome isn't as good as you'd expect. Written by W. D. Ritcher, a Sci-Fi expert which seem doesn't improve in the transition from page to screen and based on horror master Stephen King's bestselling novel of the same title. King movies rendition are converting as prolific as his novels, from ¨Creepshow¨ along with ¨Cats's eye¨, ¨Silver bullet¨,¨Maximum overdrive¨ unique directed by King and various TV take on as ¨Rose red, The storm of the century,The stand,Golden years and Langoliers¨ have been numerous his adaptations. Rating : Passable and acceptable .

Needful Things fmovies. Castle Rock, New England, is a nice place to live and grow and Sheriff Alan Pangborn (Ed Harris) moves from the big city to the town expecting a quiet life. When Leland Gaunt (Max Von Sydow) opens the store Needful Things, he seems to have the object of desire for each dweller. He charges small amounts to the things but requests a practical joke for each of them against another inhabitant. Soon hell breaks loose in town with deaths, violence and riot and Sheriff Pangborn discovers that Leland Gaunt is the devil himself. Further, Gaunt is manipulating the population like puppets exploring the weakness and greed of each person.

"Needful Things" is a horror movie with black humor with a story of greed and evilness. Max Von Sydow has a great performance and his personification of evil is scary. There are interesting characters and situations and this movie is entertaining and surprisingly underrated. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Trocas Macabras" ("Macabre Exchanges")

Despite the fact that this film is based on yet another Stephen King novel, it is worth watching -- especially for the performance by Max von Sydow as the "old boy himself."

I watched the "director's cut" once on TV that had many scenes in it which were cut from the theatrical version. None of the restored scenes was especially good. It is interesting to note that practically every moment of Max von Sydow's performance is in both versions. He holds the screen with every sly look, every smooth utterance. He is a true joy to watch in this retelling of the Fause legend. It proves what a wonderful actor he is -- he has played Jesus (THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD), Ming the Merciless (FLASH GORDON), and many other parts. Playing the Devil allows him to chew the scenery in grand style.

I love Stephen King, and I've tried to see as many of the movie adaptations of his books as possible. I haven't read a Stephen King book I didn't like - and Needful Things was the first Stephen King book I ever read, so it has a special spot for me. I think this was a pretty good movie, but could have been better if made into a mini-series and more of the stories in the plot could have been developed more fully. I realize this isn't always possible, but in the case of this movie, so many important plot twists were left out it was kind of hard to recognize the story. I think the casting was pretty good and this is a cute little movie to watch if you have some time to kill. But I definitely recommend that you pick up the book and read it if you want the whole story. You'll be shocked to see how much was left out.