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Needful Things

5.5

3,726

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Original title

Needful Things

Year

1993

Running time

113 min.

Country

United States

Director

Fraser Clarke Heston

Screenwriter

W.D. Richter. Novel: Stephen King

Cast

Music

Patrick Doyle

Cinematography

Tony Westman

Producer

Castle Rock Entertainment, New Line Cinema

Genre

Horror. Mystery. Fantasy | Supernatural. Small Town Life (North-american)

Movie Groups

Stephen King Adaptations

Synopsis

Leland Gaunt opens an antique and curio shop in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine. Among his stock, each of Gaunt’s customers discover something that is their most desired object or brings back precious memories. In return for selling each item, Gaunt asks that the purchaser play a small, seemingly harmless practical joke on another townsperson. But each of the practical jokes is such that it digs deep into the receiver’s dark secrets and inflames situations to the point that every townsperson is soon ready to kill one another. Slowly, town sheriff Alan Pangborn comes to the realization that Gaunt is The Devil... Based on a Stephen King's novel.

Critics' reviews

"Needful Things is yet another one of those films based on a Stephen King story that inspires you to wonder why his stories don't make better films (...) Rating: ★½ (out of 4)"

Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun-Times
"Solid B-level stuff, better than most filmed King novels"

Jay Carr: Boston Globe
"Things seem disappointingly diminished, squeezed and stuffed into a box too small."

Michael Wilmington: Los Angeles Times
"There are more laughs than scares, though the movie still carries a creepy undercurrent of nastiness that pops up periodically, to great effect"

Rene Rodriguez: Miami Herald
"Slow-paced and repetitive, Needful Things is overlong and overwrought, and the whole thing should be promptly exorcised."

Clifford Terry: Chicago Tribune
"We’ve come to expect certain things in movies adapted from King novels: brooding misanthropy, a pound or two of viscera, and Hollywood actors delivering their lines with bad Maine accents. Needful Things delivers on said expectations"

Ty Burr: Entertainment Weekly
"The problem with Stephen King adaptation's is that for every The Shining, there is in invariably a Pet Semetary. This manages to fall somewhere in between (...) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"

Jack Yeovil: Empire

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User history

Needful Things

1993

Fraser Clarke Heston

5.5

(3,726)