Simply A Masterpiece

Sick Product of a Sick System

Highly Overrated But Still Good

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I Was Afraid This Was Going To Be Too Much Like "Secret Window" (Johnny Depp) And While It Is Easy To See How One May Have Drawn On The Other For Inspiration, These Two Movies Are As Different As Night And Day ... Timothy Hutton Is Excellent And Pulls It Off With No Issues At All ... Amy Madigan Gives An Excellent Performances As The "Stand By Her Man" Wife ... Michael Rooker Comes Together Well As The Sheriff Investigating A Series Of Horrific Murders ... Horror From Stephen King Means A Script That Works Well All The Way Around ... The Last Time I Saw Timothy In Something I Liked As Much As This Was The 1981 "Taps" ... The Dark Half Is An Excellent Ride Down Spooky Lane From Beginning To End ... My IMDb Rating 7 Out Of 10

There was more than once while watching the film that I thought Alfred Hitchcock could have used George Romero when he was filming "The Birds". With at least a half dozen scenes of sparrows massing in the sky or threatening the Beaumont home, they appeared a lot more threatening than Hitchcock's birds. But that was an earlier time and George Romero was just getting started in the Sixties and wouldn't have been a name to contend with yet.One thing that bothered me about this story was the premise set for the existence of George Stark, the evil alter-ego identity of Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton). The foreign tissue removed from the young Thad was described as an 'absorbed fetus', formed of a rare tumor manifesting a tooth and other grisly organic remains. Then later, Thad's university friend Reggie proclaims George a conjuration, created by the force of Thad's will. I haven't read the King novel, so it seems to me the film's story line was going in too many different directions with these arguments. Personally, going with just the latter idea would have worked well enough for me.Fred Clawson's blackmail scheme didn't hold much water with me either. Obviously Beaumont's publisher knew he was using a pseudonym, and to my thinking, what was the big deal anyway? Stephen King uses at least a couple I'm aware of - Richard Bachman and Peter Straub - and it never hurt his career. So that was a little muddled in the execution too.But you know what, the evil guise of George Stark was really cool, wasn't it? Looking like a deranged Elvis impersonator, I thought Hutton's transformation into the warped madman was pretty impressive. I had to wonder though about the Mississippi plates on his Toronado, where did that idea come from? Tennessee (Graceland) would have made more sense and I wouldn't even have questioned it. Oh, well.Anyway, old George came to a ghastly finale there at the end of the picture, but even then I had to contain a chuckle among all the gruesome imagery. For the very first time ever I saw it dramatically illustrated what it means to be a pencil necked geek.

THE DARK HALF opens with a scene worthy of David Cronenberg: during a brain operation, the doctor discovers an eye and some teeth growing inside writer Thad Beaumont's grey matter. Beaumont, like author Stephen King, has a pseudonym under which he writes horror novels and it's this alter ego who eventually manifests himself as a malevolent entity out to do his creator no good. Although I tend not to like doppelganger stories, director George Romero makes this one work by dint of some outstanding craftsmanship. Says Stark (the Evil Twin) to Beaumont: "You will die like no other man on Earth has ever died before." Later, when Beaumont and Stark square off in a story-writing contest and Stark falters uncertainly, Thad says: "You know the only way to do it is to do it." That could very well sum up this one: Romero gets the job done. It's not his best work- by a mile- but it showed at the time that he was more than capable of handling bigger budget films with big name stars.

Thad Beaumount has buried his alter ego George Stark, a pseudonym he used when writing fiction of a dark nature than he would using his real name. When a local man is killed, evidence leads Sheriff Pangborn to George's grave, and he begins to suspect Thad. Thad is beginning to have visions of sparrows flying, something that hasn't occurred for twenty-three years since he had brain surgery. As the string of gruesome murders continue, someone claiming to be George Stark starts calling Thad on the phone. Thad fears for his family's safety, and Pangborn can't decide whether or not Thad is the murderer.....Another year in the nineties, and another generic Stephen King adaptation hits the screen. For every Shawshank, Misery, and Dolores Claiborne, you get a Lawnmower Man, Sleepwalkers, Langoliers, and this.Hutton is great as Thad and his Doppelgänger, but as expected, the bad guy is more enjoyable, has lots of funny one liners and is hardly in it. The rest of the film has Michael Rooker not shaking hands with Hutton one mi ute and then getting him beer the next.And while all this is happening, there are lots and lots of sparrows flying around the place.Romero starts the film off very promising, but as soon as Stark is introduced, the film, despite Stark being the highlight of the film, goes down the toilet.If you are a King enthusiast, go ahead, ruin your day.