Is a superfan’s take on Stephen King’s multiverse worth the watch?
Suspense and foreboding lurk around most corners of this series set in the Stephen King multiverse. The king of psychological horror’s immersive storytelling is evident throughout Castle Rock – only King didn’t write it.
Instead, King is executive producer, alongside JJ Abrams (whose influence is evident), guiding the story along. At times the series feels more like a tribute to King, with references to other characters and stories scattered throughout.
Actors from other notable King stories feature in the strong cast. On paper, this should be fantastic, right? Well, almost. The first episode does contain some memorable moments (Lacy’s suicide is definitely one), but it plods along somewhat, taking its time to get going. The many Easter eggs at times point nowhere, much to any die-hard Stephen King fan’s dismay.
Drawing from the vast multiverse that was spawned by King’s imagination, the story unfolds mainly in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine. The opening gives us the first hint of the wider King multiverse, with established King hero Alan Pangborn finding the missing kid Henry Deaver out on a frozen lake in 1991.
Dead animals, the colour red as a harbinger, darkness, paranormal powers – all classics from King’s story-telling arsenal feature and help build the air of dread and suspense that prevails.
Much of the story unfolds in the present, with flashbacks to what happened to Henry and his father in the winter of 1991. The story works hard to establish characters through the use of flashbacks and references to other King stories.
In what is one of the goriest suicide scenes in any King story (though it wasn’t written by the author), we see Warden Lacy tie a rope around his neck and drive off a cliff – with the other end of the rope attached to a tree. As the car slowly sinks beneath the waters, we see a Shawshank Penitentiary bumper sticker, a pivotal place to the story where the mysterious Kid (Bill Skarsgård – remember him? The younger Skarsgård brother plays Pennywise in the big-screen adaption of IT), is found locked in a cage in an abandoned part of the prison.
No one knows who is, and how he got there. The mystery surrounding the Kid deepens as the story unfolds, and his link to Henry Deaver is slowly teased out.
Dead animals, the colour red as a harbinger, darkness, paranormal powers – all classics from King’s story-telling arsenal feature and help build the air of dread and suspense that prevails.
The plot does plod along somewhat, with a lot of focus on developing characters at the expense of moving the story on. That being said, it is a compelling watch that poses a lot of questions.
Evil, and the chance to lock evil away, is a theme touched on in the opening episodes. It does take the first three episodes for the story to start picking up pace, but it is worth the wait and a great series to binge-watch over a quiet weekend.
First aired: Mon, 17 Dec 2018 | Available until: Mon, 14 Jan 2019.