AT&T’s Mr. Mercedes
Episode 1: “Pilot”
Directed by Jack Bender
Written by David E. Kelley
* For a recap & review of Episode 2, “On Your Mark” – click here
We start in 2009, in Ohio. Extremely early in the morning at a City Jobs Fair. People are lined up outside through a roped walkway. Everyone waits patiently, some introducing themselves to one another. Others aren’t entirely happy to be there, not into the socialising. Regardless, everyone there’s starved for work, from the older folk to a young mother with her baby and every sort in between.
Suddenly, a Mercedes pulls up. Lights beaming onto the crowd. The driver slides on a clown mask, breathing heavy. Then he drives directly through the people, barrelling forward at top speed. People scream, running away fast as they can.
But some don’t escape. The driver ploughs over them, including the young mom and her child, a man helping her. Tons and tons of bodies lie bloody, crunched, smashed to bits in his wreckage. Holy christ, what a brutal sequence! When the smoke clears, Detective Bill Hodges (Brendan Gleeson) turns up on the scene to survey the carnage and begin an investigation along with fellow lawman Pete Dixon (Scott Lawrence). The senselessness isn’t immediately evident. Pete thinks the driver “lost control” of his vehicle. Hodges knows better.
We jump ahead, two years later. Looks as if Dt. Hodges is a bit rough around the edges, lying in his own wreckage now. Mostly consisting of beer cans, cigarettes, and peanuts. Bit of a mess, in more ways than one. He’s got a lot of time to himself these days. Him and his friend Fred, the tortoise in the backyard. Seems they’re sort of at the same pace. He still has dinner with Pete, keeping in touch after his retirement.
One thing’s clear, though – Bill’s got unfinished business. Like many cops who’ve retired with unsolved cases. He doesn’t even feel like himself. While Pete and a local waitress named Sheila (Tuesday Beebe) try keeping him on track, as does nosy neighbour Ida Silver (the incomparable Holland Taylor), there’ll always be something not right with him. He just slides further into the bottle.
Bill: “Ever notice everything‘s upside down on a spoon?”
Sheila: “Maybe that‘s how life is, hon. Spoon‘s just got it figured out.”
Perfectly with The Ramones playing “Pet Sematary” on the radio, we’re introduced to Brady Hartsfield (Harry Treadaway). He works at a store dealing in electronics, computers, all that sort of thing. He’s got a regular life, he and co-worker dealing with shitty customers and a corporate cut-out boss. And his boss, oh, man: a piece of work! He’s basically jealous of Brady’s talent with computers, cutting him down a peg at any corner possible.
We see that Ida’s nosy because she’s looking for a companion, at least a sexual one. But underneath all that – she’s a proud lady, after all – there’s a genuine concern about Bill. She doesn’t want to see him waste away, she’s seen it before. She doesn’t want him to have “retreated from the living” just because of retirement. So, despite her sort of snooty attitude at first, she’s genuinely worried the man doesn’t have any purpose. And without purpose, without telos, what IS a man?
Well, there’s still a purpose. Deep down there somewhere.
Particularly after he gets an e-mail addressed from Mr. M. Subject line: Long Time. We see a clown mask briefly. Then the screen switches to a smiley face, speaking to him with an electronically disguised voice. Taunting about his retirement, his weight gain, and the fact he never solved his case. Up come a bunch of pictures of the victims driven down outside the City Jobs Fair. He even tells the former detective he wore a condom that night, for fear he’d ejaculate and leave evidence. The whole video is wildly disturbing, and totally terrifying.
So if there wasn’t purpose before, if he didn’t consciously care about it already, now Bill is paying attention. Now, he has something he must do. If not, he’ll likely suffer the rest of retirement in a haze of insanity.
