Stephen King Month: The Dark Half

4 Stars - Good

So once again we plumb the depths of Stephen King writing about himself, this time writing about the 'death' of Richard Bachman, who, according to the dust jacket of Blaze, died of pseudonym cancer, a relatively painless way to go. Today is The Dark Half.

The Dark Half is the story of Thad Beaumont, you guessed it and author, who has just 'killed' his pseudonym, George Stark. Under the guise of Stark he wrote a number of crime novels starring the vicious character Alexis Machine. For a publicity stunt with a magazine Thad has had a picture taken over a mock grave for George. However a few days later, George Stark rises from the mock grave, and begins a journey to kill all those connected to Thad and goes on a major killing spree. Thad is suspected by the police of these crimes and the tensions mounts as he realises that his dark half has come to life and wants to replace him.

The film was really entertaining, which came as a surprise because I thought it could have easily been done wrong, but under the more than capable hands of George A. Romero, of Dawn of the Dead fame, this is a tense, well acted film with more than a few good gross out moments, most notably being an eye within a brain, that makes total sense in context.

As an adaptation it is great, leaving nothing important out, including Thad's childhood troubles with what would later become George and we get to see the build up of why Thad killed him, which works for the film, whereas in the book it starts some time after George's 'death'.

George Stark. Not A Very Nice Guy.

In short, this is the best kind of good, surprisingly good.