Stephen King DVD Collector's Set

Something of a mixed bag (or mixed boxed set), Stephen King DVD Collector's Set brings together four adaptations of the horrormeister's novels (two good, two not so good): Carrie, The Dark Half, Misery, and Needful Things (all boast nice transfers and good Dolby Digital surround soundtracks). The "king" of the quartet is Brian De Palma's Carrie, the story of a repressed high school girl (Sissy Spacek) gifted with telekinetic powers who becomes the butt of cruel pranks and responds by showing her tormentors what a bad hair day is really all about. Carrie: Special Edition boasts a handsome widescreen transfer, Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, and a slew of extras, including the 43-minute documentary "Acting Carrie" (with De Palma, Spacek, Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, William Katt, and others), the 42-minute documentary "Visualizing Carrie," a six-minute featurette on the short-lived musical version of Carrie, and a text essay on the novel. Equally good, if not better, is Rob Reiner's Misery (1990), featuring an Oscar-winning performance by Kathy Bates as a rabid fan who rescues her favorite author (James Caan) after a car accident, and then expresses her displeasure over the direction his latest novel is taking by applying a very effective tool of persuasion (namely, a sledgehammer to the ankles). Moving down the quality scale, George Romero's The Dark Half (1993, incorrectly labeled as 1991 on the DVD jacket) stars Timothy Hutton as horror writer Thad Beaumont, who writes mystery novels under the pseudonym George Stark (just like, not incidentally, the Stephen King/Richard Bachman relationship); unfortunately, when Beaumont decides to dump his alter ego, the latter develops a murderous mind of his own (and the film descends into a routine slasher flick). Even more unfortunately, The Dark Half is presented in a full screen--rather than its original widescreen--version. Last, and least, Fraser C. Heston's 1993 Needful Things is an overlong, meandering film in which the devil comes down to Georgia (no, wait, up to Castle Rock, ME) in the form of Max von Sydow, who trades favors with the town folk for a little bit of soul, so to speak. Recommended for Stephen King completists; others would do better to purchase Carrie and Misery separately ($14.95 each on DVD). (R. Pitman)