by Mike Hilty, Contributing Writer
Welcome to Cross-Platform Partners! In honor of a new movie release, I have selected a TV show to watch to pair with the movie. Think of it as a way to get hyped for the new movie, a preview of things to come, a means to tide you over if the movie won’t be released where you live for a little while, or a change of pace if you’ve run out of related movies or sequels.
For February, I picked Castle Rock to pair with The Monkey!
Stephen King adaptations have a checkered history. For every hit out there, like It, The Shawshank Redemption, and Under the Dome, there are misses, like Thinner, The Dark Tower, and The Tommyknockers. King still has a lot of pull around Hollywood, with The Monkey being released this month, and Welcome to Derry coming out later this year. All you can ask is for filmmakers to bring care and a vision to his stories. Of all the movies and TV shows, Castle Rock pays homage to everything King wrote about.
Castle Rock takes place in the titular town, which is in Maine, where many of King’s stories are set. It’s an anthology series (although I don’t think that was the original plan) that carries several of King’s novels and themes into one semi-cohesive story. Season One is a mystery about a lawyer named Henry (André Holland) and his inmate client at Shawshank Prison. In the next season, we follow a story centered around Annie Wilkes (Lizzy Caplan), on the run and hiding out in Castle Rock.
For any King fan, Castle Rock is filled with Easter eggs and callbacks to several of his books. As someone who isn’t a huge fan, it was fun to see how many references they could pack into an entire season. I like how much the show incorporates, from subtle names and scenes, to characters with connections to the books, like Annie and the niece of Jack Torrance.
Castle Rock does something that King does incredibly well: setting an eerie, tense mood. It’s clear the writers and showrunners understood how to set a tone that feels uniquely King’s. Season One’s tone is more mysterious, with hints of the supernatural. Shawshank Prison is vastly different from the one in the 1994 classic, because the town depends on it to stay afloat. On the flip side, Season Two is a thriller. Annie provides a lot of dread, because it seems like she could go off the rails at any moment.
Thematically, Castle Rock dabbles in many elements that King consistently showcases in his novels. In particular, fear plays a massive role, as numerous characters fear something that consumes them. Addiction is heavily featured as well, which King has said he likes to write about. Castle Rock’s most prevalent theme, though, is the struggle between good and evil in the face of institutions of control, like hospitals or prisons. Unlike all the other adaptions, it doesn’t always work from a thematic standpoint, as these are stories that are trying to forge their path.
Along with the themes, the characters in each season are indeed interesting. Season One’s most interesting character is Alan (Scott Glenn), a retired police officer who lives with Henry’s estranged mother. As a former cop, Alan knows what it means to put his life on the line for the greater good. Although you sometimes question what he does, Alan repeatedly shows that he’s doing his best to care for the people he cares about. Henry’s mother Ruth (Sissy Spacek) has dementia, and it’s a race to see how she will be cared for now that the disease has started to take over.
Season Two’s include’s Annie’s daughter Joy (Elsie Fisher), and Pop (Tim Robbins), the head of a local crime family. Joy is fascinating, as she has a front-row seat to Annie’s self-destructive tendencies while adjusting to life in a new town. She’s often answering for, and caught in the middle of, Annie’s transgressions while struggling as a teenager who only wants to fit in. Pop is a man who thinks he’s having a positive impact on his town, but, in reality, doesn’t see (or care) about the harm he’s doing, mainly to the local Somali population that has taken hold of the town.
Structurally, an anthology series makes sense for Castle Rock, since King’s written many stories spanning different genres. It’s too bad the series only got two seasons, because it feels like it could have gone on forever, considering how many stories haven’t been touched. It also showcases King’s range as a writer.
Castle Rock is a compelling look at a thought experiment about a connected King universe. I enjoyed Season One more than Two, but the appeal is there. It has outstanding character work and a tone of dread which lasts all the way through. I wonder how much more story could have been told, since this only dabbles in a small fraction of King’s works, but in the end, Castle Rock has to be a dream come true for all King fans.
You can read more from Mike Hilty, and follow him on Instagram, Letterboxd, and Serializd