This one goes in the "Good King Adaptation" bag

Rating: 9/10 (8 July 2008)

I had managed to miss all the trailers and publicity for this film until a colleague mentioned it to me yesterday morning. I was straight out that very evening to see it.
I read the novella about 20 years earlier, as part of the book "Skeleton Crew", which was one of the best parts of that book. All I could remember from it was something about spiders and slicing web-strands and an immense hoofed thing. To my delight, all of these appeared on the big screen and the story seemed to be close to the original too.
The army being the cause of it all spoiled it somewhat but the explanation of how they caused it was quite good I thought. Overall, it would have arguably been better to retain the purity of King's story. The ending was a disappointment; for once being actually too nasty for my liking. Whilst not as gut-wrenching, King's ending was more chilling.
Average fx (I'm very anti-cgi) were made up for by great performances. This is where we notice the quality of a solid director like Darabont. I'm not in the "shawshank is #1" camp but Frank is very competent. Thank heaven a team with the "Blockbuster" mentality didn't pick this one up, else we'd have had one-liners all the way through like "now that's what I call a close encounter" or "he had to split", alongside vest-wearing women with rocket launchers "kicking-ass" and doing kung foo. I get cold sweats thinking about it.
Best film I've seen in a while and probably one of the best horror films this decade. The religious nut is the star of the show. Thanks, Frank - now do The Stand!