The Dark Half (1993)

When you have two kings of horror behind the wheel, you’re destined to have a hit, right? You’d think so, but sadly it isn’t the case for The Dark Half. The film isn’t a total miss, but it gets a little confusing and unnecessary towards the end. It also rings eerily similar to another Stephen King adaptation that would come out in 2004, also to mixed reviews. Of the two, I personally prefer Secret Window, as it is slightly more straight-forward. However, a lot of King works follow the same protagonist. If it’s a male author struggling with substance abuse and keeping his family together in Maine, it might be the work of Stephen King.

This film follows a man living a double life (well, double career). Thad Beaumont is an unsuccessful writer, but his alter ego, George Stark, is famous for his gritty crime novels. Thad is tired of getting into the dark mindset of George Stark and decides to kill him off and reveal to the world that he is actually George. However, after having a fake funeral for George, murders based on Stark’s books begin to occur, with evidence at the crimes scenes pointing to Thad. Thad struggles to figure out who is trying to frame him for these murders and prove his innocence.

[moderate spoilers ahead]

So this film is adequate, the effects aren’t terrible, albeit a bit dated. The acting is fairly convincing and the story is interesting. The main place where this movie begins to fall apart is the end and the explanation for who is committing the murders. So, at the beginning of the movie we see that Thad had previous troubles with unabsorbed remains of his twin inside his brain that began curiously growing. It is seen that this twin is responsible for the dark half of Thad, George Stark. The problem is, this twin somehow becomes a fully formed separate entity that is committing these murders. I would have understood more if the dark entity was taking over his body, but no, he’s somehow a fully formed adult that is committing murders. Then a psychic lady tells Thad that he must kill George because there is only room for one of them on the planet. It’s just so insanely convoluted and nonsensical that the film really falls apart.

I think this film could have been something great, but the ending really drags it down. I don’t think it’s totally worth missing, the insane ending is honestly pretty comical. But I don’t know that it’s an especially worthwhile horror film. I recommend checking it out just to experience the weirdness, but if so-bad-it’s-good isn’t your style, you can probably skip it.

Netflix available: No

Hulu available: No

Xfinity available: Yes

Amazon Prime available: No

Rating: 2/5