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Wonderful character development!

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The superbly named Stephen King book turned TV miniseries, The Tommyknockers is another story that gets the treatment it deserves, a full length feature. Acquiring quality actors and actresses is obviously a challenge when it comes to a King horror miniseries but Tommyknockers managed to pick up some talent. Jimmy Smits is a suitable lead actor to depend on and the supporting actresses of Marg Helgenberger, Allyce Beasley and Traci Lords all had solid performances were and easy on the eyes. The pace at times was dull not giving much of anything away in terms of the aliens. Characters possessed by alien life forces could have been a bit more sinister instead cheap effects and robotic mannerisms were used to imply they've been taken over. The ending itself was rather ho-hum and didn't have any memorable or re-watchable traits. The Tommyknockers may be worth about one watch and that's it.

A buried UFO slowly turns local inhabitants into gizmo-building alien mutates.Say what you will about author Stephen King, but he is a giant in the horror industry. In fact, he may be the most giant of the giants. And adapting his work has been hit and miss, with just as many misses as hits. Some might even say more misses.And the misses seem to be more heavily concentrated on the TV films, because they are stretched out to extended hours. Sometimes scenes seem repetitive because of the commercial breaks and so on. In particular, "Langoliers" is an awful, awful, awful adaptation. And "Tommyknockers" is just the opposite. The characters are developed, the extended time only builds suspense rather than grows old. This is the job done right.

It's the small town of Haven Falls, Maine. Bryant Brown (Robert Carradine) owns the local diner. Sheriff Ruth Merrill (Joanna Cassidy) is a doll collector. Nancy Voss (Traci Lords) is the vain postmaster who is having an affair with fellow postal worker Joe Paulson (Cliff De Young) who is cheating on his wife Deputy Becka Paulson (Allyce Beasley). Bobbi Anderson (Marg Helgenberger) discovers something mysterious in the woods and feels driven to start digging it up. Jim Gardner (Jimmy Smits) is her recovering alcoholic boyfriend. Trooper Butch Duggan (John Ashton) is sweet on Sheriff Ruth who was his partner's wife. People in town start putting together gadgets that are powered by a green light and reading others' minds.I wonder if this is better as a shorter movie rather than a 3 hour mini-series. There isn't any mystery since almost everything is laid out right away anyways. It feels too extended with sections that has no tension. The acting is generally good with solid TV actors. It's definitely not cinematic. It's a middling adaptation of yet another Stephen King novel. It's like an extremely extended Twilight Zone episode.

Stephen King was bored one afternoon, so he scribbled out a story about some buried artifacts being uncovered and possessing people's brains. In this town, there's not much in the way of brains to take over. You know that somebody's possessed; how? They have green neon eyes, that's how. Why you hear little kids singing a jump-rope rhyme is never explained, but it sure is annoying.Let's back up a moment. This is one of those King novels that was turned into a mini-series. Leave about 30% of the footage on the cutting room floor to shave this to its proper run time, and it would be better. The entire first two hours is character development: a complete waste of time because possessed people lose their personalities anyway. The blonde bimbo never has a personality-before or after possession-but I digress. The main problem is that the townsfolk are eminently boring. Those that get possessed, have weird green eyes, but they're still boring. There are some moments of gross-out bloody deaths, but somehow the film makes even these dull.A quick note: the cast is not at fault for the shallow characters. The acting is rather professional and convincing (considering what they had to work with), and rises miles above the juvenile writing. The only fault the actors had was allowing their agents to sign them up for this pointless misfire.The film does scratch out a few useful moments here and there; the closing sequence is interesting, even though it predictably fails to resolve anything.Rent Plan 9, instead. At least that film is funny.