Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital (2004)

Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital (2004)

aka Kingdom Hospital
Dir. Craig R. Baxley / 13 episodes, approx 40 mins each (01 and 13 are double length).

American horror author Stephen King took Danish film-maker Lars von Trier's eight episode miniseries, known originally as Riget (1994), and turned it into a thirteen episode English language series, relocated from Copenhagen to Lewiston, Maine (naturally).

There are probably many more changes, but I've not seen the original, so I can't say what they might be.

Von Trier shares an executive producer credit, suggesting he was agreeable to the adaptation, or at the very least happy to whore the concept out.

Peter Rickman (Jack Coleman), the person that we'd traditionally most readily identify as the main protagonist, is admitted to the titular hospital after a serious accident. An accident, incidentally, that mimics King's own hospitalisation almost verbatim; although I suspect the talking anteater is a fiction.

Peter is a painter, not an author, but his onscreen role is similar to King's background role: both men help rewrite a story as it happens from a point that's both distant and crucially central. Even though he's a key player, perhaps even the most important one, he's only one part of a larger whole, one small element in the daily workings of the institution.

- Dr. Hook (Andrew McCarthy) playing hooky. -

The building is modern but has foundations that extend backwards in time to the Civil War era. Before it was a hospital it was something else entirely. And before it was a place of saving lives, it was a place where many lives were lost. Yes, it's the old 'I built some new shit atop some old shit and now the ghosts won't leave me alone,' scenario. Part of what makes it different is the aforementioned talking anteater; it's CGI but it's rather good, considering it's a TV production.

The show's appalling camerawork, terrible direction and oddly placed music made me hate it. If not for Diane Ladd's character, the self-professed psychic Sally Druse...

- The saving grace #1, The Kooky Psychic (Diane Ladd). -

...and the mystery surrounding the little girl pictured on the cover (Jodelle Micah Ferland), I'd have given up long before the end. Things do start to get better by episode four, but there's so much wasted potential beforehand that it's a test of endurance to even make it that far.

A large percentage of the many subplots serve little purpose other than to extend the running time or increase the level of weird. More effort to make them a valuable counterpoint to the core story would've helped tighten the narrative and may have kept me interested for longer.

The highlight of the whole ponderous endeavour for me was the opening credits sequence that resembles a Dave McKean and JK Potter-esque hybrid of imagery that does eventfully have some relevance to the story, even if it appears not to for the longest time.

- The saving grace #2, The Creepy Girl (Jodelle Ferland).-