Synopsis
Buy Now. Pay Later.
A mysterious new shop opens in a small town which always seems to stock the deepest desires of each shopper, with a price far heavier than expected.
1993 Directed by Fraser Clarke Heston
A mysterious new shop opens in a small town which always seems to stock the deepest desires of each shopper, with a price far heavier than expected.
Max von Sydow Ed Harris Bonnie Bedelia Amanda Plummer J.T. Walsh Ray McKinnon Duncan Fraser Valri Bromfield Shane Meier William Morgan Sheppard Don S. Davis Campbell Lane Eric Schneider Frank C. Turner Gillian Barber Deborah Wakeham Tamsin Kelsey Lochlyn Munro Bill Croft Dee Jay Jackson Ann Warn Pegg Gary Paller Sarah Sawatsky Robert Easton Mike Chute Mel Allen Trevor Denman Lisa Blount
Needful Things - Stephen King, La tienda, Trocas Macabras, Нужни неща, Needful Things - In einer kleinen Stadt, In einer kleinen Stadt, Cose preziose, Le Bazaar de l'épouvante, Нужные вещи, Köplust, 必需品, Hasznos holmik, Begærets butik, מתנות מסוכנות, Sprzedawca Śmierci, Необходими неща, Obchodník s hrůzou, 욕망을 파는 집, Tarpeellista tavaraa, Lanetli Hediyeler, Χρήσιμα αντικείμενα, L'inconnu de Castle Rock
In one scene, Amanda Plummer plays a "prank" on the town's mayor by covering the inside of his house with phony infraction tickets with offences written in marker for things like corruption, embezzlement, theft etc. Yet on one of the tickets that gets a semi-closeup, she's written "Cornholing your mother". Seriously. I rewound that a few times wondering if I was seeing things. Nope. "Cornholing your mother".
"Needful Things" is a 1993 horror film directed by Fraser Clarke Heston. A little interesting fact that Fraser Clarke Heston is in fact the son of the legendary Charlton Heston, a little novelty of things that came up when fact diving for this film. "Needful Things" would be one of the few films delivered by the director, who really only worked in television beforehand and "Alaska" (1996) which was serviceable adventure film intended for the older child/young adult platform. The original sourcing for "Needful Things" came for a Stephen King novel of the same name written two years prior to the film in 1991. It encompassed an outward conduit-based theme for King after he had gone through rehabilitation for substance…
"I killed my wife. Is that wrong?"
The legendary Max von Sydow is all tree-nailed, pecker wreckered, crawling chaos with a penchant for puns while being directed by Charlton Heston's son. The three-lobed, burning eye manipulator. Powerful masterdæmon that tricks, knows what makes us tick and what we most desire. Tapping our unreachable nostalgia and making us pay the ultimate price for our needful thing. I don't think it is for us to guess what that item would be but I'm tossing out my copy of GunNac for NES, my VHS of the Monster Squad or my nunchucks my dad made me as a boy. Jesus.
This is oddball, small-town prank hijinks that rattles on, made-for-TV style, showcasing how small…
Stephen’s King’dom Marathon: Film #32
”I would hardly call it a rousing success… but what the hell.”
Max von Sydow comes to town and creates some Castle Rock Chaos as he treats the townspeople to a demonic game of give and take.
This has to be one of the best casts in a mediocre Stephen King movie ever, with the likes Ed Harris, J.T. Walsh, Bonnie Bedelia and Amanda Plummer all bouncing off of each other.
The biggest issue is that with so many intertwining storylines you could tell this adaptation needed a lot more room to breathe and might have been better served as a mini-series. However, despite the rushed plot, you could also tell that Sydow was having a campy good time as the man pulling the strings of Needful Things.
”Oh Polly, you must realize what a deep pleasure it is doing business with you.”
I have a special spot in my heart for this one as it was the very first Stephen King book I ever read, and thus, one of the first Stephen King movies I watched also. Tonight I watched the 3 hour uncut extended version, which features an entire 68 minutes of more footage and storyline. What I found so impressive with this version was how well it was edited together with the original film, which up until now had always been what I had seen.
The extra footage gives a lot of small characters more to do mostly. The story is essentially the same, not much has changed about that, but characters are just given more time to build up…
This is one of Stephen King's better adaptations with a great cast with a interesting story where a small town's citizens lives are interrupted with a evil, twisted new shop owner in town that conspires a evil scheme on the town's people to see how far they will go for their greediness, that ends up with a whole lot of dark humor and violent chaos and even murder.
7.7/10
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"YOU BROKE MY MICROWAVE YOU CRAZY FUCK!"
"MICKEY MANTLE SUCKS!!!!"
The small New England town of Castle Rock isn't the ideal place for an outsider to start a business so the residents are surprised when 'Needful Things', a new antique shop opens it's doors. They're doubly surprised by it's owner, a mysterious out of towner named Leland Gaunt. Leland has a strange technique to wrapping up sales. All of his items are the perfect item for each person in town, so much so that they will do anything to keep them. He charges a small monetary fee and considers it "half the price." The other half is for the buyer to commit a deceitful act upon a person of his…
I thought I hadn’t seen this, but then I realized about halfway through that I had. It’s a really fun movie hampered by a really awful ending, but isn’t that the case with a lot of King adaptations?
Even though you pretty much know as soon as it starts how it’s going to play out, it’s still an amusing ride and a surprisingly breezy 2 hours. The performances are terrific all around, particularly a totally unhinged JT Walsh (RIP).
I get the feeling if this were to take place in real life in our present day state, it wouldn’t take nearly as long for everyone to start killing each other and it would just be a bunch of people shot dead in the street by the 30 minute mark. 🤷🏻♂️
Even for Stephen King, Needful Things is pretty silly. Fairly repetitive with little explanation as to why these strange events are happening, but overall pretty fun. Max von Sydow is perfect as the devilish Mr. Gaunt.
I've got about 200 pages of the book left, so I guess I kind of spoiled it by watching this, but it's not my favoruite King.
dreadful, truncated, inert, toned-down adaptation of a bloated, pointless book that was only ever charming in the first place because of its dedication to expansive, gruesome misanthropy. only Max von Sydow seems to be having a good time, which is both appropriate and too bad.
Stephen King has blessed us with many things, incredible stories exploring peoples fight against supernatural external forces, deep examinations of the deplorable depths that humans can sink to, the knowledge that touching meteor shit can really ruin your day, and that cocaine is a hell of a drug. But perhaps most importantly, Stephen King has unwittingly bestowed upon us a myriad of film adaptations in which very accomplished and talented actors will willingly attempt a Maine accent that undoubtedly will make them look amateurish at best.
As far as I recall the only one to really pull it off is Fred Gwynne (his accent might be so bad that it's looped all the way around to great) in Pet Sematary…