THE late-night horror-film slot is an Edinburgh tradition. Audiences
flock to them. The problem is finding halfway decent horror movies,
although given what succeeds discrimination is not the name of the game.
George Romero is a master of the genre, making his reputation with
Night of the Living Dead in 1969. His latest film, The Dark Half, stars
Timothy Hutton and is based on a Stephen King novel which explores the
flip side of Misery.
Hutton is Thad Beaumont, an academic who is also a best-selling
schlock horror novelist under the pseudonym of George Stark. He decides,
because he has aspirations under his real name to write serious books,
to kill off his pseudonymous twin. But the twin, the other side of his
personality, objects, assumes physical shape, and sets about killing the
people who are involved with Thad in ending his existence.
It is a nice Jekyll and Hyde variation, stylishly photographed by Tony
Pierce-Roberts and well played by Hutton and Amy Madigan as his
understanding wife. Tim's problem is he was a twin, but the other foetus
did not evolve properly and survived only as what was regarded as a
tumour in his brain. The ''thing'' was excised in the operating theatre,
but once a twin, always a twin.
* The Dark Half is on tomorrow at Cameo 1, 10.45pm.
George Stark: once a twin always a twin.
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