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Stephen King Presents : Kingdom Hospital (4 Disc Box Set) [2004]


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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

Kingdom Hospital is horror novelist Stephen King’s adaptation of Danish director Lars Von Trier’s cult mini-series The Kingdom, geared very much for an American audience. The story unfolds across 15 hours, telling the story of a hospital in Maine that’s been built on the site of a 19th Century mill fire that killed most of its young occupants--themes that King fans will be familiar with. In the present day, Kingdom Hospital is haunted by the ghost of ten-year-old child labourer Mary and, even more bizarrely, a fearsome giant anteater-like creature called Antubis. It falls to the ace doctor Hook (Andrew McCarthy), the paraplegic artist Jack Coleman (Peter Rickman) and the hypochondriac psychic Sally Druse (Diane Ladd) to enlist the help of a surreal assortment of hospital staff and patients to help Mary and save Kingdom Hospital itself from certain doom.

Fans of Stephen King will probably enjoy the blend of black comedy, spectral horror and general weirdness, which owes a big debt to previous television series like Twin Peaks and even ER. But too often, Kingdom Hospital seems to be trying too hard to make itself into a cult series, something which King is just not a subtle enough writer to carry off. But Kingdom Hospital looks good, especially the CGI Antubis, who steals every scene in which he appears. Generally, though, the series is more of an entertaining experiment than a cult-in-the-making. --Ted Kord

Editorial
DVD Description

Kingdom Hospital is the first television series written and produced by Stephen King, the legendary master of horror. Kingdom Hospital is not like other hospitals--it is built on the wreckage of two horrific fires. The first fire, during the civil war, burned down the Gates Falls Mill, where small children toiled away under nightmarish conditions--nearly all of the long-suffering children were trapped and died in the fire. The second fire destroyed the "old Kingdom," a creepy hospital where an evil doctor performed hideous experiments on patients. The "new Kingdom" is the site of strange, paranormal phenomena, where the unquiet dead still roam. In every episode, over 20 regular and recurring characters check in and out of Kingdom Hospital, playing out the eternal conflict between good and evil.
Editorial
Synopsis

Television series based on a hospital which has been built on the wreckage of two horrific fires. Written and produced by Stephen King.

Surreal & spooky drama
Review date: 2008-03-26 Rating: 10 out of 10

Strange things are happening over at the Kingdom Hospital. Ghosts, brain surgeons and a giant ant eater star in this weird and wonderful series. The ending is a bit lame but I had so much fun watching the rest of the episodes that it doesn't really matter. The characters are great, some you will love and some you will love to hate. I'm not sure exactly how Stephen King was involved, as his touch is not really that apparent to me. The show is more on the sci-fi/fantasy side of things and is not just supernatural horror.
I haven't watched the original version yet, but I hope to get my hands on it soon.

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Reviews


This ISN'T Stephen King !
Review date: 2008-03-09 Rating: 2 out of 10

This is a re-hash of Lars Von Triers' excellent "The Kingdom" (Riget) - it merely has the title "Stephen King Presents" in order to mislead... it is not actually BY stephen king.

I would recommend people seek out the original version which is a masterpeice...



surreal and witty king at best
Review date: 2008-01-05 Rating: 10 out of 10

king is at home with film and tv, he as much a film maker as a writer. kingdom hospital was a personal project adapted from 'the kingdom' which inspired him to vent his car accident trauma further with this tv series. i watched it over a few days and loved it. i had high expectations and it fell into place nicely. its not scary or gory, it is surreal and witty. jodelle ferland who plays mary the ghost is such a beautiful girl, she and her companion antibus just won me over straight away. kingdom hospital is eveything it set out to be. dont let anyone tell you otherwise. it is like a fusion of twin peaks and ally macbeal, with the silly houmour and music but laced with sordid darkness. beautifully shot, cast and acted. very pleased. its not meant to be complicated and elite, it is what it should be, a really wicked little series.