We also cut back to Brady, his mother Deborah (Kelly Lynch) worrying he’s working too many hours. That he’s “all work and no play” – sound familiar, Stephen King fans? Similar to another fella named Jack. She worries more about him, that he’s never had a girlfriend, that he’s withdrawn, even if he’s a smart guy. Oh, and it turns out mommy has other things on her mind. Things no mother ought to be doing with her son, y’know, like incest. Yikes. Although Brady leaves before things go too far. Instead he spends time alone stroking one out rather than go all the way. Man, that’s unsettling.
If you didn’t know already, Brady is Mr. Mercedes.
The fun will-they won’t-they between Ida and Bill continues. She’s not happy she showed him a nude on her phone and he wouldn’t look at it. She insists he looks. He does, if not a bit reluctantly. I hope they continue this relationship, on any level, because Gleeson and Taylor together’s like some kind of sweet magic.
When Bill clicks a link on his computer with a smiley face, it goes to a short few clips of Mr. Mercedes driving through the people in the crowd that day, the clown mask, his distorted laughter. A fucking evil thing to witness.
Bill: “Now personally I think closure is over–fucking–rated, but the nightmares, the panic attacks I could do without.”
So he’s poking around more, asking Pete questions about the case. His friend doesn’t want him to obsess anymore, like he did at the end of his career. Later, he ends up at the electronics store where Brady works. He’s looking for a surveillance camera, though he doesn’t come in contact with the young man. A slick moment of near chance.
Afterwards he heads to a towing lot. A place he’s evidently been quite a few times. There lies the bloody, beat up Mercedes kept in storage. Just seeing it leaves the retired cop in agony, imagining all the people being run over in those seconds of brutality. He sits in the driver’s seat, as if imagining himself driving.
At home he gets the camera installed with help from a neighbour kid who does stuff around the house for him regularly, including with the latest e-mail business. And who else is rolling around the neighbourhood? It’s Brady. One of his other jobs is as a Mr. Friendly’s ice cream truck driver, serving up scoops for the kids, and fucking with Hodges, tossing a tennis ball with a smiley face into the yard for him to find.
Man, oh, man! I did not expect the first episode to be so damn good. Much as I love King, I’m always sceptical going into a film or television adaptation of his work. Which is a bonus when it’s actually fucking great. So much to love here, and not least is the use of punk rock in the soundtrack. Love it!
“On Your Mark” is next week, so stay tuned. We’re going to get deeper into this creepy little world of Mr. King’s together.
Bryan Hunt (Okezie Morro) wakes in the woods with a dog named Rufus. It’s almost as if he isn’t sure he’s himself: “I am Bryan and you are Rufus,” he says assuring himself. All around him a fog, a thick mist wafts over the forest, over everything. The dog runs in and Bryan chases him. But inside the mist is something terrible, it guts the poor animal to nearly nothing, a pelt left and innards, blood splattered all over the ground.
Kevin and his family are interesting, he loves his wife and at the same time recognises she can be cold, particularly with their daughter Alex (Gus Birney). Later at a party when her father lets her go out, Alex and Adrian (Russell Posner) run into a bit of trouble. Until football nice guy Jay Heisel (Luke Cosgrove) jumps in to help Alex after another player calls him a “faggot” in front of everybody.
Tests at the hospital are tricky, confirming a drug in her system, meaning she was passed out. Although there’s no trauma, which of course in a fucking court would cast all kinds of doubt because humans are idiots. Meanwhile, Alex finds only slight comfort in Adrian at home. They know how the town will act in the face of football star Jay being accused, refusing to believe he could be anything but wonderful. A few jocks already vandalise the street outside with the word WHORE. Simultaneously, Connor coaches his son along. Sort of assuming he’s guilty, only telling him he won’t go to jail. Yikes. What a mess they’re into, all of them.
Outside the police station are noises, car horns and a crash. The mist is swallowing the town, opening wide above it and covering everything. Alex drops hints about her mother’s past, saying that the town knows she was a slut; prompts a strong reaction from Eve. Did something bad happen to her? With that mist growing, Kevin, Connor, the other officers, they’re clouded in it. Cell reception drops out. And one cop taking selfies in the foggy air meets a pack of bugs swarming him, devouring him.
