Bag of Bones (Mini-Series)

Description

One of Stephen King's more literary ghost stories gets a largely faithful small-screen translation in this effective story about things bumping in the night. Set, like many of King's later works, in a small Maine town with secrets, the plot follows a bestselling writer (Pierce Brosnan) haunted--in every sense of the word--by the death of his wife (Annabeth Gish). Suffering from writer's block, he heads to his family's cabin by the lake, only to get entangled in a supernatural tug of war between a young girl and her supremely scary grandfather (played, in a sly casting move, by kindly sitcom perennial William Schallert). Before long, he realizes that his new home's closets are bursting at the seams with skeletons. Director Mick Garris, an old hand at King adaptations ( The Stand , Desperation , the television remake of The Shining ), delivers the scary stuff with aplomb, particularly a mountingly creepy dream within a dream within a dream sequence. Unfortunately, he has rather less success depicting the tricky internal thought processes of the main character that gave the novel its distinctive flavor. Still, fans of the author will find much to enjoy here, including Brosnan's central performance, a memorably deranged sound design, and an array of scares that range from creepily subtle to full-tilt in your face. Watch out for that tree. --Andrew Wright Novelist Mike Noonan, unable to cope after his wife's sudden death, returns to the couple's lakeside retreat, where he becomes involved in a custody battle between a young widow and her child's wealthy grandfather. Mike inexplicably receives mysterious ghostly visitations, escalating nightmares and the realization that his late wife still has something to tell him.