This is an adaptation of a King novella, which should tell you all you need to know about the quality control that went into it.
However it is, without a doubt, the worst TV movie I have ever seen. There was nothing even bearable about it. The most fantastic thing was that everyone said exactly what you'd expect them to, if they had only ever seen movies, and learned how to speak from that source alone. The people were badly drawn stereotypes, and who would couple with who was glaringly obvious from the first scenes. The special effects, when they finally arrived, looked as if they'd been produced on a sinclair spectrum. The way the story resolved itself was stupid in the extreme, but the most fantastically stupid thing about the film was one of the leads. He was a smooth cockney who had to say the worst dialogue since Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins. The highlight occurs about 10 mins from the end (and I tell you that in case you don't have the strength to watch it all) when he is telling his bird to seek out his father; 'Ask for the gaffer, you might have to ask a few people, but they all know him as the gaffer. Tell him about the daisies.'
Priceless.
And if they trimmed it to a sensible pacing it would magically disappear from 3 hours to a bearable 100 mins.
Fantastic stuff, so poor it reduced me to swearing blindly at the screen as they uttered another line of inane drivel, had some stupid plot device, or mentioned the gaffer.
However it is, without a doubt, the worst TV movie I have ever seen. There was nothing even bearable about it. The most fantastic thing was that everyone said exactly what you'd expect them to, if they had only ever seen movies, and learned how to speak from that source alone. The people were badly drawn stereotypes, and who would couple with who was glaringly obvious from the first scenes. The special effects, when they finally arrived, looked as if they'd been produced on a sinclair spectrum. The way the story resolved itself was stupid in the extreme, but the most fantastically stupid thing about the film was one of the leads. He was a smooth cockney who had to say the worst dialogue since Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins. The highlight occurs about 10 mins from the end (and I tell you that in case you don't have the strength to watch it all) when he is telling his bird to seek out his father; 'Ask for the gaffer, you might have to ask a few people, but they all know him as the gaffer. Tell him about the daisies.'
Priceless.
And if they trimmed it to a sensible pacing it would magically disappear from 3 hours to a bearable 100 mins.
Fantastic stuff, so poor it reduced me to swearing blindly at the screen as they uttered another line of inane drivel, had some stupid plot device, or mentioned the gaffer.