Castle Rock Entertainment, 1993

starring: Ed Harris, Bonnie Bedelia, Shane Meier and Max von Sydow
directed by: Fraser Clarke Heston

the plot: On a quiet autumn afternoon, a small shop enigmatically named Needful Things opens in the small Maine town of Castle Rock. Thirteen-year-old Brian Rusk (Meier) is the first customer, and he can hardly believe his luck when he buys a vintage Mickey Mantle baseball card for only a few cents. But as Brian soon learns, every purchase at Needful Things carries an extra price, and it’s not long before the shop’s owner, Leland Gaunt (von Sydow), asks Brian to carry out a series of elaborate pranks in town. After only a few days, business is booming for Gaunt, but all over town, residents are finding themselves the victims of pranks, tricks and other misdeeds. The Catholics are angry at the Protestants, politicians are plotting against cops and the town drunk is ready to take on everyone. Caught in the middle is Sheriff Alan Pangborn (Harris), a former big-city cop watching his beloved small town slowly unravel. When Pangborn’s fiancé, Polly Chalmers (Bedelia), starts to turn against him, the sheriff helplessly watches as Gaunt manipulates the town to his own sinister ends.

why it’s good: Condensing a Stephen King novel that features close to four dozen characters and clocks in at more than 700 pages down to a two-hour flick is no easy task, but Fraser Clarke Heston’s adaptation of “Needful Things” is a surprisingly strong adaptation of King’s novel of small-town tensions gone horrible awry. Some credit is due to W.D. Richter, whose screenplay packs a surprising amount of tension and explosive violence into a small space. Although the main conflict is between Pangborn and Gaunt, Heston devotes a fair amount of screen time to the film’s other antagonistic relationships, letting the characters stew and simmer in their own petty squabbles until the action boils over during the climax. But the real attractions here are Harris and von Sydow as they fight for control of the town. The two are perfectly matched, and Harris’ understated, incorruptible sheriff is the perfect counterpoint to von Sydow’s cackling, drolly demonic villain. Von Sydow starred as the doomed Father Merrin in “The Exorcist,” and it’s fun to see him chew the scenery here as the devil himself. As Stephen King adaptations go, it’s not the most faithful, but it is one of the best in terms of capturing the spirit of its source material.

why you should own it: “Needful Things” is worth checking out, whether you’re a King fan or not. MGM’s DVD is bare-bones, though, so you may need “Needful Things” more as a rental than as a permanent part of your library.