MovieChat Forums > Bag of Bones (2011) Discussion > Just watched this today....TERRIBLE!

Just watched this today....TERRIBLE!


First, I must say that I wasn't too jazzed about watching this, because I thought the book was pretty lame. (Sorry, S.K., still love ya buddy). But this movie, oh wow.
First off, why does Michael have a British accent but his brother doesn't? And this story is all over the place. He's wandering around this stupid cabin and "scary" things keep happening.
My favorite was when his editor was leaving him a message on the answering machine and actually PAUSED so Michael could respond. Huh?
And that whole face in the tree thing was absolutely stupid. And why does his wife ring that bell or use the magnets, when she obviously can appear before him, like in the end?
So bad, I wish Stephen King would go back to writing good stuff instead of just puking out mass amounts of jibberish.

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Yep. Completely agree. The movie was bad because the source material is also bad. There was a reason this book came out in 1998 but wasn't made into a movie until 2011. Not to mention that when it was made it was made into a mini-series.

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Oh sad, this is my favorite Stephen King novel!

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He's written much better. Bag of Bones was pretty forgettable.

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It's my favourite too and I've read almost everything he's written. I was sad about this series though. Could have been so much better

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In the book Sarah was keeping her back so that's why he could only see her in a dream or communicate through bells and magnets.

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Very sad to read this thread. Not only was Bag of Bones the book that made me want to become a "real" writer (instead of just someone who wrote poems while cutting himself to My Chemical Romance albums), but as a writer who has taken a crack at adapting it into a screenplay, I'm shocked. This book had emotional depth, and power, that Stephen King had yet to reach in his career, up-to this point. That being said, I am about a half hour into Mich Garris' version on Netflix, and am appalled. So many things were either blatantly ignored, outright cut out, or otherwise left on an editor's floor, that this just is not the same story. I have no idea if Stephen King cares-or if he even watched it-but if he had, he would have found himself lost in an act of visual plagiarism. Instead of changing the names to protect the innocent, they kept them, to the detriment of a finely crafted, old fashioned ghost story (which, a its heart, that's what Bag of Bones is...or was, till Garris hacked it to pieces, which he inevitably does with all his films {see Riding the Bullet, Desperation, or, to a lesser degree, The Stand. Don't get me started on Sleepwalkers}). I will continue to watch, but in bewilderment.

To all those who say this book is not readable, maybe you shouldn't think of it in the same vein as Pet Sematary or Carrie. This was not a gore-fest by any means (until the third act, really). Rather, it was an exercise in American Tragedy. I have nothing but praise for this book, and am proud to say I've read it yearly since 1998 (it feels good to visit old friends, if you will). I haven't like a lot of his books since, I'll admit (From a Buick 8, Dreamcatcher, and Lisey's Story come to mind), but it's easy to see where King had both Duma Key and Under the Dome in his arsenal after penning Bag of Bones. Honestly, and I could be ridiculed for this, but it set me on the right path (wow, did I just equate this book to The Bible? That's my cue to leave, lol.)


"I said, uh, I'm-uh gonna go to Hell when I die," -Conan O'Brien

Foster M. Wolf

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[deleted]


I felt the same thing.I watched it and I got bored.The story was lame,Brosnan was not a good Noonan for me,for some reason I don't think Brosnan did fit in the character,he acted too static and boring,and I never liked the other characters,the little girl who played Kyra sounded weird and I didn't like her acting,I had imagined something very different,I mean,the actors and actresses looked kind of a B movie,even the movie seems a B movie,and the story seemed to me boring,slow...they omited some interesting parts of the book,so at the end you have one of the worst adapatations of King's books.

Anthony,the light and love of my life..

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Even with low expections, it was terrible. Usually a movie is more interesting if you go into it not expecting much to begin with. This one was worse than that. I remember reading the book when it came out, as I did most Stephen King novels, and thought it was his most boring book to date at that time. Even so, this movie was ungodly boring and not remotely suspenseful or scary. I don't need gore for a movie to be scary, by any means, but it does need to be interesting. I like Pierce Brosnan but even he looked pained to be in this.

Although it's been years since I read the book, I didn't think Mike was that much older than Mattie.


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I still think it's one of his best novels ever written. There's happening so much. I haven't read another book which is written as good as Bag of Bones is.

That being said, I stopped watching the miniseries somewhere half of the first episode. It was really bad. I didn't get the same feeling as the novel.

Oh and Mike was in in his forties while Mattie was 21.

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I still think it's one of his best novels ever written. There's happening so much. I haven't read another book which is written as good as Bag of Bones is.

That being said, I stopped watching the miniseries somewhere half of the first episode. It was really bad. I didn't get the same feeling as the novel.

Oh and Mike was in in his forties while Mattie was 21.

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If we're talking about same scene, his pause was him catching himself as he was sending love to Jo. Apparently something he has habitually done for years. Jo is now dead.

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