It’s that kind of analytical thinking that the story seeks to bypass, evidenced by Renshaw following his instinct to fight, instead of wondering what’s happening or calling for help.Īs we’re sucked into the situation along with him, the giggle value of walking toy soldiers wears off quickly. At one point, he crushes one of the soldiers between two elevator doors, and I thought, “Would the doors really crush it? And shouldn’t they slide back open if something’s in the way?” Then I realized I’d been debating the physics of how to kill a demonically possessed toy soldier.

Also to their credit, “Battleground” is free of dialogue, focusing attention on Renshaw’s “expert” response to the assault, his complete acceptance of the situation. It’s to the credit of director Brian Henson (son of Jim) and writer Richard Christian Matheson (son of legendary horror author Richard) that they embrace this typically King-ian turn to surrealism and don’t explain away the soldiers as figments of Renshaw’s paranoid imagination. They spring to life and begin attacking him with surprisingly powerful munitions. Here he receives a package containing army soldiers from the same toy company he’s just visited.

Here William Hurt stars as John Renshaw, an assassin who executes a toy company executive in Dallas, then flies home to San Francisco. The miniseries takes its title from King’s 1993 short story collection, though only five of the eight episodes are from that book “The Road Virus Heads North” and “Autopsy Room Four” are from his 2002 anthology Everything’s Eventual, and series opener, “Battleground,” is from 1978’s Night Shift, King’s first story collection. Will it be the erudite King, who’s capable of crafting dark, textured, adult stories? Or will it be the goofy shockmaster, delivering scenes of gruesome terror and borderline nonsensical plot twists? In TNT’s anthology series, Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King, the answer is: both. To borrow a phrase from a film that clobbered Shawshank at the Oscars, King’s work is “like a box of chocolates.” You never now what fresh hell you’re gonna get.

The stylistic gap between Carrie and Shawshank highlights the biggest problem with adapting King. In 1976, Brian De Palma turned King’s debut, Carrie, into iconic cinematic horror 1990’s Misery won Kathy Bates an Oscar and in 1994, the cult status and adoration of the adult and engaging Shawshank Redemption cemented King’s reputation as a critically acclaimed popular storyteller. It’s possible that more film and TV adaptations have been made from the works of Stephen King than any other living author.

Nightmares and dreamscapes