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This adaptation of a novel by "Richard Bachman" (a long-known Stephen King pen name) has more bones on its meat than it first seems, thanks to an unpredictable script by Michael McDowell and director Tom (FRIGHT NIGHT) Holland.
After King establishes a theme of good-ole-boy American corruption in a small town not unlike Bangor, Maine, and you know you're in unappetizing King territory, the tale takes on a traditional "curse" theme when a 109-year-old gypsy (Michael Constantine, in heavy makeup and conveying a venomous attitude that drips with rattlesnake poison) puts a weight-loss whammy on a small-town attorney (Robert John Burke) after the sleazy lawyer accidentally runs down and kills Constantine's daughter in a traffic mishap.
Faster than you can say, "Curses! Boiled again!", Burke goes through an incredible drop in weight, threatening to turn into skin and bones despite a diet of constant eating. But then this dark, nihilistic tale takes another dramatic twist to depict Burke's own personalized revenge against his cheating wife (Lucinda Jenney) and boyfriend.
This kind of morality morsel, tinged with clouds of paranoia (has Burke gone nuts or is there an affair?), is a heavy dose of King to sit through.
The wife-and-lover subplot almost overshadows the film's original intentions of curse-followed-by-
revenge as it takes off into its own dark region. Thus, you will either groove on the surprise ending or wonder who the hell mixed up all the reels. In any event, Holland has done better.
If anyone really stands out in this macabre morbidity, it is Joe Mantegna as a Mafia hooligan who decides to help Burke get his revenge against Constantine. He's one mean dude.
Oh yes. Watch for Stephen King in a cameo as Dr. Bangor (ha ha).