The first time we were introduced to The Tommyknockers was in Stephen King’s novel of the same name published on November 10, 1987, where a group of residents of the Maine town of Haven gradually fall under the influence of a mysterious object buried in the woods. The writer himself admitted to having used the short story The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft as inspiration for his book. The novel had a first adaptation as a TV miniseries called The Tommyknockers (1993) that, allegedly, King stated that he “didn’t like it“.
Parallel to a future novel film adaptation that James Wan and IT (2017) producer Roy Lee are supposedly working on, a new film including the mysterious creatures is coming out this week.
Night of the Tommyknockers (2022) is set back in the 1870’s gold rush, and it follows a group of miners who accidentally release ancient creatures known as Tommyknockers. The Town of Deer Creek, Nevada is soon under siege with only a handful of survivors held up in the local saloon.
Horror filmmaker Michael Su, who has been behind a handful of b-movies like The Revolting Dead (2003), Doomed (2007), My Demon Within (2011), Death Count (2022), and Bridge of the Doomed (2022), has directed the movie. The screenplay was written by prolific horror writer Rolfe Kanefsky (Nightmare Man (2006), Automation (2019), Adventures Into the Woods: A Sexy Musical (2012)) and Su’s regular collaborator Adrian Milnes from a story by Michael Mahal and Sonny Mahal, the writers of Bus Party to Hell (2017), Art of the Dead (2019), and Attack of the Unknown (2020).
The main cast is led by Richard Grieco, an actor that became a teen idol in the late 1980s and early 1990s with his roles in 21 Jump Street (1987–1991) TV series and If Looks Could Kill (1991), but whose fame faded away in uncountable cheap productions, and another star in decline, Tom Sizemore, whose days of glory in the 1990s starring in titles like Strange Days (1995), The Relic (1997), or Saving Private Ryan (1998) are long gone. Robert LaSardo, Jessica Morris, Angela Cole, BJ Mezek, Robert Donavan, and Michael Beran complete the main cast.
Night of the Tommyknockers (2022) is having a limited theatrical release, aside from a DVD, Blu-Ray, and digital release, on November 25, 2022. Watch here its trailer.
