The Tommyknockers

The Tommyknockers (1993)

Directed by: John Power
Written by: Lawrence D. Cohen based on the novel by Stephen King
Starring: Jimmy Smits, Marg Helgenberger, Allyce Beasley, Robert Carradine, Traci Lords, Annie Corley, Cliff De Young, Joanna Cassidy, John Ashton, E.G. Marshall, Leon Woods, Paul McIver

Okay, so a little town in New England is besieged by an ancient evil inhabiting the old Indian woods. Said ancient evil turns the people of the town into zombies and makes them invent all kinds of nifty little devices including a typewriter which types on it's own, and the only person who can defeat the dreaded Tommyknockers (by making the ultimate sacrifice) is a writer who hasn't written anything good for years.

Needless to say, I have seen this movie before. It was called It the first time. Okay, so in this one the ancient evil isn't a weird spider thing that likes to dress up as a clown, it was some slightly vampiric aliens (Salem's Lot), but it had basically the same plot.

It was better. Much, much longer, but better. It at least took the time to do everything right. I mean to say, the characters were done better and everything was there.

This movie just kind of sucked. It was made for television, of course, which doesn't help too much, but some things can get around that.

And I dunno, but the Tommyknockers themselves didn't impress me very much. Sure, they went around making people kill one another, I guess, but they didn't seem too bad. And those aliens were kind of sad looking. I (not having read the novel) assumed that the Tommyknockers were goblins or kobolds or something. They sound like a particularly irksome variety of the wee folk.

Another thing that got on my nerves was who's Tommy and why are they knocking him? But that's sort of irrelevant.

Anyway, there's really nothing more to say about this movie except that it was full of green shit (aliens just love that green shit. In reality, the aliens, or at least the ones I travel with, are rather fond of pastel orange, but I doubt Mr. King would know that).

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