Stephen King Presents - Kingdom Hospital (DVD)

Stephen King has a flare for description and if you have ever read one of his novels you realize that character development is a major part of his writing style. I still remember reading Needful Things and going through about 250 pages of character development before someone finally got it in the head with a meat cleaver. That said I think it is King's obsession with description that causes several of his adaptations to fail when they do, and at the same time succeed.

With movies such as Shawshank Redemption, The Running Man, Misery and The Shining to his credit there is really no shock when you hear that another King novel or novella is getting the movie style treatment, but if we think back to the made for TV series The Golden Years, we can also see where King's accomplishments turn into failure.

"Kingdom Hospital" can easily be thrown onto the heap of King novels that you have read and were ultimately disappointed by the time you got to the end of the story. Chronicling the haunted "Kingdom Hospital" this series has everything you would come to expect from a King novel from the intense amount of description as he introduces you to his cast of odd-ball characters up to the extremely bad ending.

King got the idea for "Kingdom Hospital" from the Lars Van Trier Danish miniseries "The Kingdom" and ABC was aboard, but I just cannot find out why. From the goofy idea that there is a disease eating "anteater" named Antibus to the weird old lady that channels the dead and feels the need for mood lighting during her séances "Kingdom Hospital" is so far-fetched and ultimately disappointing that the only people that will really find any interest in this series are the die hard King fans that don't care what drivel he puts out, that consider it all to be a masterpiece.

As for special features you do get a Stephen King and the filmmakers commentary on the first episode in the series, as well as a making-of feature, a look at the cast of "Kingdom Hospital", a set design feature and a look at the creation of the CGI Antibus character.

The featurettes may be the only thing worth a watch here and that is limited to the set design feature and the CGI feature considering that these two details along with the acting of Andrew McCarthy was extremely good and should actually give the career of the Weekend at Bernie's man a jumpstart.

As if I actually have to say it, don't buy this DVD. King fanatics, I know you may think I am crazy but I just can't recommend anyone spend there money on 10+ hours that they will probably only watch once and that is if they manage to get through all of it. If you want a good King adaptation check out the Salem's Lot DVD due out Oct 12th as well.