An interesting series, though slightly long
Review date: 2008-01-05 Rating: 10 out of 10

No one will be surprised by the fact this series counts thirteen episodes. No one will be surprised either that the format is obvious prime time television with the regular and frequent blackout cuts and the slow rhythm. Stephen King is more a producer than the real author. The series is by Lars Von Trier and Stephen King only wrote the teleplay of some episodes. We thus have some renewed elements in the plot and story as compared to standard Stephen King stuff. Stephen King though adds here and there his own style and that is not necessarily good or bad, it is variety. The general landscape of the plot is in three time periods on the same spot of land. In the 1860s it was a textile mill exploiting children in the downstairs section. A sweat shop for sure with 16 hours of work a day and then after the Civil War 12 for children condemned to work in the furnace and dyeing level. The factory was going to bite the dust. So its owner decided to burn it and to burn all the children along with the factory to have no witnesses. This owner had a brother who was using the wounded of the factory as guinea pigs for his anti-pain treatment which was essentially some primitive form of lobotomizing. Then the next period was a first hospital in the 1930s in which a descendent of the previous textile mill owner went on with his experiments on patients this time causing a lot of suffering and many deaths. And finally today Kingdom Hospital. This time we are following the model of normal or standard hospital TV series with all the necessary components: emergencies, ambulances, accidents, surgical operations, stressed personnel, romantic episodes, etc. This series adds several other elements to make it fantastic but in a soft way (though too often grosser than horrifying or terrifying). It adds outside the hospital a street priest and in the late episodes this priest will be crucified on some fence, he will die and then rise again in thyree days, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, with plenty of miracles along the way. That is nothing but a side plot with a lot of Christian chanting and other stuff like that. It adds nothing to the plot of the series itself except of course the equivalent of one full episode spread over two. Inside the hospital the series adds two mentally handicapped people, a manager who is only interested in raising money with sponsored advertising campaigns, a crazy surgeon with a past of malpractice and new cases here that are developed at length, and a psychic old lady who takes us into the world of the dead and ghosts. That's at least the superficial visible world. In this visible world the authors add a lot of humorous elements like a nearly blind security supervisor, a dog scavenging for body parts, a practical joker and his pranks, etc. Then the world of the dead is added with its two layers of descending time and the whole plot is the call of these trapped dead people, and children, for the living to help and liberate them. That will take some divine magic to do. The god will be borrowed from the Egyptians, Anubis, in the form of an anteater called Antubis. He will manage to bring on the scene of the hospital an artist who is necessary to see and solve the old problem. A car accident will suffice. I will not go beyond that as for telling you the plot. Go discover it yourself. Be careful it is slightly long and you can't afford to miss one episode. But I will spill a few more rice on the meaning of this tale. It is both a criticism of the hospital world as greedy, expensive, wasteful, stressed and uncaring, etc, without speaking of malpractice and cover-ups. It is also a vision of the hospital world that contains and welcomes some warm personalities, interesting and humane personalities, even if at times it becomes a cliché, like the young nurse who swoons as soon as she sees blood or something bizarre. It shows how mentally handicapped people can be seers and how extra-sensorial perception is needed to counter-balance the world's insanity with some psychic and mental sanity, even maybe religious spirituality. It shows how artists can also be useful in extreme situations because what they create is as solid as the real world. But the end shows there is some justice somewhere in this world, and that is not King-like. The bad doctor is still there at the end with the Paul ghost but we know he has already been medically suspended and that the malpractice suit will bring him down. Hence there can be some rosy hope and future in this world. Too optimistic for a standard objective mind that righteously considers there is no justice down here, since at the best justice can only exist up there, but necessarily optimistic for prime time television.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines


KINGDOM TERRIBLE
Review date: 2006-09-25 Rating: 4 out of 10

Truly awful.
Stephen King does himself no favours when it comes to criticisms of TV adaptations, especially when he involves himself with this.

Lazy plot, boring storylines. Characters you couldn't care less about.
This almost rivals LOST in terms of 'nothing happening in an episode' formula.

The ending? How can you wrap up a whole series where nothing happens- ? - easy , throw it all together and make it up.

Shame shame shame, Mr King. We deserve better.

IF YOU MISS THIS- YOU AINT MISSED A LOT.

ps I am a HUGE SK fan, so yes- I do know where I'm coming from.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Jack Coleman (II)
Bruce Davison
Andrew McCarthy
Brandon Bauer
Diane Ladd

Creators:
Andrew McCarthy (Primary Contributor)
Bruce Davison (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
EAN: 5035822157415
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 4
Format: Anamorphic, PAL,
Release date: 2004-08-09
Number of discs: 4
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 580 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2004-03-03
Language: English (Subtitled)
Language: Hindi (Subtitled)
Language: English (Original Language)

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