classicsoncall There was more than once while watching the film that I thought Alfred Hitchcock could have used George Romero when he was filming "The Birds". With at least a half dozen scenes of sparrows massing in the sky or threatening the Beaumont home, they appeared a lot more threatening than Hitchcock's birds. But that was an earlier time and George Romero was just getting started in the Sixties and wouldn't have been a name to contend with yet.One thing that bothered me about this story was the premise set for the existence of George Stark, the evil alter-ego identity of Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton). The foreign tissue removed from the young Thad was described as an 'absorbed fetus', formed of a rare tumor manifesting a tooth and other grisly organic remains. Then later, Thad's university friend Reggie proclaims George a conjuration, created by the force of Thad's will. I haven't read the King novel, so it seems to me the film's story line was going in too many different directions with these arguments. Personally, going with just the latter idea would have worked well enough for me.Fred Clawson's blackmail scheme didn't hold much water with me either. Obviously Beaumont's publisher knew he was using a pseudonym, and to my thinking, what was the big deal anyway? Stephen King uses at least a couple I'm aware of - Richard Bachman and Peter Straub - and it never hurt his career. So that was a little muddled in the execution too.But you know what, the evil guise of George Stark was really cool, wasn't it? Looking like a deranged Elvis impersonator, I thought Hutton's transformation into the warped madman was pretty impressive. I had to wonder though about the Mississippi plates on his Toronado, where did that idea come from? Tennessee (Graceland) would have made more sense and I wouldn't even have questioned it. Oh, well.Anyway, old George came to a ghastly finale there at the end of the picture, but even then I had to contain a chuckle among all the gruesome imagery. For the very first time ever I saw it dramatically illustrated what it means to be a pencil necked geek.

Max Renn I've always been a big fan of Steven King's novels. Almost all his books have been successes. Unfortunately a good book is never a guarantee that the film adaptation will be reach the quality of the book. And out of the many King adaptations only a few have succeeded in bringing the same quality as the book. Its enough to remember the horrible Tommyknockers and the even more pathetic Langoliers. But there have been awesome adaptations The Green Mile, Misery. Though it can't be mentioned with the best ones but Romero's and King's dual work Creepshow is up there with the okay ones and then we also have Dark Half from these two. Stephen Kings three books (Dark Half, Shinning and Secret Window) are connected on a few levels, all feature a writer the protagonist, which is popular with King… and they feature the fear of something, an unknown person (which symbolizes the dark half of our psyche) or higher power. The question is are the directors faithful to the books like Romero and Kubrick, and what twist and film techniques do they use to bring the adaptation to the silver or small screen. When Thad Beaumont was a child, he had an operation to remove a tumor from his brain. during the operation, it was discovered that far from being a tumor, the growth was a twin brother of Thad's that never developed. Years later, Thad is a successful author, writing his serious books under his own name, and his pulp money-makers under the pseudonym "George Stark". When blackmailed by someone who has discovered his secret, Thad publicly "buries" George Stark. From that point on, Thad increasingly becomes the prime suspect in a series of gruesome murders. Despite the films being filled with clichés from the 90s, they are consistent with the books. Romero really captured the depiction of reality and non-reality. The camera work is idea filled and tight, the film is done with rhythmic cuts making it a true Romero film. All this would not have worked without Christopher Younge (the composer of film scores like Hellraiser and Nightmare on Elm street), whose score drives your adrenaline to the max. with a unique many layers soundtrack. The story in itself is a typical SK story, that doesn't clear up until the last twist whether the protagonists twin really has come to life by certain higher powers or not. Timothy Hutton's duel performance is absolutely convincing. He plays the balanced father well and is merciless as George Stark, who after spiking his hair up, goes around killing people, with a cigarette hanging from his lips and a bottle of whiskey close by. The large group of sparrows give the film an air of strangeness right from the start. The sparrows are there as a medium: they connect the earth and the other side and they are instrumental to the ending, which is, without being overly dramatic, THE WORLDS MOST DISGUSTING SCENE, it's a must see. Though it can be said of the film that there is more blood than the typical King adaptation this is not detrimental to it. Dark Half SK adaptation is to Shinning as Carlito's Way is to Scarface. Though Dark Half and Shinning work with similar material, they speck to difference audiences, their devices and budget was different so Dark Half remains a cult film amongst a certain section of horror fans. Romero tried to do his job perfectly, but unfortunately this only worked partially. Romero fans, who are more prone to like films that have a more serious mood with like it, King fans… well I'm not so sure… To me it's a 6/10. https://www.youtube.com/user/Videodromeblog

Neil Welch Writer Thad Beaumont takes part in a publicity scheme where he buries his pseudonym, George Stark, in a fake funeral after someone tries to blackmail him over the subterfuge. Then murders start, apparently in the name of George Stark. Has Thad gone mad? The story behind the Stephen King novel on which this film is based is an interesting one. The film itself is a straightforward adaptation of the book (one character is sex-changed), and works well on both the page and the screen. Timothy Hutton is convincing as both the decent Thad and his murderous alter-ego, and the supporting cast are all fine (I preferred Ed Harris as Alan Pangborn in Needful Things, but Michael Rooker does well enough). The story builds well, and the conclusion (which one might think, from the book, would be unconvincing) is actually pretty good.George Romero's work on Stephen King's stories has been successful - I would have liked to have seen him do more, rather concentrate (for almost his entire career) on Living Dead.

LeaBlacks_Balls There are only a small handful of films based on works by Stephen King that can without a doubt be classified as 'great movies.' They are 'Carrie,' 'The Shining,' 'Misery,' 'Dolores Claiborne,' 'The Dead Zone,' 'Stand By Me' and 'Cujo.' All the others range from 'flawed' to 'awful.' Despite it's decent cast, and respected horror director Romero at the helm, 'The Dark Half' lies more towards the awful end of the spectrum. The filmmakers gave it their best shot but things just didn't work out. It fails as a horror film in terms of suspense, plausibility, and narrative.When Thad Beaumont (Hutton) was a child, he had an operation to remove a tumor from his brain. During the operation, it was discovered that far from being a tumor, the growth was a twin brother of Thad's that never developed. Years later, Thad is a successful author, writing his serious books under his own name, and his trashy money-makers under the pseudonym 'George Stark.' When blackmailed by someone who has discovered his secret, Thad publicly 'buries' George Stark. From that point on, Thad increasingly becomes the prime suspect in a series of gruesome murders.Of all the King adaptations I've seen, this is one of the dullest. The main character is unsympathetic, his alter ego is two dimensional and totally hammy, you don't care about any of the victims (much less even know who they are at some points,) and there is hardly any horror and next to no tension.However, there is some good production design and cinematography on display here, as well as some striking images. Huge flocks of sparrows gathering as an omen of doom is a haunting sight. But that alone can't save this film, which is just another King adaptation from a period where almost everything he'd write would end up being made into a movie.