Nightshift Collection

The Boogeyman (1982)

I do not like it, but I respect the efforts

The story is decent and quite faithful to King's original, and performance of Michael Earl Reid, playing a man who is trying to explain to his psychiatrist that the Boogeyman exists and that it killed his children, is impressive. But overall, the movie is pale and boring and more or less it's a waste of time. But considering the fact that this is pretty much "one man show", where Jeff Schiro did the screenplay, directing, editing and music, and on top of that this is his movie debut, I cannot bury it completely. I do not like it, but I respect the efforts.

4/10

The Woman in the Room (1983)

Frank Darabont debut

The directing debut of Frank Darabont, a man who signs cult adaptations of Steven King, "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile", is also an adaptation of King's story. "The Woman in the Room" (1983) is a thirty-minute psychological drama about a lawyer whose mother is dying in pain and his emotional and moral dilemma of whether to release her from her agony. The film was done almost without a budget, with only three actors in two rooms, and it's based almost entirely on facial expressions and the building of the atmosphere. It is interesting that the actress who plays mother also appears in "The Green Mile", and the supporting actor also has roles in both, "The Green Mile" and "The Shawshank Redemption". King stated that this is the best short film made on one of his stories.

7,5/10

It's described as two mini-features but the entire running time is 58 minutes!

The sound was out of sync.

And it looked like this was transferred from a home video tape.

The stories are dumb and poorly rendered.

The acting is stiff. And the directing is non-existent.

Simply horrible. Does King really need the money?

This collection of Stephen King adaptations is an interesting rarity, whose half-length films that it owns manage to adapt well the two King stories that are narrated here. With The Woman In The Room, Frank Darabont was already proving to be capable of making good adaptations of Stephen King's works. This medium-length film has a good script and character development. The original story is short and brief and although some things were omitted here, Frank was able to expand the story a little more to give Johnny's psychological profile more depth. From applying that he is a lawyer who talks with a death row inmate, to the nightmare he has, he does a lot to show the mental crisis that Johnny is going through. Also, that makes the medium-length film somewhat Stephen King-esque, as the original story is a dramatic story that describes Johnny's emotional state through some of his memories. The Woman In The Room is an acceptable adaptation and one that served to lead Frank Darabont to bring some of the best Stephen King adaptations. The Boogeyman was made on a limited budget as it's obviously a college project, but despite it, the setting is well done and manages to maintain a sense of suspense and terror. Stephen King's story is summarized in this short film, but they only took the most essential of the plot, without the need to focus as much on Lester's conversation with Harper as on the original story that spends a lot of time to go deeper into the state. Lester's emotional Here the story is shorter and the environment is responsible for transmitting Lester's fear and the panic he suffers. In a certain way, Stephen King managed to capture his vision of the fear of the Boogeyman as something that can terrify adults. Especially when said character becomes a metaphor for the danger that children can suffer in the hands of dangerous people. This really is one of the best short horror films I've seen despite its limited budget and it manages to be scary enough to reflect King's chilling vision. My rating for this anthology is 8/10.