Stephen King's Nightshift Collection (1986)

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Released at the height of Stephen King's popularity in the 1980s, this home video pairs two short films adapted from the horror author's earliest (and most revered) short-story compilation. The first tale, "The Woman in the Room," marked a promising genre debut from writer-director Frank Darabont, who would later garner critical acclaim, as well as Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, for The Shawshank Redemption, adapted from King's superb non-horror novella. A study of internalized horror and fear of mortality, "Woman" involves a distraught young man's inner torment over the suffering of his terminally ill mother and his ultimate solution to both her woes and his own. The second entry, Jeff Schiro's "The Boogeyman," though not as technically polished and sublime as the first, is nevertheless wonderfully entertaining, providing horrors of a far more visceral nature. It is told from the perspective of a deeply disturbed man, who confides in his therapist that his childhood fears of the closet-dwelling title monster may have caused the death of his own children, perhaps by his own hand... perhaps something else. The gritty, low-budget style of these shorts actually enhances the pervasive sense of dread, together with tight plotting and fine performances which heighten the level of terror, placing this compilation a cut above most Hollywood renderings of King's work. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi