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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