Needful Things

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There are various levels of fun that come with finding a movie that is based on a book you’ve never heard of. One is the joy of discovering a new story from a writer that you enjoy. Another is being able to see influences from other literary works within those stories. Last night, Partner and I were in the mood for an older horror/thriller and we came across Needful Things: an adaptation of a Stephen King novel neither of us had heard of that reminded me of The Master and Magarita only with more murders.

When a mysterious and kindly gentleman opens an antique shop in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine, the locals are immediately intrigued. Somehow the shop seems to have the exact items they desire: rare and autographed baseball cards, varsity jackets from their youth, porcelain trinkets that were lost years ago. But getting what you wish for comes at a price and the shop proprietor, Mr. Gaunt, asks only for a little bit of money and a favour. Soon, everyone in town is playing ‘harmless’ pranks on each other, but things take a horrifying turn when petty grudges and grievances bubble to the surface and the town falls into chaos and violence.

Based on a Stephen King novel, Needful Things is a religious horror that explores the darker sides of humanity and how they can be fanned into infernos. The community spirit of small towns is inverted with a lot of the inhabitants of Castle Rock being resentful people, usually with sad backstories, making them perfect prey for the villain. There’s a fun sense of irony then in the fact that the hero is the sheriff who moved to Castle Rock to escape the disturbing crimes committed in the big city. When the town slowly starts to descend into chaos, it falls to him to try and make everyone see that they are good people that should be banding together rather than tearing each other apart.

Ed Harris delivers a compelling performance as the hero, especially in the climactic third act where he delivers a rousing speech that confronts the villain but also appeals to the townsfolk by conveying a real sense of bitter disappointment in the way things have played out. Max Von Sydow plays Leland Gaunt and he is quietly charming with a delightfully sinister edge underlying his gentlemanly façade.

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It’s not the most original story in the world, we are pretty quickly reminded of the tale of Faust and The Master and Margarita (as I mentioned before), which instantly takes away the mystery as to who the villain is, but it’s a perfectly compelling little thriller.

Director, Fraser C. Heston, 1993

Cast: Ed Harris, Max Von Sydow, Bonnie Bedelia, Amanda Plummer, J.T. Walsh, Ray McKinnon, Duncan Fraser, Valri Bromfield, Shane Thomas Meier, Don S. Davis, William Morgan Sheppard, Campbell Lane, Eric Schneider, Frank C. Turner, & Gillian Barber

The Thursday Murder Club

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A cool and rainy afternoon is always the appropriate setting for a cosy British comedy. For me there is a definite romanticism about making a cup of tea and settling in for a couple of hours of breathtaking architecture, dry wit, and plenty of cake. So, this afternoon I decided to sit down with The Thursday Murder Club.

Four retirees living in a beautiful countryside retirement community meet regularly on Thursdays to discuss cold cases and see if they can’t find any leads that the police overlooked. A means of socialising and keeping their keen minds sharpened, their deduction skills are put to the test when a real murder takes place that threatens the future of their home and community. Calling on their various areas of expertise as well as a few canny contacts, the group find themselves delving into a case that unearths some disturbing truths about those closest to them. Analysing a murder turns out to be different when the case is still warm.

I have not read the book of this and I had heard that it received mixed reviews. I believe fans of the book were left quite disappointed while ignorant people, like myself, enjoyed it fine but found it nothing to write home about. My take, it’s a fine movie with a compelling story, interesting characters, a good smattering of British humour, and enjoyable performances.

It’s a cosy movie that is perfectly pleasant to while away some free time with, but it’s not a film that I think I will be constantly recalling over the next week. In a way, it felt like a film that was dealing with a bunch of edgy or distasteful themes and trying to bring humour to them without becoming a full-on black comedy. This is a grey comedy. I can appreciate that it rides heavily on the narrative and the pull of the central cast but unfortunately, it doesn’t really add anything else that could have spiced it up. I found it easy to pause and leave the room a few times during the duration.

It’s a balanced, tiered cake of macabre, comedy, drama, and social attitudes towards the elderly. The story is compelling enough and the characters are very charming, with the chemistry between the central four providing some fun banter. I did appreciate that a few of the usual tropes were left by the roadside, the main one being that the local police work competently, which was refreshing. I would have to say that the real star of the show is the absolutely beautiful architecture of the countryside mansion that is Cooper Chase Retirement village. The building is stunning!

