"You've Been Gone Eleven Days. What Happened Out There...?
With 2017 a year packed to the rafters with Stephen King forged entertainment both on the big screen and the small, the tantalising pallet of King-led adaptations which ranged from the outstanding success of It to the little-seen Netflix gem, Gerald's Game, brought with it a timely ultra-relevant reunion with a writer whose works were once again being flouted and ear-marked for Hollywood intervention after a somewhat absent hiatus in which the writer seemed to be vacant from mainstream media and strictly focusing on the written word. With the success of shows such as Netflix's Stranger Things showcasing the influence of the American's bibliography on even contemporary tales today, King's writings have once again been brought back successfully into the limelight, resulting in the creation of Castle Rock, a Hulu original horror series produced by J. J. Abrams (Star Wars - The Force Awakens) and King himself, which attempts to nod to as many King-based stories and characters as possible in a gigantic fan-boy love-in for the die-hard dedicators of the Maine-born writer, alongside a particularly creepy cast who too have their own personal links to previous King endeavours which have serviced their own careers rather well indeed.
With dark, supernatural stirrings and a range of interesting set-ups, Castle Rock's debut hour bursts with King-styled influences and creepy flavourings as we are introduced to the familiar setting of Shawshank State Penitentiary, albeit without a Tim Robbins or Morgan Freeman in sight, with Castle Rock's portrayal of the prison one much seedier and claustrophobic than anything in Frank Darabont's famous 1994 drama, The Shawshank Redemption. After the discovery of "The Kid" from within the depths of the prison, the skinny-built, pale faced and blood-shot eyed presence of Bill Skarsgård is immediately captivating, if not as genuinely unsettling as the actor's take on Pennywise in last year's It, and with Moonlight's Andre Holland taking on the role as town lawyer, Henry Deaver, his own mysterious background begins to pull the two leading characters of the show in the same direction. With supporting performances from the likes of Sissy Spacek (Carrie) and Scott Glenn (Daredevil), Castle Rock already gleefully wallows in the sheer absurd amount of fundamentally uncertain characters, aided spectacularly by the direction of television stalwart, Michael Uppendahl, (The Walking Dead, Fargo, Legion) who knows when and how to linger the camera just enough to make the audience feel uncomfortable, and with more than enough substance already to engage even the most casual of Stephen King obsessive's, Castle Rock is a show that deserves to be kept an eye on.
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