What’s The Work?[]
The Dark Half is a underrated 1989 horror work by Stephen King adapted into a equally underrated 1993 film by George A. Romero. Starring Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, Julie Harris, and Michael Rooker. It focuses on a author named Thad Beaumont who had conceived a pen name and after years of use, he decides to discard it. Unfortunately it arises and now wants nothing more than to utterly destroy Thad's life and family.
Who is George Stark and What Has He Done?[]
George Stark is a being who sprang to life after his creator, author Thad Beaumont buried him in a graveyard. Stark then goes on to whack a photographer named Homer Gramache to death with his prosthetic leg and dump his remains in a grass field for the police to find and go to his vehicle to pursue many people. Stark contacts Thad spiritually as he warns him he's going to murder his wife Liz if he messes with him. Stark next enters a residence that belongs to Fred Clawson, someone who wanted to threaten Thad after finding out that he wrote the novels under a false name, and proceeds to slice off his penis and shove it into his mouth while also cutting off his tongue before finally ending him with a nice throat gash.
Stark then goes on to knife part of Miriam Crowley's face while she enters her apartment and drag her to her room in which he pulls on her hair, brings her to a couch, and has her message Thad while he continues to mutilate her face and falsely promises to let her go before claiming her life anyways. Stark then proceeds to corner Mike Donaldson and bash his head into a hard surface with a kick. Stark next heads over to Rick Crowley's luxurious home and nails two signs onto two cops' foreheads as a grim foreshadowing before killing him. Stark tells Thad that he's coming for him and proceeds to subject him to agony by stabbing his hand with a pencil while he's writing, because of the connection they have. That being? Stark is seemingly Thad's unborn twin brother who had been absorbed inside of him before a doctor pulled him out in a surgery as a teenager. Thad arranges a appointment with that said doctor but unfortunately Stark approaches from behind and disposes of him.
Stark proceeds to try and convict him while Thad attempts to warn Liz to get herself and the kids out of their house before he captures them and as Thad meets with his best friend Reggie Delesseps who suggests that Stark is actually a sapient summon of Thad's secret depraved side who stole the unborn fetus' body for himself. Stark then mocks and taunts Thad that he has successfully taken his family to Endsville and orders him to create a new novel lest he slaughters them all. Stark straps Liz to a chair and holds the children named Wendy and William hostage, having Thad come to the upper floor and write the entire book depicting Stark on the physical plane. Luckily Thad manages to slash Stark and get into a battle which eventually ends in Thad poking him in the neck with a pencil. Stark suddenly springs back to life, throws Thad, and demands him to finish. When Thad tells Stark that it’s too late as the sparrows have come to get his spirit, a enraged Stark targets the two infants, clearly intending to finish them off. The sparrows burst in at the right time and gorily rips Stark to pieces, much to Thad, Liz (who was freed from her confinement), the sheriff Alan Pangborn, and Thad and Liz’s babies’ amazement. Turns out the sparrows are actually spawns of the Devil himself who has come to drag Stark to Hell for good.
Heinous Standards?[]
He's the sole villain of the movie and although he only has a successful victim count of eight, it's done in creative and horrific ways such as beating with a prosthetic leg, hacking someone's tongue and penis off and forcing the latter into the person's mouth, butchering a face with a razor for as long as he can, hammering in two nails into two cops' heads? All of which are vile and cruel. Factoring in that he goes so far to ruin Thad that he psychologically torments him and later pursuits to shoot down Wendy and William when his plan goes to shit? He solidly clears the baseline.
Mitigating Factors?[]
He does spare a person in the apartment but it's purely pragmatic as it was a warning to get out of his way. Another factor to consider is that the story kind of makes it hard to picture whenever he's Thad's twin brother or a malignant creation who came to be by Thad's writings. Here's why I don't think it matters either way: It's explicit that he does contain a spirit inside because at the end that's what we see when he's being destroyed, and otherwise he's a deranged lunatic who clearly enjoys the suffering of innocents and he is given zero pathos otherwise. The original version doesn't qualify because he demonstrates no moral agency and fails when compared to other Stephen King villains from the established multiverse but the film incarnation lacks any such problems.
Final Verdict?[]
Easy yes to this heartless serial killer.