One perk? A woman who says Alex “lied about getting raped” walks directly into the mist, like a dummy, and the people inside the shopping centre watch as she has half her face torn off, then gets sucked back into the mist by something unseen. SCARY, and holds a bit of retribution for that woman’s awfulness. Nothing any better at the station, as the officer covered in bugs barely has a face left, either. Mia has to put a bullet in his head, saving Kevin when the cop nearly thrashes him.
Great first episode! Was quite wary when I heard about it, but I love Stephen King. Huge fan. This story was always a good one, very chilling and spooky. The film was great, so I’m now looking forward to what they’ll do with this season.
No secret, Stephen King is one of my very favourite authors. Of all time. He is fantastic and tells a story like no other. His decidedly creepy aura is present in all his stories, no matter if it’s a straight up horror, or whether an intense personal drama. He always brings something with him that keeps things real, no matter how far out they get, and because of that his stories wind up all the more horrific.
We all know that The Shawshank Redemption is pretty much the most well regarded adaptation of Stephen King’s writing. There are some other great ones. As a horror fanatic, I do love Pet Sematary and The Mist, Carrie, among many more. But the greatness of King’s writing doesn’t always come through, even in some of the decently made films. Certainly not in the real abortions that have crawled onscreen like The Mangler (botched an awesome story of modern witchcraft for cheap and flashy horror) or the middle of the road adaptations such as 
Part of why I’ve always so hugely admired Darabont’s work on this picture is that he took an excellent novella and adapted it brilliantly. The storytelling in the Different Seasons section labelled Hope Springs Eternal – “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” – is expert stuff from King. He’s one of my favourite writers because of his ability to really get us into the rhythm of his characters. The novella starts us right out in the perspective of Red (played in the film by Mr. Morgan Freeman a.k.a The God Damn Man). Instead of doing that immediately in the screenplay Darabont opts to give us a little preview of Andy Dufresne (the equally amazing Tim Robbins), as we see him the night of the crime he says he didn’t commit, a brief scene in court. Then we start into Red’s point of view. What I like about that is we’re given Andy’s perspective outside the walls before encroaching on prison territory, where Red is the man to follow. This opening sort of mirrors the entrance into jail that we experience alongside Andy, taking us from one side of the gate to the other. Almost chilling, in a way.
Like a lot of other cinephiles, I’ve watched The Shawshank Redemption many, many times. Literally, it’s probably been close to 200 times since first seeing it a little over two decades ago. It was one of those VHS tapes I threw on when coming home from school, eating lunch and watching 20 minutes before heading back to class. I’d view it in bits and pieces, sometimes as a whole. There are scenes I could just turn on to watch then put it away again. Yes, I’m a die hard Stephen King fan. I have a ton of his books on my shelf, I’ve read most of what he’s published, including his short stories and non-fiction writing texts. So there’s that bias, I guess. But this is just a damn good slice of cinema. Everything from the acting to the production, the period look of the prison and other locations, it’s all done to perfection. Roger Deakins as director of photography, giving us that signature look of his filled with extraordinary techniques which help this prison film look better than most. Sometimes movies with voice-overs, particularly those with lots, can get boring. Like Scorsese, Darabont is able to keep us enthralled, and his adaptation of King’s work allows us to indulge in a ton of story without every feeling bogged down.
Admittedly, I’m not a huge fan of Bryan Singer’s directing. Not that he’s bad. There’s something about his style that doesn’t always attract me. I’ve not seen his feature debut, though The Usual Suspects is a great film; slightly overrated, but great nonetheless. Sometimes I feel like Singer is a bit too focused on the look of things and forgets there needs to be proper substance.
Something I love about both the writing of Mort’s character and the performance by Depp is that the feeling of being a writer comes across effortlessly. As someone whose days have been filled before by naps, the lure of that comfy couch, food, cigarettes (and before I went sober, booze and so on), Mort feels impossibly real. Of course that comes from King as an author himself, putting what he knows into the character. He knows exactly what it’s like. More than that, Depp ingrains a sense of that writer’s life in the performance. This could actually come off easily as a standard character, and in a way he is, but Depp allows for more than that and brings his talent to the table in spades. Just how he sulks, heading back to the couch for comfort, picking away at his food, and even laying on the floor with his dog, all in lieu of actually being productive and doing some writing.