Image credit: Netflix

Filled with enthusiastic discussion, intrigue, humour, and friendship, The Thursday Murder Club is a pleasant means of whiling away a rainy afternoon.

Director: Chris Columbus, 2025

Cast: Helen Mirren, Celia Irmie, Pierce Brosnan, Ben Kinsgley, Naomi Ackie, Daniel Mays, Hendry Lloyd-Hughes, Tom Ellis, Jonathan Pryce, Paul Freeman, Geoff Bell, Ingrid Oliver, Richard E. Grant, & David Tennant

The Reef

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After breaking up our routine of Friday night shark movies with a little bit of mystery and classic literature adaptations, last Friday night we went right back to toothy monsters of the big blue. Our chosen shark movie this week was The Reef.

A group of friends are travelling along the Great Barrier Reef and having a lovely time exploring little islands, snorkeling, and marveling at the beauty of the underwater world. But their relaxing and romantic trip takes a turn when their boat capsizes and they are faced with a choice: either stay put in the hope of being rescued or try to swim to the nearest land. Opting for the latter, the group salvages what provisions and floating devices they can and strike out into the open ocean. It’s smooth swimming for a little while until they discover that a great white shark is also in the area.

Based on a true story, The Reef is an eco-horror movie that aims to achieve its thrills by being as ‘real’ as possible. Like many shark movies, there is not much of a narrative to follow: group of friends make a decision, start getting picked off, and the fear of their impending doom starts to traumatise them and fray their relationships. 

I guess to give credit where it is due, it was nice to see real shark footage spliced into the film: shots of the shark listing slowly through the misty blue water, coming close to the camera and then turning away like it hasn’t noticed it, and then quickening its pace and opening its mouth to find out what’s the source of splashing. While it doesn’t achieve the same orchestrated jump scares that a stylised computer shark could, using the nature documentary shots of the shark raises the tension and anxiety of the situation, causing audiences to go a through a reasonable rollercoaster of emotions as they empathise with the characters: anxiety, hope, relief, terror, and shock.

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And that’s pretty much all I’ve got on this one. The performances are all fine but nothing to write home about, and the ending is kind of abrupt, which I guess does work but there’s only so much closure that can be leeched out from a small written epilogue.

The Reef was a shark movie that was different enough from the others that we have been watching that it made me remember it, but I do not think that I would recommend it as a must-see.

Director: Andrew Taucki, 2010

Cast: Damian Walshe-Howling, Gyton Grantley, Adrienne Pickering, Zoe Naylor, Keiren Darcy-Smtih, & Mark Simpson

The Sign of Four

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Having had such a lovely time with Partner watching The Hound of the Baskervilles, I was interested to see if there were any other Richardson Sherlock Holmes movies and was elated to discover that a version of The Sign of Four had also been made.

Famous detective and his partner Doctor Watson are hired by a young woman named Mary Morstan to investigate the recent death of her father’s friend from the army as well as the mysterious letter she received along with the Great Mogul, the second largest diamond in the world. What starts as an innocent mystery of a strange letter sent, soon turns immeasurably sinister with the renowned duo becoming immersed in a plot of murder and revenge.

The Sign of Four takes on a little more of a macabre edge than The Hound of the Baskervilles but nevertheless proves to be another enjoyable adaptation of a classic literary thriller. A timeless race against the clock to find a killer on the loose, the excitement of TSOF comes from the known human aspect of the plot rather than the supernatural course that HOFB travels.

Ian Richardson continues to be charming with a little more of an added heroic streak and a fiercer determination that colours some of the more memorable and action-packed scenes within the climactic third act. David Healy plays a lovestruck Watson adorably: slightly flustered, but mostly, sweet, sincere, and sometimes even cool (well, as cool as Watson can get).

The ominous settings of elaborate mansions, dust-filled attics, and carnival fairgrounds are shot in ways that nicely heighten the tension and the sinister and macabre elements of the plot, and the climactic final confrontation, while shot in brilliant daylight in an unlikely and constrictive location, is very memorable. The drama of the plot is also beefed up with the use of montage that conveys the passing of time and teasingly hints that there is a chance that the trail to the killer might even go cold.

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A different story and thus, a different vibe of film, The Sign of Four is still an exciting and enjoyable thriller filled with mystery, action, romance, and gore. It felt a little more serious than Hound of the Baskervilles, but still served us perfectly for a cosy Friday night in.

