I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

OKAY JOE HILL, TIME TO SIT DOWN, SHUT UP, AND LEARN HOW THE BIG BOYS DO IT...












Stephen King's A Good Marriage (2014)

I thought I'd get all kinds of people complaining that I was too hard on the movie 'Horns', that poor Daniel IS a nice guy and complaining about his movie was dirty pool.

Pffft... he got his paycheck, no matter what I said. I was looking through horror websites (no I don't copy them and yes I do think about what they have to say about movies) and found out they were bringing back something I'd liked on TV - Tales From The Darkside. YAAAAAAAAY! With stories written by Joe Hill. Awwwww.



This is not a slasher movie. I would hesitate to even call it horror. I don't understand its rating at all, unless they just saw 'Stephen King' and automatically stamped an 'R' on it. It's more of a Lifetime type movie, you know...

In fact, if you're looking for the heart-pounding evil clowns, or paranormal bogeymen chasing after you, this is NOT the movie for you. I don't even understand the rating. It could have been put on TV without changing a thing.


So here's the premise: We have a wealthy couple named Bob (Anthony LaPaglia who looks like he does in every freaking role he's ever played) and Darcy (Joan Allen, a very busy and good actress) who have been married for 25 years - they own a rare coin company, have three grown kids and an active sex life (no they don't show that).


Here's the kicker - somebody is out there murdering women, taking their ID and mailing it to the police under the name 'Beadie' as a taunt. It doesn't take long in the movie when Bob is on a business trip for the wife, innocently looking for batteries, to find in the garage a hidden bondage magazine. Odd. She digs further (never do that if you don't want to see what you find). Sure enough, in a hidden panel in the wall in a box he was given by his daughter when she was small, is the last victim's ID.

What to do, what to do. As if he has some warped telepathy, he comes home at three in the morning from a business trip (or murder trip, whatever). He knows instantly that she's seen his stash 'cause he's really anal about stuff and noticed that things were ever so slightly askew so she must have found out.

This is where I turned the movie off. I was bored to tears. But... <points to blog title> I have a duty to report the bad and the awful. This starts out really, really bad and then becomes... different.

A side story I should mention so the ending makes sense is that when he was a kid, he lost his best friend Brian Delahanty (Beadie) in an accident, and ever since, bad thoughts have been in his head (he blames it on the dead friend) and he has to get them out. The book explains this better but, meh. His biggest obsession is to get a hold of a double stamped wheat penny - apparently of a year and condition that is quite expensive.


So. Life goes on in the Anderson household almost as usual. Bob had already pointed out that if she told the police it was him it would ruin their business, people would suspect that she knew about it all along, and their kids would be devastated. She does her best to be just a 'good wife' while preparing for her daughter's wedding.

The wedding goes off without a hitch, many family photos taken... but Darcy notices a man has been following them around for a while. He does nothing, but his car seems to be wherever they are.

Okay let's end this pretty decent, just not SK's type of genre or story telling. On a counter they keep an old piggy bank where they drop their spare change. She comes home, and puts hers in. He comes home and sorts through it and OH MY GOOD HEAVENS (sorry, that's about as exciting as it gets), there's the penny he's been looking for! What. A. Coincidence. I rolled my eyes, opened up another Coke (If I drank coffee I probably wouldn't have a colon left.) and let the thing play out.

Umm, shouldn't stunt men have the
 same haircut as the guy they're doubling for?

He's ecstatic and stupid, believing that hey, this is a totally freaking sweet find (says the woman who's getting cranky, bloated and more cynical) so they HAVE to celebrate. They go out to dinner but she doesn't drink so she can drive, while he gets plastered. They get home, preparing for their, uh, sex routine (it's tame, but you get a hint of his conceit because the mirror has to be focused on him when they do it) and as he goes up the stairs with drinks for both of them, she appears out of nowhere and shoves him over the balcony. That's much better than the typical 'roll down the stairs, put a 'crack' sound in and say "oh my they're dead"' thing.

So he's dead - not. She was prepared for that too - using a large food storage bag with a towel in it, she stuffs it down his throat so he can't get any air. Please don't take notes, and if you try it, remember who wrote the damned thing.

After a while he's finally dead. She washes the storage bag, notices a little hole, and uses a glove to remove a tiny bit of plastic from his mouth. After the bag is clean, she shoves a packet of meat into it and throws it in the fridge. Nice and tidy.

The police believe he fell because he was drunk, the case is closed, and the body is buried. The end.


Whoops, not in a Stephen King novel. The guy hanging around their place? He's an old, retired detective who likes to check out cold cases and just sniff around a bit. He thought the 'Beadie' was an obvious ploy of combining 'Bob and Darcy' until she explained otherwise.

He had suspected Bob but had nothing on him - after pretty much telling Darcy he knew she killed Bob he leaves, but collapses in his car.

In the hospital, the whole story comes out. The detective thought 'Beadie' meant 'Bob and Darcy'. Duh. The detective (Ramsay) tells her she did the right thing. She kisses him on the cheek and leaves. Aaaaaand that's the end.

That has GOT to be the tamest SK I've ever seen. If his name hadn't been right on it, I'd have said it was a dirty lie. It's an all right murder mystery I admit, but lets go back to nightmares and bloody stuff, 'kay?