lathe-of-heaven First off, let me put my pants on... (just NEVER gets old, does it?) Next, let me just say that I am not a BIG Stephen King fan. When I was younger (so much younger than today...) his first books REALLY grabbed me and I thought he was THE frigg'n best Horror author, that I knew of at the time anyway. But... that was 30+ years ago. The guy is VERY talented, don't get me wrong; and he certainly has an excellent imagination and is able to come up with some great ideas and stories.Now, let me break away from a deeper analysis of King himself and get to the film here at hand. Regardless of how I feel overall about King, this movie, just as a movie, is a lot of fun and surprisingly well done compared to many of King's other adaptations. IF you have a good imagination and can allow yourself to fall into the story and the mind of the main character, THEN you should really enjoy it. Nice use of mood, lighting, and style. It has been quite a while since I have seen one of Mick Garris' other King adaptations, so I really need to go back and watch some of them. Apparently opinions about his approach to King's work are VERY divided.This is one of those MANY films where if you are a stolid 'Realist' and don't get into any form of Fantasy at all, then you likely will not be very impressed with this movie. This is really more along the lines kind of like a Fairy Tale, in a way. Not that flowery or anything, but the mood and style suggest that type of story.Since I have a DANGEROUSLY active imagination, I responded pretty well to the story. It isn't really typical of the type of Horror films that I like; I generally don't enjoy the more self-aware, sarcastic type of Horror films that you see quite often now. But, this one keeps that aspect in check where it doesn't take you out of the story and allows you to get caught up in what the main character is going through, thinking, and feeling. A cute little mechanism in the film is that you never really quite know what is real because there are many instances where what is depicted is one of several flash-forwards of what the main character is thinking MIGHT happen. So, that does have the tendency to keep you on your toes. I thought it was kind of a clever device, one at the time that had not been used much before (I don't think it was until 'Lost' came along where they really started using this technique a lot more)Geez, I can't believe that I am writing this much about this movie : ) Anyway... Compared to say 'CREEPSHOW', which I really do like, this film is a bit more adult and serious as opposed to being quite as 'Comic Booky' And, it doesn't use humour as overtly as that film did. I personally like my Horror to be more serious rather than self-referential; however, if it is done really well, I occasionally like an entertaining Horror / Comedy. This movie is serious enough to tip the scales a bit more toward the kind of film that I prefer.FWIW, the thing about Stephen King, and I'm SURE that many others will disagree if they really like his work, and the very reason why I gave up on him (or more honestly got tired of him) is that to me, almost EVERY story follows the exact same pattern. This film adaptation didn't as much though, and that is probably why I like it. What it is, is this: In almost every story of his without fail, the majority of innocent people (or in the case of this film, innocent animals) get killed or maimed or mistreated brutally, for no apparent reason than either to shock or just show how mean the perpetrators are. Now, in the beginning, I can see how his approach was indeed novel and 'refreshing' in that it came across as 'Realistic' and the endings were more bittersweet and not your usual 'Happy ending' Okay... But, I began to notice that year after year, book after book, I was seeing the same kind of people, the same kind of themes, the same kind of 'edgy' cynicism about people and such, and I just got tired of it. I mean, in the worst cases, EVERY authority figure is an @sshole, EVERY close relationship is fraught with something wrong or bent, and even in this film, there are almost ALWAYS some frigg'n mean, mindless Rednecks persecuting someone. I mean EVERY dang time. People are ALWAYS mean, good people are killed off, the constant and unrelenting cynicism just got frigg'n OLD after a while. Sure, let's be 'Realistic' if you want, but does EVERY ending have to be all heavy, and not happy, and fraught with serious losses although the 'good guy' won...? EVERY damn time...?!! I guess the constant and persistent mean-spirited nature of almost all of the characters just got to me. You honestly come away from his books thinking that NO ONE, except maybe the 'Hero' is EVER motivated by any decency or compassion in any way. It just gets kind of boring when you know what to expect from the characters EVERY single time... Just my wretched and lowly take on it. It's like, 'Yeah, you are a GREAT writer... But how about PHUK'n surprising me once in a while...?':)Anyway, sorry about my dissertation on Stephen King... But, that notwithstanding, taking this film all on it's own, I really enjoyed it and found it decently entertaining. It has a great, almost Fairy Tale sense of fun, and if you have a good, active imagination, you should have a pretty nice Ride On The Bullet...

Tommy Prado How these aging actors cannot see how silly they look....anyhoo...we yet get ANOTHER one of Stephen King's lame adaptations from a short story...a moral Tale of Death that is a fine premise however it plays out like Garris took a gaggle of Stephen King's short stories, wadded them up and pasted the pages together...it really is a mess...there are maybe a couple of interesting scares but thats it...the first problem with the movie is lead Jonathan Jackson who definitely represents the dark and brooding "suffering" effeminate male who speaks in an annoying drone that is quite common for the Male of the 2000's..Jackson is just awful as the lead and cannot garner any empathy or sympathy with his drony lackluster acting...I think this movie was probably aimed at the conflicted early 20 somethings...the generation who all got a trophy for existing...the best eye opening parts of this movie was the campy performance of art teacher Matt "Max Headroom" Frewer...very funny and I thought appropriate..and the GORGEOUS Catherine Devine just sitting there as a nude model...that was about the only two scenes that animated me other than snickering at Barbara Hershey-Stein's pie hole....

SnoopyStyle It's 1969. Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) is an art student at the University of Maine obsessed with death. His girlfriend Jessica (Christensen) throws him a surprise birthday party and finds him attempting a suicide by slicing his wrist in the bath tub. He decides to go to a John Lennon concert in Toronto with his friends. Then he gets a call that his mother Jean (Barbara Hershey) had a stroke and is in the hospital. He hitchhikes and encounters strange events.The constant imaginary edits keeps faking out the story. It disrupts any flow to the movie. It's a mess. Jonathan Jackson lacks the charisma to lead a movie. He is unable to draw me into the story and provides next to no energy. The movie limps along without much drive as Alan deals with one character after another. It's like a random collection of horror stories from the road. It's probably one of the worst Stephen King adaptations I have ever seen.

Seb Want to create some really dreadful fiction? If so arm yourself with plenty of flashbacks and plenty of pointless premonitions too. That's what this movie is made up of, there's no real story and the ending is the kind of mawkish crap you'd get from a fifteen year old bashing out their first novel.I couldn't really get into any of the characters, especially the protagonist who just seemed to be whiny and other than having his joint stolen by the grim reaper had little to moan about in the grand scheme of things. I didn't really warm to his mother either even though she's supposed to be super cool. What kind of mother gives her son five across the eyes for not wanting to ride a roller-coaster? I threw up all over the back seat of the car when I was a kid after riding the spinning tea cup ride and very little was said about that.In short it's just not a very engaging movie, it has a couple of interesting moments but they are few and far between.