He seems to have been a poor choice for this job, sacrificing suspense for silly punch lines. His black-humored approach to the story just didn't work. He does a nice job with the fantasy sequences as Gaunt entices his customers, but other elements go completely astray. He never gives his actors a sense for the proper tone, which makes it appear that Harris and Bedelia are acting in a different movie than everyone else. And he lays on the atmospheric smoke in Gaunt's shop so thick I thought I could see it puffing in from off-camera.
Needful Things is muddled, and in too many of the wrong hands.
I did find a few moments of amusement, all of which were probably unintentional.