As an avid reader of Stephen King I’m always happy when I can tout one of the film adaptations as worthy of his writing. With any book the movie never seems to match up in quality, though on rare occasions this happens. What an adaptation for the screen can hope for is that it preserves the spirit of the source material. Not all adaptations of King novels work out appropriately, as I’ve mentioned in my other reviews recently. At least with a good couple hours directors and writers are capable of turning a large-sized novel into something worthwhile of the author’s efforts.
I’ve long said that George A. Romero and Stephen King go together like coffee and pie. Is that a thing, is that what people say? Well, I like coffee and pie. A nice treat. Just like I dig some Romero and King. They’re sweet together, as sweet as horror can get. You fans know what I’m talking about. Usually people associate Romero with the zombie sub-genre, and rightfully so: he single-handedly reimagined the zombie in modern terms giving birth to a trend that’s still going on today, which will undoubtedly continue until the end of time. Yet Romero made some really good work outside of the zombie structure. Long before 1993, too. But The Dark Half is one of those King-Romero collaborations that isn’t only interesting on paper. The whole film is a dark, gorgeous joy. Previously the two powerhouses of scary shit did well working on 1982’s Creepshow. Most will say that’s their best work together. I love that one, have it on the shelf alongside this and other Romero, as well as other King. I have to say, this one is my personal favourite of the two movies. Most of all because the book is so good, and for better or worse this adaptation nails most of the important aspects right on the head. The visual style is quite what we come to expect from the master of horror in Romero. King’s story matches the darkness of the director in his story examining duality, the lure of addiction in the sense of it creating an entirely other identity in one person, a quasi-monster movie about a man’s evil side literally appearing out of thin air. This is on the top of my lists for favourite King adaptations. There’s a lot to enjoy, even if it isn’t perfect. In the second half of the film things get riveting. Romero always goes for the jugular, this is no different.
Director Mikael Håfström is a capable hand. His films Evil and Derailed are both decent, particularly the former. Putting him in charge of a Stephen King adaptation is a good choice, one which he proves is worthwhile decision. The screenplay for the film went through a couple stages, though it seems this was a benefit – first, Matt Greenberg (
There’s a difference between what I consider a proper jump scare and one that’s used to cheap effect. If there’s absolutely no reason for one, then I don’t understand the reason for a director to go for that type of gag. In turn, if they do that for a cheap scare it’s usually in place of their ability to cultivate actual suspense and tension. Many of those moments here will make you jump, though they serve as a perfect way to build up all the tense action. And honestly, in a hotel room haunted house-type film, what do you expect? There’s also an unsettling atmosphere throughout, so it isn’t built even 50% on jump scaring you to death. Much of what I find creepy is the gradual way Enslin comes around to believing there’s something supernatural actually happening. Because we start out with him totally sceptical. He doesn’t believe in any kind of ghosts. Once his night in the room progresses, things quickly change. Yet he first tries to explain away each event, rationalising, coming up with a legitimate reason these things could be happening. With each subsequent event, that scepticism slips, and soon enough the voice of his daughter comes to him. Even right before that he’s started slipping, but the voice is one of those final tipping points. His paranoia sets in and he tries to keep himself steady. The jump scares don’t just serve to unsettle the audience: they’re working to de-root Mike as the main character. For a time, he starts thinking more and more there’s someone entering the room, that Olin is orchestrating the whole thing, that he’s been drugged by the gifted liquor bottle, the candy in the room, so forth. All the elements come together in a hurricane of paranoid thought that drives him crazy. As opposed to say a low budget slasher that builds its entire fright factor on scaring you by heart attack jump moments, Håfström’s movie is a scary story that keeps your heart racing while also diving into the character study of its lead.
