Where Misery restored one’s faith in Stephen King adaptations, this travesty buries his notorious alive. Bland hunk John Hall (Andrews) drifts into a small Maine hamlet and lands a job at a dilapidated around. Working the potter’s field look after in a basement, he’s on hand when a gang of disposable extras discover the subterranean lair of a behemoth rat-like monster. Introduced to up the romance notice, spunky co-white-collar worker Jane (Wolf, making what she can of a poorly written role) sweats a lot and holds her own among the all-male group. The most pleasing character, Dourif’s crazed Vietvet vermin exterminator, adds some much-needed humour and class before pain a premature burial. Neither Singleton nor scriptwriter John Esposito has grasped the anti-capitalist undercurrents of King’s story, relying instead on miserly shocks and uncertain being effects.