Director: Desmond Davis, 1983

Cast: Ian Richardson, David Healy, Cherie Lunghi, Thorley Walters, Terence Rigby, Clive Merrison, Richard Heffer, John Melia, John Pedrick, & John Benfield

The Hound of the Baskervilles

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I cannot speak for anyone but myself, but when I consider great literature and its adaptation into the visual mediums of the play, movie, or TV series, I think of England. The homeland of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the most memorable sitcom casts and comedy groups, the BBC, and the delightful telemovie. The British telemovie is a wondrous thing: a feature-length adaptation of history’s most captivating novels, made for a specific audience and not marred by the pressures of the mainstream box office and theatrical release. Some of the best adaptations that I have come across have been telemovies, discovered purely by chance and treasured for years afterward. I’m not sure what it is that tickles me about them, maybe it’s the sparing budget, maybe it’s the love for the story that they are retelling, or maybe it’s the idea that a large portion of the population may not even know it exists. Whatever the reason, I do enjoy a modest British telemovie and recently came across a classic on Amazon Prime: an adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles starring Ian Richardson.

Renowned detective Sherlock Holmes and his partner Doctor Watson accept an intriguing escort assignment when Sir Henry Baskerville arrives from Canada to take up residence in his ancestral home after the death of Sir Charles Baskerville. Upon his arrival, he receives a mysterious letter urging him to stay away from the house and the surrounding moors, which prompts him to hire Holmes to find the sender and their motive. The case takes turn when the superstitious story about a spectral hound that has been terrorising the Baskervilles for generations comes to light and Sir Henry’s own life might be at risk.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most celebrated Sherlock Holmes mystery and has been adaptated for the screen time and time again. In true, polite, British fashion, this telemovie is made captivating by the brilliance of the story, the wonderful depictions of these beloved characters by the cast, and the natural allure of the landscape. There is no glossy coating of an extravagant budget, but a modest, misty, and grainy texture to the film: an all-natural vibe that keeps you focused on the narrative as well as feeling the love and respect that the cast and filmmakers have for the story.

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Ian Richardson is a very charming Sherlock Holmes: dapper and gentlemanly, but still with a level of snarkiness and pride in his own brilliance, which comes across most delightfully in the cute and teasing way he leads Watson down the paths of his deductive reasoning. Donald Churchill plays a Watson that is consistently awestruck by his friend and partner’s brilliance while also harbouring a strong desire to prove his worth to him. The chemistry between the two leads is endearing and amusing; a very good pairing.

Filled with mystery, murder, romance, and action, the 1983 telemovie adaption of The Hound of the Baskervilles is an exciting little romp that’s perfect for a Friday night in.

Director: Douglas Hickox, 1983

Cast: Ian Richardson, Donald Churchill, Denholm Elliot, Glynis Barber, Nicholas Clay, Ronald Lacey, Connie Booth, & Bryan Blessed

The End of Oak Street

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It’s not always the case, but more often than not it totally is the case that going to see a movie based on nothing other than a mild understanding of the plot and its featuring actors that you like, can end up being the best cinematic experience you’ve had in a while. We sometimes forget that getting pre-emptively excited about a film can curdle the experience of watching it because (often) it’s not as good as what you excitedly imagined it would be.

A couple of weeks ago, Partner and I decided to have a spur-of-the-moment date night and go see a movie. Being based in the country, our ‘local’ cinema doesn’t hold as many options as the main chains that we’ve been used to having in the city so our options were limited. But as luck would have it, the cinema was showing The End of Oak Street: a thriller-y sounding flick that turned out to be an absolute prehistoric romp!

In the quaint, suburban community of Oak Street lives a picture-perfect family. But there is trouble in paradise. Denise Platt (Anne Hathaway) is unsatisfied with her marriage and writes basement novels about leaving her family and starting a new life. Greg Platt (Ewan McGregor) has been laid off and is trying to make ends meet and keep the family together. Their daughter Audry is thinking about life after high school, and their son Brian is both the perpetrator and victim of bullying. But when a wholly unbelievable cosmic event transports their entire neighbourhood back to a prehistoric age, their troubles start to look pretty small in comparison.

