Although it lacks the creepy subtleties of Stephen King's celebrated novel, George Romero's underrated adaptation of The Dark Half ranks among the best films based on King's fiction, with Romero taking care to honor King's central theme while serving up some gruesome gore in the film's much-criticized finale. Inspired by King's own admission that he wrote several novels under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, The Dark Half explores the duality of a writer's impulse, ranging from literary respectability to the viscerally cathartic thrills of exploitative pulp fiction.
Author and teacher Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton) finds himself torn between those extremes when he "kills" his profitable, pseudonymous alter ego George Stark (the bestselling "dark half" to Thad's light), who then assumes an evil, autonomous form (again played by Hutton) to lethally defend his role in Thad's creative endeavors. Forced to wrestle with this evil manifestation of his own unformed twin, Thad must fight to protect his wife (Amy Madigan), their twin babies, and his own survival as an artist. Romero skillfully develops the twin/duality theme to explore the writer's dilemma, and Hutton is outstanding in his dual roles, playing Stark (in subtly fiendish makeup) as a redneck rebel with a knack for slashing throats. Julie Harris adds class in a supporting role, and horror fans will relish Romero's climactic showdown, in which swarms of sparrows seal Stark's fate. It favors a pulp sensibility with clunky exposition to explain Stark's existence, but The Dark Half is a laudable effort from everyone involved. --Jeff Shannon
(15 votes)
2.
Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton) is a happily married family man with a successfully two-faced career as a writer. On the one hand, he publishes respected but poorly-selling scholarly works under his own name. It is under the name George Stark, however, that he sells millions of books with his signature strain of extremely violent action novels. When Thad makes the decision to write only under his own name, he stages a PR-friendly burial for his pen name which receives prominent media coverage. After this event, it’s not long before townspeople somehow connected to Thad start turning up dead, with all clues pointing to the unassuming author. Is there a second party trying to frame Thad? Could the murders be somehow connected to the fragments of a undeveloped twin removed from Thad’s brain when he was a boy? When the sheriff (Michael Rooker) finds Thad’s fingerprints at the crime scenes, the unsuspecting author’s life spins increasingly out of control. Director George Romero adapts frequent collaborator Stephen King’s 1989 best-seller into a tight mainstream thriller with a fine dual performance from Hutton.
(15 votes)
3.
Masters of horror Stephen King (The Shinning) and George A. Romero (Night Of The Living Dead) have created a ?gripping, creepy, frightening? (L.A. Reader) film that thrills, shocks and works us over? (Los Angeles Times)! Featuring an ?intelligent screenplay and first-rate cast? (The New York Times), including Oscar winner Timothy Hutton, The Dark Half will keep you captivated to the chilling end. Horror writer Thad Beaumont (Hutton) hopes to distance himself from his murder novels and from George Stark, the name he has used to anonymously author them. To achieve this, he cooks up a murder of his own: a publicity stunt that should lay Stark to rest forever. But when the people around him are found gruesomely slain - and his own fingerprints dot the crime scenes - Beaumont is dumbfounded until he learns that Stark has taken on life of his own?and begun a gruesome quest for vengeance!
(15 votes)
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