A Stephen King story, adapted and directed by George A. Romero, about a writer (Timothy Hutton) with a Jekyll and Hyde problem: his pseudonym, under which he writes best-selling trash novels, comes to life when publicly "killed off." He then starts killing off everybody associated with his literary death.

SEX/NUDITY 0 - None.

VIOLENCE/GORE 9 - Since this is a George A. Romero film, there's gore galore, oodles of blood and plenty of violence: the malefactor enjoys slashing his victims' throats with a razor, and we see every murder in bloody detail. One victim has a delicate part of his anatomy cut off and shoved in his mouth; we see his shadow on the wall. One is beaten to death with his own artificial leg. Another is literally flayed and picked to death by a very large and scary flock of sparrows; we see, in detail, the various stages of dismemberment. One character drives a pencil through his hand, then peers through the resulting hole. There are nine very graphic deaths in all. There are also explicit scenes of an open-skull surgery, complete with a brain tumor which possesses a blinking eye and a tooth. The camera lingers on assorted oozing wounds. There's even one scene of torture, where a man pokes at a woman's facial wounds.

LANGUAGE 6 - 15 F-words and lots of anatomical and sexual references.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - The supernatural, split-personalities, deceit, blackmail, murder.

MESSAGE - We all possess a dark side. We have to stand up to it and fight it.