Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Compared to Maximum Overdrive, Needful Things is great. This movie adaptation is far from great, but is watchable to say the least. I have never read the source material(the book), but it seems it would work better in that medium. Much of the narrative seems to be lost in translation from book to film, where more character development and layering of the story would have paid off better. Needful Things is inconsistent in tone and much off this stuff is out of place in a horror story and comes off aloof and silly. While the horror elements are there they are diluted to almost nothing in this very goofy and cheesy film. I would describe this as starting a band that is supposed to be a Goth band, with half of the band writing material that is in the vein of Kc And The Sunshine Band. The great Max Von Sydow is wasted here as Old Nick and could not save the film. Ed Harris was the best thing about the film and he gave a very good performance. The film from a technical perspective is pretty solid as the film looks good and the f/x are not terrible. Where director Frasier C Heston dropped the ball was tone, the film was not taken seriously enough and needed to be much darker for this to work. Needful Things is not a film anyone really needs. It is a very corny, quirky, disjointed film that fails as a horror story with very little tension or suspense and lacking in focus. Call it Stephen King lite.

When I started to watch 'Needful Things' my thoughts were quite negative. I always have problems with Stephen King's novels, because their endings are often poor. The same thing happened with 'Needful Things' - the whole book was excellent, but the final encounter - in my opinion - was silly and quite stupid. So when I was watching this movie I was sure they won't be able to capture the essence of this story in only two hours, but they did. And in my opinion, they did it very well. They kept almost all of the characters, that bought something in Leland Gaunt's shop - and they chose the good ones. It was very good move for the plot, if they would put every customer it would be too much to follow. The customer's visions were very well captured. The final encounter is different than in the novel, but it's definitely better and simpler with good taste. The sound and camera work is great in whole movie. Music is wonderful and has great dark devilish accent. The casting people made very good job. The actors are perfect for their parts. Max von Sydow made excellent performance as main dark character and captured it's essence with real grace.For me this movie is very good adaptation of King's novel, probably the best one I will ever seen.

There was a time I used to force myself to read Stephen King books at night in the dark with no one else in the house just to see if I could do it. 'It' was the creepiest and 'The Shining' was a close second, but 'Needful Things' was a pretty good contender even if it wasn't an outright horror story. I survived those days pretty well, so now I'm watching this flick in the dark, by myself, and it manages to block out the creaky noises in the rest of the apartment. So far, so good.I was a little surprised to see the amount of negative reviews for this picture by other reviewers on this board. A lot of them have to do with not following King's novel all that closely, but it's been so long since I read it that it doesn't make much difference to me now. The one thing I remember though has to do with the baseball card; in the book I think it was Koufax, not Mantle. I could be wrong, but when the scene came up I was expecting a Sandy Koufax card, so maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, maybe not. Perhaps some day I'll check it out to be sure.The interesting thing about this story was the way old Leland Gaunt (Max von Sydow) got all the folks in Castle Rock to turn on each other by not pitting likely adversaries against one another. Sort of like a domino effect where one unsuspecting citizen tripped up the next one in line with more and more disastrous results. The backdrop of the curiosity shop was a cool one for me because I like antiques and old things myself. The collecting urge isn't there any more though, so chances are I would have been a casual observer with all the insanity going on.There was some good casting here besides Sydow who appeared to be having a devil of a time. I enjoy Ed Harris and Bonnie Bedelia in most any other movie I've seen them in, but I have to say, Amanda Plummer as Nettie and Valri Bromfield as Wilma were perfect for their roles. Their vicious tete a tete with the strains of 'Ave Maria' in the background was an inspired piece of work. Even old Raider managed to do a good job with his limited involvement. If you stuck around to catch the full credit roll, you'll notice that he was portrayed in the movie by a canine named K-Jin. Stuff like that just interests me to no end.

I saw this movie when it was first released in '93 and again recently and I liked it both times. Like all Stephen King films based on his books, "Needful Things" takes place in a small town and has a cartooney air.The film asks the question: What would happen if the devil literally came to town? In this case it's a small New England coastal village (actually shot in British Columbia). Ed Harris plays the main protagonist while Bonnie Bedelia plays his girlfriend, and Max Von Sydow plays the mysterious shopkeeper who moves into town and causes havoc by selling the villagers their most deepest desires for the price of a "deed." So, what would happen if the devil came to town? Would he make it a paradise? A fun hedonistic haven? Not bloody likely.Since the movie utilizes Christian themes I'll consider it from that perspective for the sake of reviewing. According to the bible, the blessing of the Lord produces the qualities of the Garden of Eden, that is, paradise, which is why it says that the kingdom of heaven is a matter of righteousness, peace, joy and power. By contrast, the devil's kingdom produces un-righteousness, strife, war, anxiety, depression, misery, bondage and helplessness.The fictional town of Castle Rock was a veritable haven before Leland Gaunt (Sydow) moved to town. Sure, there were the typical petty dislikes and rivalries, etc. but, generally speaking, it was a nice place to live, a small coastal paradise, which is what motivated Ed Harris' character to live there. Of course, Gaunt is intent on changing all this.I just find it interesting the way the new shopkeeper slowly turns the town into a literal living hell. He utilizes the people's petty dislikes, paranoias and jealousies against them.FINAL WORD: "Needful Things" may not be great and it's definitely not scary, but it's effective in a theological sense as a creepy satanic take-over through simple manipulation of human nature.The theatrical version runs 120 minutes and the TV version runs 183 minutes. I've never seen the latter, but I'm sure it's the better version in that it further fleshes out the characters.GRADE: B-