The Tommyknockers (1993)

Perfectly adorable

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Stephen King was bored one afternoon, so he scribbled out a story about some buried artifacts being uncovered and possessing people's brains. In this town, there's not much in the way of brains to take over. You know that somebody's possessed; how? They have green neon eyes, that's how. Why you hear little kids singing a jump-rope rhyme is never explained, but it sure is annoying.Let's back up a moment. This is one of those King novels that was turned into a mini-series. Leave about 30% of the footage on the cutting room floor to shave this to its proper run time, and it would be better. The entire first two hours is character development: a complete waste of time because possessed people lose their personalities anyway. The blonde bimbo never has a personality-before or after possession-but I digress. The main problem is that the townsfolk are eminently boring. Those that get possessed, have weird green eyes, but they're still boring. There are some moments of gross-out bloody deaths, but somehow the film makes even these dull.A quick note: the cast is not at fault for the shallow characters. The acting is rather professional and convincing (considering what they had to work with), and rises miles above the juvenile writing. The only fault the actors had was allowing their agents to sign them up for this pointless misfire.The film does scratch out a few useful moments here and there; the closing sequence is interesting, even though it predictably fails to resolve anything.Rent Plan 9, instead. At least that film is funny.

Usually the norm for Stephen King adaptations, particularly with those directly adapted for television or as a miniseries, to stay away. They're mostly produced by hacks who have to cut apart King's works, even then ones that don't need or shouldn't be adapted (or the ones he comes up with himself like Storm of the Century), and place them in a set running time meant for commercial breaks and to (sometimes) tone down explicit language and whatever bloody violence tends to happen in the original stories. But somehow Tommyknockers came to me (via the wife of all people), and decided to give it a chance purely based on the premise. It's about a small town in Maine (for King, color me shocked and awed!) and what happens to them when one of the townspeople, local writer Bobbi, comes across a strange object buried in the ground. She keeps digging and digging, and it just becomes an obsessive thing to unearth the entire metal-maze that seems to be underground. But then a green substance or other overcomes her, and the town, and they're slaves to some extraterrestrial entities - all except for one, a man with a metal plate in his head who can't be made zombified.With a good premise and a few interesting cast prospects (Jimmy Smitts, Marg Helgenberger, EG Marshall, Traci Lords), I was prepared for anything. It could have been a horrid telling of the story, or perhaps something truly surprising and brilliant. It's in the middle; it's not very brilliant nor bad at all. The Tommyknockers works, more or less, how one sees a Stephen King book (one of the really good ones) work as a story: introduce the characters, let us get to know them very well and maybe empathize with them or sympathize with their troubles (alcoholism, infidelity, superstitions) or just understand them, and then just put them through total HELL (in caps). Most of the first half is just set-up, seeing the relationship between Bobbi and Jim, who has been on the wagon until an incident that sends him in turmoil, the fractured marriage of a cop and a postal worker- the latter cheating with a sultry temptress (Lords) every day- and the little boy who wants to master, and believes, in magic.But once the effects of the Tommyknockers spreads through the town, it gets equally interesting and hokey. Some of the acting is just terrible, as one might expect (the kid playing the would-be magician is the kind one would usually find on low-rated episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark), and some of that green visual effects stuff is rather cheap even when nifty coming out of a lipstick container. And the writing in some scenes is silly too, and I'm not sure if that's a criticism of the movie or of King. Yet what does work is that it's a solid story, told with a degree of professionalism and some creativity that makes it worth watching. Smitts and Helgenberger give as good as they've got, which is a big boost, and some scenes like the 4th of July climax of the first half of the movie are staged in a creepy manner and style (cutting between the zombies, the dolls, the kid repeating and the telekinetic typewriter typing Tommyknockers over and over). Even the aliens are a lot of fun to watch towards the end, with the end result revealed as just a rip on what would later be seen in the Matrix.Some of this is predictable, and silly, and its ending is equally tragic and unintentionally funny. But I was entertained and didn't want to get up or stop the DVD during its running time, and that's my two cents.

The novel Tommyknockers was one of Steve King's earlier attempts to do sci-Fi, and it was only moderately successful. King fused his usual horror plot structure formula to a basic alien possession plot and added his standard strong character development. The characters were, in this case, better than the plot deserved. John Power's three-hour TV adaptation leaves most of the story intact, but drops some of the crazier and more absurd elements of the original work. Even without reading the original, those familiar with King's work will notice the restrained manner in which the climax takes place.In the woods behind Bobbie Anderson's (Marg Helgerson) house, something is buried. Some say it is an Indian curse, some say it's a holy place, but in general, the members of the little New England town of Derry don't go there. But one day, while her recovering alcoholic boyfriend Jim Gardner (Jimmy Smits) is out doing a poetry reading, Bobbie and her dog Pete start digging. Before long, Derry starts experiencing miracles, accompanied by green glowing lights.The casting is superb, and with the exception of an overcooked performance by Traci Lords, the acting is fairly good. Smits and Helgerberger are very good. The characterizations in this three hour long film fairly represent the original work, but the script lacks some of the original's punch. The cinematography is solid for a TV movie and the special effects are good. Tommyknockers is well edited, competently directed and fairly entertaining, but, like the original novel, it is not one of King's better works.Recommended for King fans. Weakly recommended for Sci-Fi fans.

After reading the book and watching the film adaption, you can't help thinking the plot has been lifted largely from Quatermass and the pit - a 1958 UK TV serial and a 1967 film of the same name.The similarities are striking: alien ship crash-lands on earth and is buried underground. Ship discovered many years later and begins to revive its powers and affecting those around it, with eventual consequences for the whole of mankind.It ends with a single saviour (Dr Quatermass) who is leagues more interesting than the poet in Tommyknockers. The difference is, however, Quatermass is genuinely thought-provoking and quite chilling given the low-budget origins.In fact, I recommend anyone who was disappointed with Tommyknockers to go get Quatermass and the pit and see how scary a film can really be when aliens are intertwined with humanity and played out on the earth with real city backdrops, instead of some mythical world elsewhere.