October Stephen King Blogathon – Day 27 – The Dark Half (1993)

This is my 27th of 31 reviews of Stephen King adaptations as part of the joint Blogathon that Darren (of Movie Reviews 101) and I are running this month in honor of the great horror writer.

Stop by every day to read more and more from us and from other guest bloggers.

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“[teaching] Most of us keep that inner-being lock up, hidden away. A fiction writer doesn’t have to do that. He doesn’t have to hide it. He doesn’t have to keep it from anything. He can let it out, bring it out into the open. Let it live, let it breathe. Hell, he can let it party – give it the car keys, let it ride!” – Thad Beaumont

Number of Times Seen – 3 (Video, Cable in the 90’s and 21 Oct 2015)

Brief Synopsis – A best selling novelist must fight off the demon of his inner voice when it attempts to take over his life.

My Take on it – This movie is another example of a great concept for a story that works on paper so much better than on the screen.

As a kid, I loved to read King’s novels that he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman; only one of them is pure horror, the rest are more ‘fun’.

When his secret got out, he needed to ‘kill’ his alter ego and let it go.

He used that episode in his life for this movie.

I remember reading the book when it came out and loving it for two reasons; it was an amazing concept and it took place in Castle Rock like sone of his other great stories like The Body and Needful Things.

The way that the story evolves is explained so well in the book but is lackluster in its transition to the screen.

Timothy Hutton is great as the main character but lacks some of the power to also pull off playing the alter ego.

This story tackles some great concepts about motivation from within, the creative process of an author and how an inner voice can affect the creative process to such a high level.

I just wish that this adaptation would have been much better.

There is a surgery scene towards the beginning that has always grossed me out after only seeing this twice before so I knew when to look away…not that it helps erase that memory tho. 😉

King wrote this one really well because of his personal connection to the whole story that parallels his own pseudonym episode.

Bottom Line – Great concept that works so much better on paper. Hutton is great as the writer but less so as his alter ego. I really like how King used his own experiences with a pseudonym as a basis for this idea.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – In the prologue of this Stephen King adaptation, Thad Beaumont wants to become a writer and is shown writing stories. The title of his first typewritten story is “Here There Be Tygers”, which is also the real title of the first short story King wrote in his career. The story can be found in King’s “Skeleton Crew” anthology. (From IMDB)

Rating – BAFTA Worthy

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