Bag of Bones

25/100 (234 min, 2011)
Plot: Novelist Mike Noonan, a recent widower, holes himself up in Maine to unblock his writer's block. Unexplainable things begin to happen to him at the cabin and he's convinced that his dead wife is trying to communicate with him.
Director: Mick Garris
Writers: Stephen King (novel), Matt Venne (screenplay)
Stars: Pierce Brosnan, Melissa George and Annabeth Gish

Bag of Yawns

Good Lord, what a bad movie. What makes matters worse is that it's actually a two parter - TV production, so it contains a lot of prolonged and unnecessary scenes, which would not happen if it was a feature film. I can say that this is, without a doubt, the worst movie based on the novel written by Stephen King from the ones I've seen. I do not know how it holds up as adaptation, since I'm not familiar with the book, but from what I gathered - it does poorly in comparison.

The story is far from being original - of course, the protagonist is a writer. I'm beginning to think that writers, right after dumb college chicks, are the most unfortunate group in horror movies. As every writer who lost his wife - along with inspiration - Mike Noonan looks for consolation at the bottom of whiskey bottle. But he finds nightmares and ghosts instead. It gets even more cliche as we move towards the sweet promise of the ending.

There are highly controversial and rarely seen elements here - remote cabin in the woods (also used in "Secret Window" which looks almost like a masterpiece in comparison to this production), creepy repeated line written by someone (Gee, where was that used before?), the remains that are secretly buried somewhere, the curse and the ghost of the loved one watching over protagonist and communicating with him....with refrigerator magnets.

But even a worn out material can be made into good movie with the right casting and execution. Neither is present here - Pierce Brosman is way too old to play Noonan and nobody even bothered to conceal that fact - in the effect we have ridiculous and quite gross scenes where Brosman goes for a little jogging, makes out with Melissa George and listens to alternative emo youthful music. Seriously, nobody wants to see that. Melissa George continues her long steak of bad luck - I feel for her. She's either in a bad movie or in under appreciated good movie. Her best work remains running around in wet, white shirt and skimpy shorts with axe in her hands in "Triangle".

The supporting cast's acting quality varies from very bad to forgettable. The actress who plays the main ghost has beautiful voice and the scene where she sings is actually one of the very few highlights of the movie, but the rape sequence including her is so bad it borders on laughable. Yes, the scene is so ridiculous, badly acted and executed that "Bag of Bones" actually makes a rape scene into comedy piece or kinky porn for elderly if you will.

The CGI is embarrassing. It looks like something straight from ghost stories for kids. The only two things that worked is the make up when it comes to corpses shown in the production and curious tree that looks feminine. But even that goes to hell when said tree begins to...attack Pierce Brosman. That actually happened. And before the tree did that...it spoke.

The resolution to the conflict is absolutely nonsensical - what makes it evne worse that it happens in about 5 minutes. The running time of the series is one of the biggest disadvantages - I see absolutely no reason to make production this long based on such an awful script - if you took out all the scenes with Pierce Brosman running, looking around, yawning, going up and downstairs and staring at the empty Word document - you would have around 60 minutes of the materal left.

Avoid, avoid, avoid. Even if you are an avid King's fan, there is really nothing good about this movie. The only reason why it's not rated below 25/100 is that there are simply worse things out there, like "Kick Ass" or "Mamma Mia", which by the way also features Pierce Brosman. Talk about careful job selection.