nebk Nightmares & Dreamscapes is a collection of 8 made for TV episodes based on a collection of short stories by Stephen King. The title is slightly misleading since not all of the episodes are based on the stories from the book of the same name. Overall the episodes vary from very good to just plain bad. As always there are problems with adapting King's work for the TV screen. Even if we allow for the changes that have to be made, some of the stories lack all the components that made them a good story whilst others have added padding in order to get them to the 45 minute mark or so. The best segment is Battleground. It is the opening episode and is the best of the lot due partly to the acting ability of William Hurt who plays an assassin being pursued by a group of miniature toy soldier as he killed their creator. Given that this is a TV episode the effects of the soldiers and their weapons are actually very well done. Another great thing about this episode is that William Hurt does not have any dialogue, so everything is expressed through physical acting. Alas this is not true of the next episode. The second episode is Crouch End is on the opposite side of the spectrum and is probably the worst of the lot. The acting is average at best and the effects are way below par. It's in tradition of H. P. Lovecraft, and is about a couple who gets lost in a London suburb and enters into a parallel dimension where strange things lurk. Quite a forgettable telling of the story. The third story is Umney's Last Case and it is about a fictional private detective from the 1930's and the author who created him (both played by William H. Macy). The author decided to switch places with the character he created as he is sick of his real life since he lost his son in a tragic accident whilst the detective has numerous affairs and never experiences any loss, grief or unhappiness. An OK story but slightly extended for the TV so it looses momentum and feels forced at times. Still worth watching. The fourth story is The End Of The Whole Mess and it's about a documentary film maker telling a story about how his brother and him managed to kill all of humanity by using a drug that they introduced into the atmosphere in order to try and bring an end to war and conflict. The super genius brother discovered a chemical compound that has a calming effect on anyone who is exposed to it. The enhanced compound however also has a horrible side effect of giving everyone fast acting Alzheimer's. Overall an average story. I preferred reading it. The fifth story is The Road Virus Heads North, and is about a writer (Tom Berenger) who buys a painting at a yard sale and ends up being pursued by the figure in the painting. Whilst the story itself is good, the TV adaptation is not great at all. When I was reading it, the story was engrossing, when I was watching it I couldn't wait for it to be over. The next story is called The Fifth Quarter and it's about a criminal who vows to go straight upon being released from prison but a dying friend gives him a quarter of a map that leads to 3 and a half million dollars. He wants to provide for his family and goes on to try and get the other pieces of the map from three other criminals. They are obviously not just going to hand over their map segments. Overall a good story with decent acting.The seventh story is Autopsy Room Four and is about a man who finds himself on the autopsy table whilst he is still alive but completely paralyzed due to a snake bite. And no one seems to notice. Most of the story is about him trying to alert the morgue staff before they start cutting into him. The morgue staff is paying more attention to flirting and arguing amongst themselves. Some suspense so overall an O.K story. The final story is called You know they've got a hell of a band and it's about a couple who gets lost taking back roads and ends up in an idyllic looking town called Rock N Roll Heaven. Some of the inhabitants are not that friendly and soon the two protagonists are being chased by dead rock stars including Janis Joplin, Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson, Roy Orbison and others. They want them to stay for the concert...and never ever leave. An enjoyable story for rock and roll fans. Overall the collection is worth watching if you are a fan of Stephen King's work and want to check it out, just don't expect anything too spectacular, although there are stories which are good and keep more or less true to the story on which they are based. I would rate it between 5-6.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU A miniseries of eight short TV films adapted from Stephen King's rather recent short stories. They are all in the style of the famous Twilight Zone serial but never as dark as the old model. In fact Stephen King in these short stories was trying to use different styles from what he is most known for, horror and terror. So most of the time he did not try to terrify his audience, at most horrify them, but often gross them out, and barely more. So hardly any real violence and extreme fantastic violence. Rather soft estrangement from standard life and the ordinary world of ours. We are thus surprised, disquieted, worried, but never anguished nor frightened. This softening goes along with a theme that is quite common: death and good old time nostalgia. The mind behind these stories has put quite a few years behind his forehead and his probably pot-bellied stomach. The vision is no longer that of a young child, a teenager or a young man who discard and rejects the wisdom coming from older people and for whom older people are danger, the devil, evil, something to get rid of before it dies in their hands. Here we have the vision of an older man, or woman, looking back at the world the way it was when they were young and they compensate the fact it is gone by making it evil. That old time and its characters do not come back into the present to haunt it. Rather the older people of today are transported into that old time of their youth. So it is not Sometimes They Come Back, but Sometimes They Drift Backwards. At time the danger comes from toys, hence children, the next generation, but the danger is seen from the point of view of the older man. The short stories and these short TV films are from an older author who is following the call that comes up from his muscular fiber. He has aged but without really deepening his vision. He has shifted points of view and the present vision is that of an older man probably produced and directed for television in the line of the baby boomers who are starting to get off the labor market and have a lot of time to spend and the desire never to let themselves die into and from inactivity, idleness. So let them have the good old stories about the good old time when they feared nothing but in which they would be absolutely frightened ****less if they had to go there again. Well done but rather too mild to be considered as horror or even fantastic stuff.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines

Calvin Hobbs I did not get a chance to watch it on TV so i bought the DVD. I liked the series a lot and it was scary, but... DO NOT!!! Buy this on DVD. Even though it was good i think it is a waste just because i only really liked a couple of the episodes. I suggest you rent it or catch it again if they show it again. I would like them to make another season but whatever. In order from best to worst these are my favorites (there are also ratings on each episode): 1.BattleGround (10 out of 10)Awesome!!!! 2.Autotopsy Room 4 (9 out of 10)Very suspenseful andthought out 3.Ulmneys Last Case (7 out of 10)Interesting 4.The End ofthe Whole Mess (7 out of 10)Very Interesting 5.The Fifth Quarter (Six out of 10)Okay not great but the most realistic out of all of them 6.You Know They Got A Hell Of a Band (4 out of 10)I only liked itbecause of all the icons they showed 7.The Road Virus Heads North (4 out of 10)The most scary but just not that good 8.Crouch End (1 out of10 it was just horrible!)CRAP!!!! TOATAL CRAP!!!!

