Not to split hairs — or teeth and bones — but every time a Stephen King novel is brought to the little screen, it gets twice as big as it needs to be.
And tomorrow night’s “Stephen King’s Bag of Bones,” from his 1998 novel, is two hours longer than it could/should/needs to be.
Perhaps that’s because director Mick Garris, who also did the way-too-long TV adaptations of King’s “The Stand,” “The Shining” and “Desperation,” directed this half-a-turkey as well.
The story revolves around writer Mike Noonan (Pierce Brosnan), whose life is shattered when his wife (Annabeth Gish) is killed in an accident.
To get over his grief, get past his writer’s block and sort out his depression about whether or not said wife was having an affair, Mike escapes to his (not that again, yes that again) grandfather’s old cabin on Dark Score Lake in Maine.
But does Mike find the peace there that has been eluding him? What planet are you on?
Instead of peace, he’s joined by his dead wife Jo’s spirit, which starts communicating with him through a cow bell hanging around the moose head on the living room wall. I swear. Meantime, another not-so-friendly spirit, that of Sara Tidwell (Anika Noni Rose) — a famous African-American jazz singer who had nothing better to do than sing at a dinky Dark Score Lake carnival in the 1930s — shows up in the cabin too. Not for nothin’, but this is like Billie Holiday singing at a tiny town carnival once she became a star. Sara communicates with (make that threatens) Mike by making the old record player spontaneously play her tunes over and over.
Anyway, the two competing spirits inside the cabin ( Mike’s the only living human for miles around of course) have some dark scores of their own to settle at Dark Score Lake.
Added to the mess is the town’s ogre, wheelchair bound old coot Max Devore (William Schallert) and his malevolent caretaker, the ancient Rogette (Deborah Grover), who sports Vampira makeup and clothes topped by an Amy Winehouse hairdo. I must say, however, for a 90-year-old, Rogette still packs a helluva right cross.
Despite the magical moose head, scary record player, ridiculous scary music and dopey tricks that announce when you’re supposed to be scared, there are elements on night one that actually are pretty darned scary. Too bad there’s a night two.
By the second night, you might be praying that the moose head really does come to life and kill everyone.