I hardly know where to begin. Not at all true to the story, really, except in the most superficial ways.
The screenplay writers took a fairly scary and almost believable yarn and ruined it. Billy Halleck was reduced to an unsympathetic, fat and selfish clown, a waddling caricature of the tortured protagonist in the book. The Gypsies play out the facile racist stereotypes of nastiness and evil incarnate instead of mysterious bohemians with a paranormal approach to vengeance.
The most egregious change, however, was the re-worked ending. The story's real conclusion was never going to win a popularity contest; had the writers remained true to the original plot, the authentic ending would have seemed as precisely chilling as it was intended to be, instead of comedic twist on a "Tales From the Crypt" episode.
King was probably more ashamed of this than Kubrick's version of "The Shining." If you saw this mincemeat of a film first, I hope you will give the book a chance someday.
The screenplay writers took a fairly scary and almost believable yarn and ruined it. Billy Halleck was reduced to an unsympathetic, fat and selfish clown, a waddling caricature of the tortured protagonist in the book. The Gypsies play out the facile racist stereotypes of nastiness and evil incarnate instead of mysterious bohemians with a paranormal approach to vengeance.
The most egregious change, however, was the re-worked ending. The story's real conclusion was never going to win a popularity contest; had the writers remained true to the original plot, the authentic ending would have seemed as precisely chilling as it was intended to be, instead of comedic twist on a "Tales From the Crypt" episode.
King was probably more ashamed of this than Kubrick's version of "The Shining." If you saw this mincemeat of a film first, I hope you will give the book a chance someday.