Needful Things (1993)

Director:

Fraser Clarke Heston

Writers (WGA):

Stephen King (book)
W.D. Richter (screenplay)

Release Date:

27 August 1993 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Now it's time to pay!

Plot:

Leland Gaunt comes to Sheriff Alan Pangborn's pleasant little New England town, and opens a store. What this kindly Satan sells is whatever you need...

Plot Keywords:

Title Appears In Writing | Stephen King | Attempted Child Suicide | Antique Shop | Prank

Awards:

1 win & 3 nominations

Cast

Max von Sydow	...	Leland Gaunt (as Max Von Sydow)
Ed Harris	...	Sheriff Alan Pangborn
Bonnie Bedelia	...	Polly Chalmers
Amanda Plummer	...	Nettie Cobb
J.T. Walsh	...	Danforth Keeton III
Ray McKinnon	...	Deputy Norris Ridgewick
Duncan Fraser	...	Hugh Priest
Valri Bromfield	...	Wilma Jerzyck
Shane Meier	...	Brian Rusk
William Morgan Sheppard	...	Father Meehan (as W. Morgan Sheppard)
Don S. Davis	...	Reverend Rose
Campbell Lane	...	Frank Jewett
Eric Schneider	...	Henry Beaufort
Frank C. Turner	...	Pete Jerzyck
Gillian Barber	...	Myrtle Keeton

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Canada:14A (Ontario) | Iceland:16 | Singapore:NC-16 | Argentina:16 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Australia:M | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Netherlands:16 (DVD rating) | Norway:15 | Spain:18 | UK:15 | USA:R (certificate #32447)

Filming Locations:

Gibsons Landing, British Columbia, Canada

Company:

Castle Rock Entertainment

Trivia:

'Buster' Keeton kills his wife with an Estwing framing hammer, easily noticed with its all-metal, one-piece construction.

Goofs:

Audio/visual unsynchronized: One man buys a first edition, signed copy of "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson. In later scenes, he and the little girl who stole it refer to the title as "Huck Finn" by Mark Twain. In the video and DVD release, his words are dubbed over to correct the mistake. On the television broadcast, the mistake was not corrected. This is an audio mismatch and a continuity error, depending on which version you saw.

Quotes:

Buster: I just killed my wife. Is that bad?
Leland: Hey, these things happen.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater: Viki Williamson Night" (1995)

Soundtrack:

My Favourite Things

Mean-spirited and bigoted?? Since when?

Run that by me again ... since when is being anti-Christian "mean-spirited and bigoted"? -- Particularly since Christianity is in a dead heat with Islam as the world's most mean-spirited and bigoted religion.

Stephen King is a brilliant writer who certainly has a fix on the inherent flaws of Christianity and the people who practice it. Of course, his fictional view of the "devil" takes directly from the viewpoints of the most mean-spirited and bigoted of Christians and holds this up as a condemnation of Christian superstition.

Alas, "Needful Things" is not being given a chance to speak clearly. A huge chunk of the film has been edited out of the DVD versions (hence a relatively low rating). It's difficult enough to be true to King's vision without chopping the result. Let's hope the full version will get to be on disc soon. Van Sydow's brilliant performance deserves to be seen in as close to its entirety as we can get.