Garris, Mick

Stephen King's The Shining (Two Disc Special Edition)

Stephen King's The Shining is a new adaptation from the author himself, made for television, that bears very little resemblance to the 1980 Stanley Kubrick version. That's not surprising since Kubrick threw out most of King's novel and presented his own version of the story. Here King redresses the balance in a miniseries that follows his original almost to the letter, and manages to be effectively creepy despite the budget and censorship limitations of the TV format.

Stephen Weber takes over the role of Jack Torrance, the caretaker who slowly descends into madness in the haunted Overlook Hotel. His performance is as far from Jack Nicholson as you could get, with his insanity building slowly and menacingly rather than being virtually mad from the get-go. Rebecca De Mornay is superb as Wendy Torrance, struggling to hold her fragile family together amid the spooky goings-on. Young Courtland Mead plays Danny, whose unique gifts give the story its title, as one of those infuriating TV brats who overacts left, right, and center. Fortunately, there are enough creepy moments and a number of frights to hold the whole thing together, the woman-in-the-bathtub scene being a standout shocker. Sure, there is nothing quite like Nicholson's "Here's Johnny!" moment, but this is the story King wanted to tell and it still shines brighter than most of the other recent screen adaptations of his work. --Jonathan Weir

A recovering alcoholic must wrestle with demons within and without when he and his family move into a haunted hotel as caretakers. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 10/04/2005 Starring: Steven Weber Courtland Mead Run time: 273 minutes Director: Mick Garris

Stephen King's Desperation

Director Mick Garris (Sleepwalkers), also recruited by Stephen King to remake The Shining, knows how to capture King's horror aesthetic on film. Desperation, based on a more recent King novel, is a pastiche of earlier King novelties, such as the psycho in uniform, this time Sheriff Collie Entragian (Ron Perlman), and dogs summoned by the devil, this time by TAK, an ancient Chinese demon. Desperation, Nevada has a collapsed mine full of Chinese immigrant ghosts, whose spirits are trapped with TAK until they're accidentally unleashed. The TAK-possessed local sheriff is killing everyone, save a few travelers who stumble through on road trips. In the opening scene, Mary (Annabeth Gish) and her beau are pulled over by Sheriff Entragian, framed by his placing of marijuana in their trunk, then read their rights with a Satanic "I will kill you" thrown in. Later, Steve (Steven Weber), Cynthia (Kelly Overton), and Vietnam vet John Marinville (Tom Skerrit), ride into town, and they too encounter the evil policeman's wrath. They all meet a brave, imprisoned boy, David (Shane Haboucha), with whom they team up to end the mayhem. Desperation uses blue and green lighting to embrace the funhouse look, and camera shots highlighting the Sheriff's deranged face make the film occasionally spooky. But the rehashed plot detracts from the fear-factor, leaving one to pine for earlier King story adaptations, like Misery, or Cujo.--Trinie Dalton

The lonliest road in america leads to desperation nevada - population: one crazed sheriff heaps of dead bodies & 9 terrifed travelers who battle an accursed spirit bent on bloody revenge. Based on the bestseller by stephen king Studio: Lions Gate Home Ent. Release Date: 02/06/2007 Run time: 131 minutes Rating: R

Critters 2 - The Main Course

Two years after the hungry little critters first terrorized grovers bend and sent the browns packing krite eggs are hatching bloodthirsty babies. And theyre eager to take up where their folks left off. Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 09/13/2005 Starring: Brad Brown Scott Grimes Run time: 87 minutes Rating: Pg13

Sleepwalkers

Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is about a half-human, half-cat race of shape shifters called, for no apparent reason, sleepwalkers. Hunky Charles Brady (Brian Krause) and his incestuous mother (Alice Krige) are sleepwalkers, and they've come to the small town of Travis, Indiana, where they've somehow acquired a nice house and false identities. They need virgin souls to survive and have fixated on local beauty Tanya (Madchen Amick from Twin Peaks). That's about it for the story--from then on it's a series of chase scenes full of badly done gore. King must have been sleepwalking himself when he wrote this screenplay--the dialogue is terrible, the characters are cardboard, and the plotting is clumsy. Combine that with mediocre acting, thoughtless direction, slapdash editing, and cheesy special effects, and you have Sleepwalkers. Amick comes off reasonably well and there are cameos by King, Clive Barker, and horror directors John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), Joe Dante (Gremlins), and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). But really, if you're interested in were-cats, see the original The Cat People, starring Simone Simon; it's both sexier and scarier. --Bret Fetzer

A mother-and-son team of strange supernatural creatures come to town to seek out a virgin to feed on. Studio: Sony Pictures Home Ent Release Date: 06/01/2004 Starring: Alice Krige Cindy Pickett Run time: 89 minutes Rating: R Director: Mick Garris

Steve Martini's The Judge

Quicksilver Highway

Christopher Lloyd stars as Quicksilver, a delightful collector of oddities. After a newlywed couple's car breaks down, the husband goes off for help. Along comes Quicksilver in his Rolls Royce, offering the fearsome bride refuge. He then tells her a story of a traveling salesman who stops at a rustic little diner and is given a set of "chattering teeth" as a birthday present. He picks up a hitchhiker and trouble follows. In the second story, Matt Frewer plays a petty pickpocket who meets Lloyd in his house of oddities and is todl the story of a plastic surgeon whose hands stage a revolt against him for their independence.

Masters of Horror: Valerie on the Stairs

Its called highberger house a place for unpublished writers to live & work. But the building is hauted by more than just the specter of failed authors. Studio: Starz/sphe Release Date: 08/14/2007 Starring: Christopher Lloyd Tony Todd Run time: 60 minutes

Masters of Horror - Mick Garris - Chocolate

When a young man named Jamie starts experiencing glimpses of life through the eyes of a stranger he is both startled and intrigued. The more he learns about the woman who's reaching out to him the more infatuated and frightened he becomes.System Requirements:Running Time 60 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: HORROR Rating: NR UPC: 013131446395 Manufacturer No: DV14463

Freddy's Nightmares [Region 2]

Riding the Bullet

A vintage Stephen King concept unfolds in Riding the Bullet: a college kid, circa 1970, must hitchhike a very long (and very dark) hundred miles to visit his hospitalized mother. The ghosts waiting for him along the way are either real or of his own mind (which seems to be a dark place itself). As a King short story, this might have been a usefully frightening premise, but it's almost entirely literary; on screen, it boils down to a guy walking down a road at night. Jonathan Jackson is suitably tortured in the lead role (or roles--he frequently appears double on screen, arguing with himself), but the movie is stolen by David Arquette, rocking it up as a '50s greaser who died in a car crash years earlier. Barbara Hershey and Erika Christensen are wasted in support. There's a strain to make the Woodstock-era setting relevant, but this doesn't seem to have a great deal to do with the private demons of the protagonist. (And if you're going to set it in 1970, how hard is it to catch dialogue anachronisms?) Director Mick Garris is a longtime King conduit (The Stand), but this one is misconceived from the start. --Robert Horton