Jane Levy (Don’t Breathe) doesn’t turn up in the first episode but describes her character, Jackie, as the “self-appointed historian of Castle Rock.” “She loves Castle Rock,” Levy explains. “She’s a bit younger than the regulars you get to know in Castle Rock and I think that she’s death-obsessed. She has great morbid curiosity and she grew up learning all the stuff about this town that she’s from, but nothing exciting has happened in her life so far, until the return of Henry and Bill Skarsgård’s character. It’s the beginning of the best thing that’s ever happened to her, basically.” It’s true that King, although perennially popular on bookshelves, seems to be going through a renaissance on both the big and small screens lately, giving Castle Rock the mandate of standing out from the sizable pack of King adaptations either already out in the world or on their way. “I think that it has really good writing,” says Levy when asked what could give Castle Rock an edge in the vast content landscape. “It’s maybe a little bit smarter than some of the other horror out there because it has really rich characters and storylines.” Shaw says a small town where everyone knows each other, with the place infested with secrets—some pretty nasty ones, in this case—is a template that is never short of storytelling possibilities. “I’ve always loved geography and place in fiction and in pop culture,” he says. “There is no literature of small towns or small suburbia that I don’t love, from Updike to Blue Velvet to Desperate Housewives. There’s something about the contradictions of a sense of order and community at battle with all of these subterranean human impulses and drives, and transgressive behavior and darkness and crime. Something about that head-on collision is really, really exciting to me.” For Thomason, the key to adapting King’s work comes down to the characters. “For us, Stephen King is as much a deep character writer as a horror writer,” he offers. “This isn’t just a horror show. This is a show that has the breadth of all of Stephen King’s work, from ‘The Body’ all the way to It… always with the undercurrent of character that drives so much of his work. When you come for the horror, you stay for the character. And that’s what we hope to do in Castle Rock.”
WHEN YOU COME FOR THE HORROR, YOU STAY FOR THE CHARACTER.
Skarsgård admits that, due to the secrecy surrounding the show even during production, he didn’t get a full grasp of his eerie character until the show was well into shooting. “He’s discovered in the first episode and nobody knows sort of how he ended up in that cage, how long he’s been there, and part of the big mystery throughout the season is finding out how he got there, who he is, and what he’s done,” he says. “I didn’t know really where the show was going up until we had shot three or four episodes already.” Although Lynskey appears briefly in the pilot, she also says that it will take a few episodes before viewers really get to know her character. “Episode three is a big Molly episode and you learn a lot about her history, which is pretty intense,” says Lynskey. “She’s a real estate agent trying to work in a town where nobody wants to move, which is such a strange, self-defeating job to put herself in. She has a sensitivity that I don’t know if I’m allowed to go into, a condition which is the number one thing that made me want to play her. It was really fascinating to me. She also has a kind of terrible coping mechanism to try and deal with that condition.”
2
RICHARD STARK The Dark Half
What begins as a simple pseudonym for novelist Thad Beaumont turns into a nightmare, as the long lost twin he absorbed in utero comes home to roost.
3
LELAND GAUNT Needful Things
Mysterious salesman Leland Gaunt has exactly what you need — as long as you’re willing to give him your soul.
4
GREG STILLSON The Dead Zone
Greg Stillson once kicked a dog to death and threatened a kid with a broken bottle, and if he’s not stopped, he’ll one day be our next president.
5
THE TRUCK
“Uncle Otto’s Truck”
Once used to crush a man to death, this truck now has a new victim in mind: the murderer himself.
DEN OF GEEK 33