text: This movie is based on a Stephen King novel in which mysterious new shopkeeper Leland Gaunt (Max Von Sydow) offers each citizen of Castle Rock the item he or she most desires - but there is a heavy price to be paid for these transactions. Local sheriff Alan Pangborn (Ed Harris) is soon forced to deal with a variety of brutal deaths and suspicious circumstances.<br /><br />Below average for Stephen King cinema: I can see why some people would think it was boring. It plods along without offering genuine scares and forces the viewer to spend time (yet again) with a bunch of repulsive losers whose hatred of each other is spooky.<br /><br />I do enjoy the novel and don't believe that this lackluster movie does it justice. There are too many unfortunate changes from book to screen.<br /><br />Von Sydow makes Gaunt much too charming. We're supposed to be SCARED of Gaunt at the right times, not amused by him. I also hate it that the sheriff's primary deputy (Ray McKinnon) is written and portrayed as such an annoying, Barney Fife-type moron. Star Ed Harris looks as if he was forced into doing this picture by his agent, but professional that he is, he really sinks his teeth into his dialog. Bonnie Bedelia (as Pangborn's love interest Polly) and Amanda Plummer (in one of her standard mentally unbalanced roles) come the closest to creating characters who are likable.<br /><br />Yet it is also foul and mean-spirited.<br /><br />Although I'll be darned if it didn't feel a little cathartic watching a bunch of unlikable movie characters tear each other to pieces. The climax has some good explosions.<br /><br />I often give movies a better rating than they probably deserve, but in this case I feel I should really be honest and just say: 3/10.