george.schmidt Stephen King seems to be the proverbial limitless well of creativity, a modern- day Edgar Allan Poe/O.Henry with his twisted, original and ultimately unsettling tales of the human condition basted with science fiction, terror and eerie horror that has no equal with his contemporaries, often putting him in a class by himself. And that is also a conundrum since variably the adaptations of his works are often hit-and-miss with few classic exceptions in film ("The Shining" , "The Dead Zone"), television mini-series ("The Stand"), and now in the retro- anthology ala classics like "The Twilight Zone" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents…" with his compendium of 8 tales with his unique blend of blatant uneasiness and sprinklings of gallows humor.The eight include:DISC ONE: "BATTLEGROUND" - One of the series better offerings featuring William Hurt in a dialogue-less interpretation about a professional assassin whose latest victim, a toy magnate, gets his revenge in the unlikely form of a package including a set of Army toy soldiers which come to life and wreck unholy havoc in his cold, efficient apartment in a battle to the death. The shrewd teleplay by Richard Christian Matheson (the son of legendary genre master, Richard Matheson - "The Incredible Shrinking Man") eschews chatter for chills (and a nice nod to his pop's most famous monster, the Zuni fetish doll from the TV movie classic, "Trilogy of Terror", makes a cameo (!) ) Directed by Brian Henson (son of Muppeteer Jim) employs CGI and green screen effect economically building enough tension in a familiar tale (I recall a similar effort in the '80s short-lived anthology series on ABC, "DarkRoom" with host James Coburn, featuring Ronny Cox as a Vietnam vet facing his ghosts in the form of tiny attackers)."CROUCH END" - A so-so adaptation about an American couple (Eion Bailey - best known for HBO's "Band of Brothers" and "CSI: NY"s Claire Forlani) abroad in England for a new job perspective who unknowingly wander into an odd, out- of-the-way town where things are not as they appear in this decidedly HP Lovecraftian twister. Kim Le Master's adaptation isn't bad but not very terrifying and director Mark Haber does his best with the limits of the plot. "Umney's Last Case" - William H. Macy has a field day in a dual role as a '30s era LA gumshoe named Umney who suddenly faces the fact that he is the imagined character of an author (also played by Macy) who decides to change his life for his creation's to escape his painful life. April Smith adds some fun to the mix in her take on the affectionate ode to pulp fiction while veteran director Rob Bowman ("The X-Files") gives the outing a polished look overall.DISC TWO: "THE END OF THE WHOLE MESS" - Arguably the best of the bunch, and one of my favorite unnerving King treats, about two brothers (Ron Livingston and Henry Thomas) who concoct a method of wiping out mankind's proclivities to violence with devastating results in a sharply skewed take on the old chestnut of messing with Mother Nature. Penned by frequent King adapter Lawrence D. Cohen ("It", "Carrie") and directed by Miakael Salomon (who helmed the second go-around TV mini-series of King's "'Salem's Lot", also for TNT), the chapter is a tight, nerve-shattering fix that Rod Serling would've gladly called his own."THE ROAD VIRUS HEADS NORTH" - Tom Berenger gives a mannered yet thoughtful turn as a King-like author who acquires a disturbing painting on a pit- stop during a road-trip and discovers its unearthly power : it's frequent changing of its portrait into a horrific prophecy. Peter Filardi (who wrote the aforementioned ""Salem's Lot" mini-series) manages to make things quite unpleasant and director Sergio Mimica-Gezzan (tv's "Prison Break") keeps things at a pulse-quickening pace."THE FIFTH QUARTER" - Jeremy Sisto plays a recently paroled con who desperately wants to go straight but finds himself immersed in a treasure-hunt of deadly intentions while his girlfriend Samantha Mathis tries to make sense of the whole damn thing for her man. Played as a morality play by Alan Sharp ("Rob Roy") and Bowman directing again making the proceedings a noose- tightening fable of a criminal's mind. DISC THREE: "AUTOPSY ROOM FOUR" - Classic ala Hitchcock offering Richard Thomas as a golfer bitten by a poisonous snake during a game and assumed to be dead, depicts his plight on the morgue table with his fate in the hands of his would be coroners. Well-acted by Thomas, who literally remains motionless in fear for an hour - no-easy feat- and enough taut, tension thanks to Smith and Salomon's expert teaming here."YOU KNOW THEY GOT A HELL OF A BAND" - The weakest of the series with Steven Weber ("Studio 60 on The Sunset Strip") and Kim Delaney (late of "CSI: Miami") as a couple on a road trip detouring into a "Twilight Zone" slice of Americana: a town inhabited by nefarious deceased rock-and-roll gods whose idea of heaven is really a living hell for its inhabitants. Quaint King and listless adaptation by Mark Robe make for a forgettable exercise in the cult of personality.