The Timekeepers Of Eternity sets out to retool the Stephen King miniseries
The Langoliers, which is often considered one of the worst adaptations of the author’s work. Ever since
Carrie was published in the ’70s, King has been a household name in horror. While his writing has spanned everything from heartwarming drama to fantasy, he’s proven time and again with works like
The Shining,
IT,
The Mist and many others that he has a total understanding of the horror genre. That has also been shown by the almost endless movie and TV adaptations of his work.,King’s movie adaptations range from the sublime to the unwatchable. For every
Shawshank Redemption or
Misery, there’s a
Graveyard Shift or
Maximum Overdrive. The ’90s was something of a golden age for miniseries versions of his chunkier novels, with
IT receiving a solid adaptation in 1990 – featuring a terrifying performance by Tim Curry – and the underrated
The Storm Of The Century. However, some of these series missed the mark, as is the case with 1995’s
The Langoliers.,Related: Why Stephen King’s The Langoliers Time Travel Rules Make No Sense,Helmed by
Fright Night’s Tom Holland,
The Langoliers adapted a novella of the same name from King collection
Four Past Midnight. The story sees a flight of passengers landing at an empty airport and discovering they’ve passed through some kind of time rift. It’s a great story but the miniseries turned out to be a drab, lifeless slog, and it features some infamously terrible CGI to bring the title monsters to life. That said, the Stephen King miniseries is bolstered by the scenery-chewing performance of Bronson Pinchot as a broker named Toomy. While the miniseries is not fondly regarded, a fascinating new art film dubbed
The Timekeepers Of Eternity takes
The Langoliers and completely reinvents it.,The Timekeepers Of Eternity director Aristotelis Maragkos printed frames from
The Langoliers and re-worked the story using animation and paper collages. The movie knows focuses squarely on Toomy and uses his recurring habit of tearing paper and makes that a visual motif.
The Timekeepers Of Eternity uses this technique to startling effect, with the screen constantly tearing, ripping and reforming in new ways to represent Toomy’s increasingly fractured mindset. The focus on
The Langoliers Toomy also cuts the runtime down from three hours to a lean 64 minutes.,The Timekeepers Of Eternity is essentially an experimental art film, which will no doubt retain some of the inherent faults of
The Langoliers– which once got a
Rick & Morty nod – like stilted dialogue or performances. However, it takes one of the worst Stephen King adaptations and – just like Toomy – rips it up and reshapes it into something far more interesting. The movie is currently doing the rounds at various film festivals, though it’s unknown when – or if – it might get a wider release.,Next: All 64 Stephen King Books Ranked From Worst To Best