The Tommyknockers

 The Tommyknockers
"Late last night, and the night before
Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers knocking on my door
I want to go out, don't know if I can
'Cause I'm so afraid of the Tommyknocker man"

The Tommyknockers is a television miniseries, aired on ABC, in May of 1993, and is based on the Stephen King novel of the same name.  The film and the book are set in the small town of Haven Maine, though due to the fact that the film had to be filmed in the winter for its release date, and the book is set in the summer, they were forced to find a location that looked somewhat similar to Maine in the southern hemisphere, and chose to film in New Zealand, which because filming in New Zealand was still kind of a new thing, unlike today, there were a lot of expensive difficulties involved in the filming of the show. 

The miniseries was directed by John Power, with a screenplay written by Lawrence D Cohen, and was approved by Stephen King.  The film starred Jimmy Smits as Jim Gardner "Gard" who is a famous poet.  Marg Helgenberger as Bobbi Anderson, who is a writer who lives on a farm on the outskirts of Haven Maine, she is also Gard's lover.  Joanna Cassidy plays Haven's Sheriff Ruth Merrill, and John Ashton plays Trooper Butch Dugan (who is stationed out of Derry Maine), and who has a thing for Sheriff Merrill.   Allyce Beasley plays Debuty Becka Paulson, and Cliff DeYoung plays her husband Joe Paulson, who is a postman.  Ex-adult film legend Traci Lords plays post master Nancy Voss, who is sleeping with Joe.   Then there is the Brown family: Robert Carradine as Bryant Brown, Annie Corley as Marie Brown, Leon Woods as Hilly Brown, Paul McIver as Davey Brown, and film legend G. Marshall as Ev Hillman (the father of Marie, and the grand father of Hilly and Davey).   The film is well cast, and the actors were all competent in their roles, and was pretty decent for a made for television film, not amazing or anything, but they played their roles pretty well. 

The film had some pretty decent special effects for the time period, especially with the aliens, who they cast thin women, such as ex-ballet dancer Karyn Malchus to play the aliens.   Overall the effects were pretty well done, it is obvious that there are limitations being that the film was made on a television miniseries budget, rather than a big Hollywood film budget.  So though the film suffered from limitations of the medium of a television mini series, the miniseries format, also helped to allow the story to be better told, because of not being constricted to the time limitations of a film release, so there is a plus and negative to it.    There were some big changes from the book to the film, some of those changes were to conform with the Standards and Practices that govern network television, and others like the ending, were to give it a less gloomy ending, which is something that tends to test well with audiences, and Stephen King approved of the changes that were made for the film.

Was it good though?  Many consider this to be among the worst miniseries adaptations of Stephen King's works, and it was met with mostly negative reviews, though some praised the acting and the effects.  But what do I think of it?   I remember being 12 years old and seeing the previews on ABC and being super excited for it to air, and I remember sitting on the couch with my mum watching it, and I remember really enjoying it a lot.   Many years passed and I read the book, which I also loved a lot, then I watched it again.   I really enjoy this film, I think it is well done, I love the story, I think in many ways it pays homage to classic cheesy sci-fi b-movies from the 1950s, but adds a nice twist to it, that is uniquely Stephen King.  I also loved Dreamcatcher for the same reason, because it pays homage to the classic b-sci-fi films of the past.   I feel like that maybe those who gave this film a negative review, maybe miss the point, and would have likely also hated the films that it pays homage to.   So to me I love this film.  Also I must point out the fact that Hilly and Davey have a Universal Monsters poster in their room, and I absolutely love that.

The Maine connection:
First off I think it is pretty common knowledge that Derry Maine, is based on Bangor Maine, just like Castle Rock is based on Lisbon Falls ME, but Haven Maine though fictionalized in the Stephen King universe is a real place of sorts, first it is a neighborhood of Brooklyn ME, which the town of Brooklyn Maine does fit the description of Haven in some of Stephen King's works, as well as being somewhat similar to the Haven described in the television series Haven, as well as in the book The Colorado Kid.  The distance to Derry/Bangor also seems to work as well, which would also make it very close to the fictional town of Ludlow (there is a real Ludlow in Maine too, but not where Stephen King's Ludlow is) which is set in the town of Hancock Maine (the actual area that Pet Sematary was filmed in).   The other real Haven in Maine are the Island towns of North Haven, and Vinalhaven, but those don't work for the settings that Stephen King was writing.   So I don't know if for sure that Stephen King meant for Brooklyn ME to be the basis of Haven, but it does work, and it does physically put Haven on the map of Maine.   If you want to visualize the area that I am talking about, if you go on Googlemaps and search Brooklyn ME, then move to the north a bit you will find Hancock, and if you follow the Penobscot River upstream you will find Bangor.   I have spent a lot of time in the area around Brooklyn and Hancock, I think that Downeast Maine is my favourite part of the state, and I try to get up there as often as I can.  I hope someday to be able to make my home in that part of the state.