The Dark Half (1993)

Directed by George A. Romero. Starring Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Michael Rooker, Robert Joy, Julie Harris, Kent Broadhurst, Royan Dano, Chelsea Field, Beth Grant, Rutyana Alda, Tom Mardirosian. [R]

Life once again imitates art in Stephen King fiction: Hutton plays a novelist who writes under his own name as well as a pseudonym, and intends to kill off his creation just as King did with his pen name, Richard Bachman. Hopefully, that’s where the similarities end, because Hutton’s alter ego actually comes to life to stop this literary assassination, leaving a trail of bodies in his wake. Hutton is clearly having fun playing his swaggering evil side, whose murder spree is documented here in the terms of a slasher villain (he even tosses off the occasional Freddy Kruger-esque wisecrack), but the film never develops this angle into anything more than a cheesy gimmick, spoiling opportunities for a more interesting dynamic between the two halves other than “please don’t hurt my family.” Madigan and Rooker do what they can with the standard-issue characters of the wife and the investigating sheriff, but this collision of high concept and low art is as dual-faceted and uneven as its hero/villain, all the way to the climax which is darkly funny but routinely resolved. Rooker’s character was played by Ed Harris in another Stephen King adaptation released the same year (Needful Things).

50/100