TV: Bag of Bones
I'm taking my talent and swimming for shore!
Boy, this blew. And while I haven’t read the 1999 Stephen King novel on which it was based, I have read a lot of King and I’m pretty sure this one isn’t his fault. In fact, while the two-part, four-hour A&E adaptation can’t escape King’s generally minor weaknesses (I mean, does EVERY protagonist have to be a horror novelist?), it manages to utilize none of his amazing strengths. Because, unlike a lot of very popular novelists I can think of, King is really good. His writing is gripping and innovative, his timing is brilliant. And he’s scary. Like, really scary. By which I mean, he has scary ideas that don’t depend on tricks or gore or shock—even if he occasionally augments them with that sort of thing. I remember reading Tommyknockers, a lesser King that goes on for some 800 pages about how something really, really scary is in the shed in back of the house. By the time I got to the end, I was thinking, All right, brother, what’s in that shed better be pretty damned scary. Then they opened the shed… and I thought, Yup, that’s scary. I’m scared now. Should never have opened the shed. I mean, that takes real talent, skill and imagination and King’s got it every which way.
Director Mick Garris and writer Matt Venne, on the other hand, have nothing to offer here scare-wise except for repeated boos and startles and rotting skeletons jumping out at you from various directions. Which is actually NOT scary. It’s startling. It’s annoying. But who cares?
As a result, a summary of the mini-series plot would look something like this:
The hero was the most famous horror novelist of his generation. And then a skeleton jumped out at him! And the skeleton was the most popular horror writing skeleton of his day. And then a skeleton jumped out at him! And there was a spooky-looking moose on the wall. And the moose wrote some of the best horror novels of any moose around. And then a skeleton jumped out at him!!!
Dreadful. Pierce Brosnan phones in the starring role long distance. In fact, as far as the acting goes, only talented 7-year-old Caitlin Carmichael and the achingly appealing Anika Noni Rose make it out more or less alive. And then a skeleton jumped out at them!!!
You’re right on the money with this one. The book is one of my favorites by King in the last 20 years or so. The movie stunk up the house something fierce. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: no matter how you feel about Pierce Brosnan and his acting ability…he is NOT Mike Noonan as Stephen King wrote the character…Not…Even…Close. Mick Garris has shown in previous King works that he CAN direct, but spends way too long on boring, repetitive shots that do not move the story along. Change those two major problems, then get a script that hews more closely to the novel…and you might just have a great film.
Andrew, I’m glad you admitted to actually liking King’s writing. Too many conservatives these days dismiss everything he does just because he’s a political leftist. Even when he can’t help but spew some liberal drivel in his novels (like the recent “11/22/63″) he is incredibly talented and usually has me hooked by the end of the first chapter.
Saw BOB first part and was horrified, in all the wrong ways.
The review I wrote on my blog clearly said so and the comments I got on goodreads all concurred with me.
BOB sucks.
http://laemonie.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/bag-of-bones-the-film/
No connoisseur I, but i think you are being a little too hard on it. As long as you did not know why the bumps and groans were happening it was pretty good. When he starts to learn about the reason for the haunting it falls apart. This is about the time when the pretty girl and the daughter enter the picture. Most everything after that including the old grandfather and his nurse was not good.
For example, why would the corrupt sheriff shoot the woman while she and the hero were embracing. He could have waited till he left or did it another night. No one would do that. Also, white teenagers raping a black woman and murdering her child to cover it up seemed pretty ridiculous as the main plot. I mean would you kill a child to cover up a crime you didn’t even commit? And it goes on and on but I found the first part genuinely creepy.