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Stephen King’s Bag of Bones

More like, Bag of Crap.

Despite it being a TV movie, the producers would’ve had a real winner on their hands had they made it like a theatrical release. A&E, why do you think HBO’s original flicks are so good?

Premise

- The story boiled down to a curse from the black singer who was murdered decades earlier. Plus, at times her spirit haunted Pierce Brosnan. Pierce got help from the spirit of his dead wife and, inexplicably, had visions and dreams- some interactive- with clues about the mystery. Near the end, we learned that the little daughter of a key character had communications with the black singer’s child who was also murdered. In other words, that is WAY too many supernatural elements.

Aside from not being connected, they were unncessary…and it doesn’t matter what the book was about, movies have their own guidelines. This would have been a strong movie had it focused on Pierce unraveling the curse aspect without any other mumbo-jumbo. Instead of his wife’s spirit, he simply should have been investigating her last days and all the clues left in their cabin.

- Worst of all, the curse was the main part of the story and yet it made no sense and was unjust. A) The singer was just a singer so why did the curse work?! Because she was black? Because this was 1939? In the logic of movies, she needed to be a gypsy, Voodoo follower or similar in order for the curse to have been plausible. (It’s a few days later and I’m adding this note: I can understand the curse working out of rage and injustice, though there should have been a setup to make this plausible, like a reference to such a curse from hundreds of years ago.) B) The curse caused other, innocent little girls to be murdered. C’mon! That’s more like terrorism than revenge.

- Yet again as above, a clearer story would have also been shorter. I got the feeling the execs at A&E demanded a four-hour movie for the sake of filling hours on the schedule and making an event out of this.

Character and Objective/Stakes

Except for the very end when he saved the girl, Pierce was passive the whole movie. Crazy things happened- spirits, threats, odd clues, etc.- yet he only reacted to them. As above, it would have been so simple to clarify his objective.

End

So the curse was stopped by spreading lye on the corpses of the singer and her daughter? What nonsense! How about announcing and proving to the whole town what happened?

Exposition

Too many examples…it was awful.

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