Pierce Bronson plays Michael Noonan, a New England author, in a continuing of Stephen King's write about things you are series. When is wife, who he truly loved, dies, he is drawn to their lake home. Noonan has nightmares about his wife in the final scene of "Quarantine". At the lake home he inadvertently gets involved in a local drama and discovers some small town secrets that frankly would make a good novel, which BTW he has to write.I enjoyed the simple ghostly images and hauntings. Noonan takes the paranormal in stride as he tries to uncover more about the illness known as Dark Score Crazy which causes people to drown their daughters. What is unfortunate is any Stephen King fan can watch the film and see where the master has done this before. For instance when we see the computer screen with the same line written over and over, one can not help think about "The Shining." The question begs: Does King want us to think about "The Shining" and give us a clue that Noonan is crazy or is it a deliberate misdirection? Or maybe King is starting to recycle old trunk novels as does the writer in the story. Outside of Noonan, the characters were poorly developed, especially considering the length of the film.While I enjoyed the film, I have come to expect more from Stephen King.Made for TV. Includes a rape scene.

I should probably begin my review by stating that – in my personal humble opinion - Stephen King is the most overrated & over-hyped individual on this planet. More than 30 years ago, the genre's best directors (De Palma, Kubrick, Carpenter, Hooper…) perhaps still managed to turn his best stories into good horror movies, but since then it only became unmistakably clear that his novels are lackluster and derivative of obscure and undiscovered gems. Then there's Mick Garris, who's simply the most pathetic and clueless fan-boy of the most overrated and over-hyped individual on this planet… The only half- decent thing Garris ever did was gather together a bunch of horror director far more talented than himself and persuaded them to collaborate in the "Masters of Horror" project, but his own movies – and then particularly his King adaptations – are poor, redundant and dumb. "Bag of Bones" is probably a new low in both their careers. It's not so much that this film/mini-series is unwatchable or even terrible; it's just unbelievable mundane and unoriginal! "Bag of Bones" is just an incredibly irritating, nearly three hours (!) lasting spitfire of dreadful clichés, predictable twists and unsurprising revelations that wouldn't even impress viewers who've never seen a horror movies before in their lives! I'm 300% convinced that the novel never would have been published (and the TV-adaptation never produced) if it didn't have King's name and undeserved reputation linked to it. Any other writer undoubtedly would have been impolitely rejected if he/she presented a tale about traumatized writers, small towns with dark secrets and ongoing family curses. But hey, Stephen King wrote it so people will love it; right? Disgusting… Okay, so let's look at the fascinating plot… A novelist loses his beloved wife in a car accident and seeks for confinement in their cabin next to a lake in a remote little town. Oh please! He finds out that his wife was pregnant when she died even though he thought they couldn't have children. Yawn! His dead wife seeks supernatural contact with him via letter magnets on the fridge. Are you kidding me? He meets a beautiful woman that is much too young for his and stumbles upon an unsolved local mystery about black blues singer who vanished. Oh, how exciting! He confronts a few evil people and discovers that half of the townsfolk drowned their own kids in the lake because of a curse dating back to the 1930s. Double yawn… If you think the plot is counterfeit, wait until you see Garris' miserable attempts to frighten you! Literally dozens of fake and wannabe "jump" moments, like ghostly appearances in the bathtub, moving furniture and even an electrifying tree. As much as I like Pierce Brosnan, he's ridiculously miscast as protagonist Tom Noonan. He was nearly sixty when the film was shot, so why must he depict a role that was clearly written for a thirty-something actor? Melissa George looks yummy, but she's literally not much more than a piece of scenery. The villainous characters seemingly come straight out of "Scooby Doo" cartoon: an evil old man dressed in black and driving around in an automated wheelchair, a crazy lady that looks like a retired version of Anjelica Houston's Grand High Witch and a legal guardian who actually looks more like a child molester. What an unbelievably retarded movie

I'm giving this a 9 just because one reviewer exclaimed "I can't believe this got a 9!" Actually, I would probably rate it 7-8. I'm not a big Pierce Brosnan fan, but he does quite a good job here. Brosnan is nicely understated in his acting, which is a real treat compared to over the top renderings by the likes of Jack Nicholson. The tension builds nicely and the villains are appropriately creepy (I'm primarily thinking of old Bill Schallert and his uber creepy female consort). Despite many reviewer jibes at Mick Garris, I think he also does a creditable job. To the reviewer who asks why Garris continues to be allowed to "hatchet" King stories, maybe King likes the guy's work? Ever think of that?

Writer Mike Noonan, trying to overcome writer's block following the accidental death of his wife, falls in with some oddnesses on going to the old family lake house.I read Bag Of Bones on publication (the first novel after Stephen King's near-fatal accident, it was touted untruthfully as his final novel - this turned out to be inspired press in tieing the predicament of the main character to the personal circumstances of the author. I thoroughly enjoyed it: time constraints have prevented me from re-reading, so much of the detail of the novel has slipped from my memory. This miniseries therefore arrives fairly fresh and I shan't be comparing it to the book.It's OK. There is nothing exceptionally good about it, nor anything exceptionally bad - it is simply a generic ghost story, mildly horrific, but with most of the scares coming from sudden shock moments. I can't warn viewers away from it: neither can I recommend it.Director Mick Garris has had a lot of stabs at directing Stephen King stories - at least 7 by my count - and at best they have been adequate. Would that he could take a leaf out of Frank Darabont's book, with a success rate of 3 out of 3 so far.