I didn't read the original story by King, so I cannot judge how faithful adaptation is, but the movie alone is barely watchable. It is not complete crap, but it is not much above it either. Technically this movie is mediocre. Level of entertainment... well, I had to force myself to stick to it till the end. But I must admit that it has some really scary parts. Most of it is boring and redundant, but few scenes really made me shiver. If they could make the whole thing at least half that intense it could have been really good horror/drama. But this way it does not deserve more than 4, being an average of 8 for scary parts and 2 for every other aspect of the movie.
Warning: Spoilers
Specific objections to the story:
There is more of smaller illogicalities and nonsense, but what I listed above should be enough. For moments scary, but mostly dull and poorly told life drama. Without those few emotionally strong moments this movie would barely deserve 2/10.
4/10
Warning: Spoilers
Specific objections to the story:
- First half an hour show us family relations in the house of the victims and wife's love affair that has no influence on the main course of the story. It is like they put it in the film only to pull on enough material for 90 minutes. That part is painfully boring.
- Wife and kid are stuck in the car for 48 hours and nobody noticed they're missing. Is it possible/probable that they have no family, friends, neighbors or anyone else they have everyday communication with and who would notice they're missing...
- They are in the courtyard of the local mechanic, just 7 miles from their home. Is it possible/probable that no one knows where they're gone, no one stopped by to fix their car or came across for any other reason for whole two days and nights...
- Cop that finally starts searching for them soon comes across their car all battered and covered in blood. Logical sequence of procedures would be to park police car close to victim's, use the police radio to call backup and tell what he saw, then pull out his gun and carefully get out of the car and go to take a look into the victim's car. In that case, the victim would tell him what is happening and he would have two options. Either to carefully look for the beast and kill it or to get victims into the police car and get a hell out of there, while calling the competent service to solve the issue. Instead, he parks far away from the bloody car, does not call for backup or at least to say where he is and what he found, gets out of the car unarmed and nonchalantly strolls across the yard. Of course, beast lurks and grabs him by surprise. And when he finally decides to use his gun, he is too freaked and clumsy so he drops his gun on the ground and he gets killed. Cops may be believed to be stupid, but this kind of carelessness is in contrary with basic instincts of self-preservation.
- At the end, when the mother finally succeeds to defend her child by sticking broken baseball bat into the beast, she takes the gun from the ground and gets into the house without even checking if the beast is really dead. Those bolder would probably approach the beast to check if it's still alive, but everyone would at least empty the whole magazine into it, just in case. She did neither and, of course, she gets attacked from behind once again. Completely retarded.
There is more of smaller illogicalities and nonsense, but what I listed above should be enough. For moments scary, but mostly dull and poorly told life drama. Without those few emotionally strong moments this movie would barely deserve 2/10.
4/10