I just recently watched Cell, the latest King adaptation on VOD, and Cusack almost bored me to death with his similar portrayal of a father missing his child, albeit under differetn circumstances. Here, he is beyond fascinating. Mike Enslin is a solidly written character from King, then the screenplay gives him more time to play on our feelings. Best of all, Cusack does good work. In his other aforementioned role he couldn’t bring anything new, nor did he get too many scenes where the emotionality of his performance was required to break out in a big way. 1408 allows him the space to open up Enslin and explore what makes him who he is. For instance, part of the fact he’s sceptical has to do with his personal situation, the loss of a child, the fact that if he did believe in God and the afterlife that it might be beneficial for him, he could see his daughter again and things might feel better somehow. Once his scepticism is whittled away, this leaves him open, raw to the influence of ghosts, one of whom happens to be the spirit of his daughter lurking in the abyssal depths of that hotel’s black hole. Cusack displays the range necessary to make Enslin an empathetic character, he calls for us to understand his situation, as Håfström makes great directorial choices taking us between what’s really happening and what Mike sees happening inside the room right in front of his eyes. A single location in a movie can become boring. Not with Cusack in charge of acting duties. He pulls his weight to the fullest and sells every last inch of Enslin, the story, and the film together. While Jackson adds his flavour to the pot, and is enjoyable in a role that could come off as typical but works so perfectly, Cusack will always be the star of this show, obviously.
1408 has a couple missteps. Overall it’s 4-star horror. Cinematographer Benoît Delhomme (
Cell is one of the few Stephen King novels I’ve not yet read at this stage. He’s one of my favourite writers, as well as a huge influence on me as an author myself. His influence is large and encompasses generations of weird kids who read his work growing up, whose touch made us more confident in mining the darker regions of our minds. Not only does he inspire readers, writers, he further has left a mark on horror directors, many of whom cut their teeth in the genre first by reading his books. Regardless of who you are or what you do, King is able to get to you. My mother was an avid reader. Then she passed his books on down to me, as they always interested me on the shelf and she’d say “Not until you’re a little older” and so eventually I read them all, devouring each page until there was nothing left. Now, 31 at the time of this writing, my bookshelves at the home which I share with my girlfriend are filled with a small library of solely Stephen King books. His writing is almost like a family tradition between myself and my mother. His work transcends genre, which is funny because those only familiar with a few of his stories always peg him as a horror writer, or that guy who writers creepy stories, and other descriptions. But he is capable of crossing genres and while captivating you with scary moments King always has something bigger happening underneath.
I’m a huge Stephen King fan. I’ve read almost everything he’s written, still working on that. His short stories are some of the best short stories out there, as far as I’m concerned; up with greats of similarly fashioned literature such as H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers and others. He’s not simply a horror writer like so many pigeonhole him. Everything he does certainly has a dark, macabre and morbid, eerie tone. Rarely does he write anything without his brand of strange. But his stories and the plots within them are all so fascinatingly dark and equally as human. Part of why King is able to touch so many readers is because within all the macabre madness of his horrific tales, those human elements are what hooks people. The characters, their situations, their hopes and dreams and the all too often dashing of those desires are how King gets into the head of his readers, then allowing him the chance to creep us out.
Caan is a solid Paul Sheldon. He has this sort of old school tough guy feel about him, so that when he’s got his legs beat to pieces, laying in bed and stuck to that wheelchair, he has this air of wounded masculinity. Not in an obnoxious sense. In the way you feel bad for him. Furthermore, you know even if it was just one banged up leg, he might manage to get out of the situation. But he’s helpless in this situation and it renders Sheldon someone we empathize with, which Caan plays up so well. Better still is how he gets crafty after so long, and that’s something Caan uses to great effect. There’s always this awesome fine line with Caan where he’s serious as hell, and simultaneously funny, on the verge of always being able to make you laugh or smile. One of the best casting choices in any King film.
