Kat Callaway

Absolutely horrible. I can’t believe the number of 5 star reviews this thing has. Anyone who has read the book can see this joke of a screenplay is nowhere NEAR the genius of Stephen King’s book. I will never understand why screenplay writers feel they have to take a perfectly good story and muck it up like this one. Add to that the terrible acting and this is a complete disaster. To start with, the Bill character has exactly ONE purpose in the book. He appears in the storyline, then he’s done. He is NOT a full-fledged character in any way, and his part in the series is not only poorly acted, but it’s ludicrous. James Franco does not do his best work in this series. He just doesn’t embody the Jake in the book at all, and it’s a real shame. Same thing with Sadie. The Deke character is pretty good, but Miz Mimi? What on earth? Her noble character is reduced to an afterthought, which made me angry. She was a formidable force in the book, but the writing for her was just pathetic. So much time was wasted on the stupid Bill character and the inner workings of the Oswald family that we missed really getting to know and care for the main characters. I realize it’s hard to put such a brilliant book into 8 hours, but come on! Do it right or don’t do it at all! Screenplay writers need to really study the book and its characters, and casting directors need to really learn who the characters are and cast actors accordingly. I’m sorely disappointed in this series. I’m a lifetime Stephen King fan, but I can’t for the life of me figure out why most of his stories set to the screen are so bad (with a few notable exceptions, of course). This could have been so much better.