Well, Battleground was fun... and surprisingly faithful to the short story. But this 2nd episode (Crouch End) is not working for me at all.

Yeah I enjoyed Battleground. It was fun. Crouch End however was seriously fucking awful. That kind of crap belongs on Showtime.

I agree -- Battleground :up: Crouch End :down:

Crouch End seemed like it would not end. I thought it should be getting wrapped up soon, glanced at the clock and realized there was 30 minutes left.

The website Bloody Disgusting did a review of the episodes and Battleground was the only one to get a good review.

The Boston Globe said the exact same thing.

Battleground was indeed great. One of the best toy vs human moments on tv. Crouch End was a little to strange and didn't make sense.

I'd like to throw my opinion into the mix here, but I'd just be repeating what everyone else has said.

I really enjoyed Battleground, as did my girlfriend surprisingly enough, but Crouch End was borderline unwatchable.

I've never read "Nightmares...", but I have read "Everything's Eventual" so I'm mostly looking forward to the two stories from that book. I'm hoping that these two stories will translate well onto the screen, but from what I've heard so far it's not looking too promising.

Battleground was done years ago with Ronny Cox on an anthology series, maybe "Darkroom", but this one blew that away. That commando was a tough little bastard. :)

Agree with the consensus on Crotch End, it was long, boring and pointless. Claire Forlani looked quite kissable though.

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/review/1264

Yikes, the didn't really seem to like the show at all. Ultimately the recommend it, but do so by saying "During the summer there’s not much on TV, so to have a massive TV event like this gives us a little something to look forward to, if not kill a few hours before a long night of drinking. I say give it a shot, you might dig." Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

The scary part is that they give Crouch End 3.5/5 (which ties it for 2nd best segment). They get *worse* than that? Jeez, I may just catch the H. Macy one and be done with it.

I really enjoyed Battleground, when I first was made aware of the unnatural lack of dialogue I was a bit annoyed (when the woman on the plane asked for gum). I think it could have been handled without seeming forced. He didn't need to interact with the woman on the plane or anywhere else.
Then I realized it was a direct homage to the old Twilight Zone episode, "The Invaders", in which a woman battles a toy robot in her cabin, all with zero dialogue (in fairness it wasn't supposed to be a toy in the end, just tiny compared to her).
I say homage instead of rip-off because the writer of this episode (Richard Christian Matheson) is the son of the writer of the old Twilight Zone episode (Richard Matheson), which makes it pretty cool in my book.

Crouch End left me kind of cold. I hope the rest follow the first episodes foot prints.

Crouch End was weird, I didn't understand why all of a sudden they threw in the Lovecraft (though I've heard it's in the original story) references and stressed them. The average viewer what not be totally unaware what Cthulu was and why it was shown on the sign.

My problem with Crouch End is it strayed too far from the short story, and the changes offered zero improvement over the original. What was the point?

I liked Battleground, the slight changes actually worked quite well.

That was one of two things that took me "out of the film". That scene was very forced, and was really the only awkward moment like that in the whole thing. If he had just completely ignored her, it wouldn't have seemed as strange as it did.

The other thing was the very obvious "hey look at me" shot of the Zuni Warrior doll from Trilogy of Terror. Putting it in there is fun, but they should have just scanned across it just like it was another random item in the case. It was a really awkward insert shot that drew way too much attention.


Those are both pretty nit-picky comments, but it kept it from being 'perfect' for me. Still, considering what it looks like the rest of this is going to be... that segment may end up being the Citizen Kane of Nightmares & Dreamscapes.

I thought the same thing about the Trilogy warrior. At first I thought it was a cool subtle touch and then they had to go too far with it. Otherwise I loved Battleground.

I didn't like Crouch End at all. I'm hoping the Autopsy story is well done and it's the other one I'm looking forward to the most.

Just got done watching 'Crouch End'. Holy carp, it wasn't even good enough to be on <i>Masters of Horror</i>.

das

Warched Crouch End lst night and was unimpressed. I have tried to get into King by reading his books and seeing most of his movies and I just cant stop thinking he is overrated.
Crouch End was horrible. Hopefully some of the other ones will be better.

Well, in fairness to King, I don't think you can judge him at all by the movie/TV adaptations. He has hasn't been particularly well-served by the visual medium.

Overrated? Maybe. Hell, probably. It's easy to say about someone who is as wildly popular as that... But he does have a lot of good stuff. I've read just about everything he's ever done and I think the ones that are entertaining outnumber the ones that are turkeys. And a few things he's done have actually been great.


That being said, it looks like this series is going to be a total dud. How you can fuck up an anthology series made up of Stephen King stories is beyond me.

I watched both this weekend...thank you DVR...both were rather boring. The first one was ok, but nothing great. Got annoyed with no vocals at all though, but it was interesting that way also.

MY wife read the book, and she said they butchered Crouch End badly. Oh well, hopefully the next 6 are good.

Also, what was with the timing on these? The commercial free made the 1st one end too soon (DVR settings).

Bump.
Two new episodes tonight.
Still haven't watched the first two, but thanks to all of you, I will skip the "Crouch End" I have on DVR.

Tonight's episodes:

Umney's Last Case
An author (William H. Macy) wants to escape his own life by taking the place of his fictional detective.
Dir: Rob Bowman

The End of the Whole Mess
A filmmaker (Ron Livingston) documents his final hour.
Dir: Mikael Salomon

The shows from last week are in OnDemand, I don't know if they put them last Thursday or when I watched one over the weekend.

And guess what's the one I watched? Crouch End. :)

Ugh. I just can't get excited about watching tonight's episodes. I'll keep 'em on the DVR and see how I feel in a few days.

Umney's Last Case was decent, but felt like it could have continued on.

I really dug The End of the Whole Mess.

Pretty good eps....I thought End of the Whole Mess would be better though.

You mind spoilering if for me? I missed some important parts so I couldn't get the gist of what was happening by the time I tuned in.

Oh, and I can't get to the horror site from my job either... :(