The Tommyknockers (1993)

Fantastic!

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

While known primarily as a horror writer, the novel The Tommyknockers was a rare science fiction novel from Stephen King. However, the novel was written while King was struggling with addiction and is packed with metaphors for dealing with substance abuse. The writer said, "The Tommyknockers is an awful book. That was the last one I wrote before I cleaned up my act." Hey, what better movie to review, right? Originally airing on May 9 and 10, 1993 on ABC, this mini-series is all about the town of Haven, Maine. That's where Bobbi Anderson (Marg Helgenberger, TV's CSI) and her boyfriend, Jim "Gard" Gardner (Jimmy Smits, Prince Leia's adopted dad) live with their dog Petey. They're both writers - I know you're shocked, King protagonists who are writers and live in New England - and both suffering. Bobbi has writer's block and Gard is an alcoholic. One day, they find a stone object connected to a series of cubes.Meanwhile, Haven is packed with all manner of quirky folks. There's postal worker Joe Paulson (Cliff Young, The Hunger, Shock Treatment) who delivers the mail and the goods to his mistress, Nancy Voss (Tracy Lords!) instead of his wife, Deputy Becka Paulson (Allyce Beasley from TV's Moonlighting). Then there's Bryant Brown (Robert Carradine, Revenge of the Nerds), his wife Marie, their two kids and her father Ev Hillman (E.G. Marshall, who battled bugs in Creepshow). Then there's small-town sheriff and doll collector Ruth Merrill (Joanna Cassidy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?), who has to deal with state trooper Butch Duggan, who comes from Derry (which we all know is from It).As Bobbi and Gard find more of the object, everyone in town begins to invent things while suffering from insomnia. Basically, they're all on alien cocaine, making all manner of stuff that you'd never really need, like letter sorters, a BLT sandwich maker and more, which all glow green when used. Bobbi beats her writer's block with a machine that telepathically lets her write and the results astound Gard, who thinks that he's immune to all of this because of the plate in his head.One of the kids, Hilly, makes a magic machine that makes his brother Davey disappear. Everyone looks for a little while before becoming distracted by their machines. I mean, a BLT maker? That's a little more important than a child.Joe Paulson's wife finally catches him after her favorite TV show talks directly to him. She electrocutes him and starts babbling about the tommyknockers before being sent away. That same phrase is repeated by Hilly before he has a seizure, gets a massive brain tumor and loses most of his teeth.Ev Hillman learns that the town of Haven is cursed. I can hear your surprise now, a New England town in a Stephen King novel being cursed. But yes, it's true. Meanwhile, Nancy Voss has seemingly taken on a supervillain air, everyone is busy inventing more things and the town glows green.Gard gets drunk - because that's how you deal with these kinds of things - and sees the town gather in a green glow. His wife is seemingly leading them and he manages to convince her that he is part of this whole alien cocaine inventing stuff and then joining the becoming thing. After having sex with her - because again, this is how you deal with things - he sneaks out to their garage where he finds alien technology powered by townspeople and their dog. Ev, still alive, tells him he must find Davey, who is with the tommyknockers.Digging all night long, Gard finds a UFO filled with mummified aliens and Davey, encased in a green crystal. Gard forces his wife to realize what is going on, which is when an alien attacks them before Gard decapitates it. This, of course, causes all hell to break loose. Nancy Voss tries to get everyone still under alien control to stop the destruction of the ship, but Gard is able to stop them thanks to the sacrifice of Ev, who chokes Nancy out while Bobbi saves Petey's life. Speaking of sacrifices, Gard makes the ultimate one to save the whole town.Whew. And ugh. The Tommyknockers is a rough watch but not nearly as rough as the book's ending, which ends with Gard taking the ship into space, killing nearly all of the changed townspeople and then agents from the FBI, CIA, and more Black Ops groups killing most of the survivors and destroying their inventions. One of those groups, The Shop, shows up in many of King's books, such as Firestarter, Golden Years, The Lawnmower Man and The Langoliers. It's also hinted that they may have caused The Mist and they fail to learn what Captain Trips is all about in The Stand.Originally, the film was directed by Lewis Teague (Alligator, Cat's Eye, Cujo), but he was replaced two days into filming by John Power. It was written by Lawrence Cohen, who did much better with the It mini-series.Many have compared this novel to Quatermass and the Pit. This Nigel Kneale (John Carpenter recruited him to write Halloween 3: Season of the Witch) written BBC TV also was about a long-buried spaceship that had a negative impact on anyone around it.Speaking of negative impacts, that what this movie had on me. It dragged and just seemed ridiculous, but I think that's the result of its source material. No one has learned anything, though, because James Wan is talking about remaking this in 2019.

A buried UFO slowly turns local inhabitants into gizmo-building alien mutates.Say what you will about author Stephen King, but he is a giant in the horror industry. In fact, he may be the most giant of the giants. And adapting his work has been hit and miss, with just as many misses as hits. Some might even say more misses.And the misses seem to be more heavily concentrated on the TV films, because they are stretched out to extended hours. Sometimes scenes seem repetitive because of the commercial breaks and so on. In particular, "Langoliers" is an awful, awful, awful adaptation. And "Tommyknockers" is just the opposite. The characters are developed, the extended time only builds suspense rather than grows old. This is the job done right.

It's the small town of Haven Falls, Maine. Bryant Brown (Robert Carradine) owns the local diner. Sheriff Ruth Merrill (Joanna Cassidy) is a doll collector. Nancy Voss (Traci Lords) is the vain postmaster who is having an affair with fellow postal worker Joe Paulson (Cliff De Young) who is cheating on his wife Deputy Becka Paulson (Allyce Beasley). Bobbi Anderson (Marg Helgenberger) discovers something mysterious in the woods and feels driven to start digging it up. Jim Gardner (Jimmy Smits) is her recovering alcoholic boyfriend. Trooper Butch Duggan (John Ashton) is sweet on Sheriff Ruth who was his partner's wife. People in town start putting together gadgets that are powered by a green light and reading others' minds.I wonder if this is better as a shorter movie rather than a 3 hour mini-series. There isn't any mystery since almost everything is laid out right away anyways. It feels too extended with sections that has no tension. The acting is generally good with solid TV actors. It's definitely not cinematic. It's a middling adaptation of yet another Stephen King novel. It's like an extremely extended Twilight Zone episode.

The I rating is for the moment the credits went up on this utterly boring tripe.It makes no sense and its like 2 or 3 movie excerpts were stitched together. Logic? There was none-dolls that come to life for no reason and daft sub plots about cheating husbands. Science fiction should have an element of at least mystery and at least some logic but this has none.Why make a kid disappear through a magic trick? If these aliens who emerged towards the end had been used right they'd have scared people into submission yet one gets attacked with a shovel? Really this is an insult to viewers who enjoy proper science fiction like War Of The Worlds or The Invaders or Quatermass. The average zombie film makes more sense It says nothing in the end only you wasted time watching it