I walked into The End of Oak Street thinking that this will be a silly and fun dino-survival movie. And I was delightfully surprised to find that it’s so much more. For a start, it’s a film that travels a different road to the main, generic highway that most monster movies do. Regardless of species, zombies in Night of the Living Dead, the shark in Jaws, or the alien in, well, Alien, most monsters work as a narrative catalyst to spark dissension in the ranks, the breakdown of society, and horrific truths that humans are the really just the worst. But in The End of Oak Street the breakdown of the civility and the strain of human relationships is already happening from the first reel. Producer J. J Abrams’ love of Stephen Speilberg bulldozes its way to the front with the overly nostalgic 1980s suburban setting: an idealistic Golden Age that houses a crumbling nuclear family and frayed relations within the community. The ‘work’ of the monsters is already underway so when the dinos actually turn up, they become a catalyst for people banding together rather than breaking apart. And as the protagonists start to piece together some theories as to why their manicured backyard is suddenly overrun with prehistoric flora, completely unexpected plot twists bubble up to alter the audience’s ideas about where the story is headed.

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While the characters are a dime-a-dozen dissatisfied suburban types, the central cast delivers performances that are relatable and down-to-earth that make you feel interested in them and their welfare instead of immediately loving or hating them. This is another way in which the film differs from other monster survival movies, as it gently convinces you to ride along with these people rather than sit back and eagerly anticipate the good ones getting saved and the bad ones getting eaten. And before you know it, you’re caring about them on some level, so when something happens to them the shock is real.

Filled with drama, action, and even a few humorous scenes, The End of Oak Street is a delight. It’s an unexpected romp that gently rearranges the building blocks of genre to make something recognisable, but subtly different to what we’ve seen before in other monster movies.

Director: David Robert Mitchell, 2026

Cast: Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery, Jordan Alexa Davies, P. J Byrne, Anne Gee Byrd, & Emily Kuroda

The Devil's Mouth

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While it’s not always the case, we know that there is an allegorical element to monster movies. In many horror films, the monster is a metaphor for something, be it war, global warming, generational trauma, whatever. While curling up with Partner for another bad shark movie on Friday night, it occurred to me that sharks have become a bit of a metaphor for that exciting but uncertain time between adolescence and adulthood. Think about it, so many of these film centre around a group of high-school or university graduates celebrating a bout of absolute freedom before entering the future grind of civilised maturity: the future is both exciting and scary and the severity of dumb actions and dumb decisions hasn’t sunk in yet. I had this realisation recently, while watching The Devil’s Mouth. 

For Sara and her friends, a holiday in Thailand before embarking on the next chapter of their lives seems like the perfect way to unwind after college. Beautiful beaches, scenic boat tours, and magnificent marine wildlife, what could possibly go wrong? The group finds out during a scuba exploration of the labyrinthine network of caves known as the Devil’s Mouth, where they discover that a massive shark has been brought in with the floods. As a series of incidents leave them stranded, lost, injured, hunted, and panicky, old grievances start coming to the surface and the fight for survival becomes even more fraught with danger. 

 At this stage there is not a lot to say about these types of small, under-the-radar shark movies that has not already been said before. The Devil’s Mouth ticks all the boxes of the coming-of-age eco horror subgenre, but I guess where it pulls ahead from other films such as Maneater is in its exploration of the resilience or fragility of relationships when put under pressure. That, and one of the characters’ deaths is not by being chomped. 

While there’s about as much narrative as you can squeeze from a group-of-people-being-hunted-by-shark movie, the film does manage to succeed in creating an ebb and flow of suspense, despair, and hope. Of course, there are a lot of instances where you’re openly telling the TV, ‘well that’s a dumb idea’, but more often than not there are pivotal story moments that you don’t see coming and I think this is what brings the film ahead of others like it, as it subtly forces you to become (ever so slightly) emotionally invested in these otherwise predictable and generic characters. 

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There are ample amounts of gloomy, underwater shots with something large drifting in the shadows, as well as jump scares, and believable but not realistic shark behaviour that bring a good level of suspense, and the performances are solid enough to make them memorable for at least a couple of weeks after watching the film. If you’re looking for a mindless shark movie to watch, you could do worse that The Devil’s Mouth. 

Director: Jeff Wadlow, 2026 

Cast: Kathryn Newton, Lana Condor, Nico Hiraga, Gavin Casalegno, Tommi Rose, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Tayme Thapthimthong, & Harrison Luna