I'm afraid I have to disagree with the majority of reviewers here and say that I thought this was a load of claptrap. The plot was thin to say the least and the entire thing was completely devoid of any subplots that might have made it interesting. It absolutely lacked humour of any sort - some light relief would have increased the tension by contrasting with it - as it was this was merely a cobbled-together list of "interesting ways of making people die", followed by a rather trite "people have to make a choice" ending. After about the third (well, the second) death this all became very tedious. This set the tone for the whole thing.
Parts of it were cut from the whole cloth of other King stories. The fact that Flagg - sorry, I meant to say Linoge - knew "things" about Islanders came straight from the "poison pen" idea in "Needful Things", the "making people suffer at a distance" idea from King's truly awesome creation of Randall Flagg in "The Stand" (though without any of Flagg's depth) and the violence from Bob Gray (Pennywise) in "It". These were blended in such a way as to include only the more sensational and gory aspects without any of the creeping horror present in the originals. All it needed was a few Tommyknockers and a murderous car and we'd just about have had the full set!
Part of the problem is that Linoge is omnipotent - there is no way the islanders can beat him. No attempt is made, in any case. So the essential "good versus evil" struggle is missing, leaving the viewer only to wonder rather wearily how the final and inevitable capitulation would come.
Nothing much new here, except an unpleasant feeling that King really has finally run out of ideas. One thing I did notice - Linoge was wearing a belt with a snake buckle. Wasn't it Randall Flagg who wore one of those in The Stand? If so, perhaps King himself was making a kind of apology for ripping off his own character to make this dreadful potboiler!
Parts of it were cut from the whole cloth of other King stories. The fact that Flagg - sorry, I meant to say Linoge - knew "things" about Islanders came straight from the "poison pen" idea in "Needful Things", the "making people suffer at a distance" idea from King's truly awesome creation of Randall Flagg in "The Stand" (though without any of Flagg's depth) and the violence from Bob Gray (Pennywise) in "It". These were blended in such a way as to include only the more sensational and gory aspects without any of the creeping horror present in the originals. All it needed was a few Tommyknockers and a murderous car and we'd just about have had the full set!
Part of the problem is that Linoge is omnipotent - there is no way the islanders can beat him. No attempt is made, in any case. So the essential "good versus evil" struggle is missing, leaving the viewer only to wonder rather wearily how the final and inevitable capitulation would come.
Nothing much new here, except an unpleasant feeling that King really has finally run out of ideas. One thing I did notice - Linoge was wearing a belt with a snake buckle. Wasn't it Randall Flagg who wore one of those in The Stand? If so, perhaps King himself was making a kind of apology for ripping off his own character to make this dreadful potboiler!