Best of all, the character of Annie Wilkes (Bates) feels far ahead of her time. Originally written in 1987, she’s decades before the unbelievable mania that is fandom. You can look back at Misery and see it as a metaphor. About how fans demand what they want from the creators of the material they so dearly love. They demand so much, in fact, that it pains the creator, as they can’t always please their audience and also please themselves as an artist. Ultimately, Annie is the fandom that will not let artists (directors, writers, et cetera) grow organically, but rather impede development by wanting a show to be THEIRS. While a certain amount of what an artist does is out of their hands after they’ve finished creating it, there’s still a line that fans can cross. By stepping over that line you make clear it isn’t the artist’s talent which you’re in it for; you want a story that you dictate. Then it becomes something not of the creator, or in this case the author. Annie isn’t just some psychopath, though this works incredibly well on a surface level. She is further a representation of how fans can pin down the artists they admire with expectations, ones they wish to force.
There are some truly horrific moments in this movie. This has psychological horror, as well as real, physical stuff to tickle the visceral nerves. Even just Paul and his broken legs is a bit of body horror. Although, once Annie decides to toss out her story of the early days in diamond mines when they hobbled workers for stealing, things get gruesome. For all the horror movies I’ve seen over the years, this scene kills me. Every time. Funny enough, there’s nothing explicit or graphic. You actually barely see what happens.
Found footage in the independent film world of horror surged in the past 10 years especially, which has left us with more than a fair share of mediocre to shit efforts. I’m a big fan of the sub-genre. The whole technique of found footage can be used to great effect, depending on the story, the writing, and the overall direction. What’s exciting is when a movie using the technique decides to come with a different story, not the typical people running lost in the woods – often young people – with tons of dark, shaky camera work and lots of screaming, wailing, terrible audio.
Anything Vatican related in horror I find awfully compelling. There are definitely horror movies that misuse those types of stories, but some can make it effective. Goldner frames the entire plot and story through these men investigating a supposed religious miracle for the Vatican. We’ve got the religious fellows – Deacon (Gordon Kennedy) and Mark (Aidan McArdle) – juxtaposed with a technical equipment guy, Gray (Robin Hill) – it’s great to have that one guy who isn’t fully religious, as it presents an entirely different dynamic than if we were relegated to main characters solely painted as religious believers. Even though Gray does believe in “stuff” as he says, there’s still a disconnect there which allows the non-faithful argument to enter into the situation.
There are Stephen King-H.P. Lovecraft vibes going on in the story. After the finale, you’ll understand that wholly. But even before we’re able to grasp there was some paganist religion happening in the church, an attempt at concealing the building’s history, as well as what happens inside its walls, what lies beneath the floor. Highly reminiscent, though without copying and merely by homage, of the short story “Jerusalem’s Lot” from King’s Night Shift (1978) collection.
This is definitely a favourite recent found footage flick of mine. There are many, and they seem to run the gamut of absolutely unwatchable to sometimes brilliant. I’ve seen a lot of these sub-genre pictures which defy expectation, many of those in only the past couple years. The Borderlands is one that I found pretty spectacular, even with its few flaws. Mostly, the religious angle, the church setting out in the forest, all these little details set it apart from other similarly filmed movies. And yes, we get our share of dark frames where there’s only a bit of light, some jumps here and there (although they aren’t typical either). Above all else, the story makes this unique. The actors keep us on edge and in their sceptical first, scared later perspective. Finally, it is the shocking and excellent finale that completely upends our expectations. For the longest time this feels as if it might reach a conclusion that can be forecast early on. Each time I watch this, I keep thinking how ingenious the last few moments become. Reaching those last seconds is a treat and I’m hoping writer-director Elliot Goldner will go for something equally exciting for the next film. This one caught me off guard. Whenever I need a little jolt, requiring a found footage feature to kick start my fear, this is one I usually think of before making a final decision. It may come on slow, but the climactic moments coming to the ending are a pay off worth seeing at least once.
Let’s get one thing straight: I love this movie. Fanatically.
