Needful Things is a flat and witless film directed by Fraser Heston. What should had been darkly comic is lost in hysterical acting, melodramatic music and loud explosions.In a small town in Maine called Castle Rock (with a logo just like the famous film company) newly arrived in a black car Leland Gaunt (Max Von Sydow) opens an antiques store that seems to have something for everybody. He offers to sell the items for cash and a small favour such as a prank but before long he has people turning on each other.It is left to Sheriff Pangborn (Ed Harris) to figure that Gaunt is the devil incarnate and everywhere he goes, trouble follows.The only saving grace of the movie is that Von Sydow is having fun, then again he has played chess with death.

Castle Rock, New England, is a nice place to live and grow and Sheriff Alan Pangborn (Ed Harris) moves from the big city to the town expecting a quiet life. When Leland Gaunt (Max Von Sydow) opens the store Needful Things, he seems to have the object of desire for each dweller. He charges small amounts to the things but requests a practical joke for each of them against another inhabitant. Soon hell breaks loose in town with deaths, violence and riot and Sheriff Pangborn discovers that Leland Gaunt is the devil himself. Further, Gaunt is manipulating the population like puppets exploring the weakness and greed of each person. "Needful Things" is a horror movie with black humor with a story of greed and evilness. Max Von Sydow has a great performance and his personification of evil is scary. There are interesting characters and situations and this movie is entertaining and surprisingly underrated. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Trocas Macabras" ("Macabre Exchanges")

I hate all these idiot directors thinking they can make a story better than the writer! Nobody likes your tampering with good stories! We do not think you are creative! We think you are the hacks that you are! Ace was the best part of the whole story! So to remove the greatest part of the story is a big xxx- up ! I will never pay a dime for this movie! I will never watch this movie if someone gave it to me! And these directors should be homeless and starving on the streets! Because they do not deserve a dime from of our hard earned money! However with most actors today reading the book is the only way! Every time a movie adaptation of a King movie comes out I automatically know it is going to be a butchered version because some arrogant director and producer!

Fraser Clarke Heston(son of actor Charlton) directs this adaptation of Stephen King's novel about a small New England town where a charming but sinister man named Leland Gaunt(Effectively cast Max Von Sydow) opens an antique shop, where he sells various curios with an added bonus: sell him their souls, and he'll give them what they desire(with a cruel twist of course) You see, Gaunt is really the devil, and Sheriff Alan Pangborn is determined to stop him, though he isn't a believing man himself, he comes to realize that he'll need the help of God in order to win...Good acting by Max Von Sydow and Ed Harris can't redeem over baked horror yarn, that unfortunately slides into camp horror, with predictable plot developments, though Von Sydow nearly pulls it off, somehow gliding through the increasing mayhem unscathed(sort of!) Film is still a misfire though, which resembles the far superior "Salem's Lot".