"Quick! I need an Anal Specula STAT! Our show is a terminal piece of crap!"

"Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital" is a resounding success! Does anyone know if Stephen King and the people who created the original "The Kingdom" (Lars Von Trier) are archenemies? The only logical explanation I can think of for how insultingly bad his remake is, is that Stephen King hates and despises the people who made the original so much that he wanted to make it look as stupid as possible purely for spite. In case you didn't see it, "Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital" (the only reference to the creators of the original series was in small print at the end of the credits, and if you had never seen the original, you wouldn't recognize the names anyway) takes the original story line and Stephen King'd it up. By this I mean he added pointlessly long and drawn-out scenes, peppered the dialog with juvenile nonsensical phrases and cliches, changed the characters into the usual caricatures found in most of his novels, and spends a lot of time unapologetically going on about nothing. The director's inability to judge when a scene actually begins and ends doubled the time it took to present the scant ground the episode was able to cover plot-wise, but he was still determined to pad things out even more by pointlessly replaying all the most boring parts. You have to intentionally set out to ruin a story as good as "The Kingdom," and in that respect, "Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital" is a resounding success. Oh, and that's another thing -- the annoying, distractingly inappropriate, and out-of-place soundtrack drained every last vestige of emotion, tension, or spookiness from each scene, and the amateurish way the songs were used as transitions was dumfounding to see outside of an Intro to Film class. Even the so-called scary parts turned into hackneyed stock pieces in their hands. And who told the narrator to play it for laughs? Is he auditioning for the trailer to Haunted Mansion II? The worst part was the autobiographical garbage King added about the artist in the car accident. The only purpose to that subplot seems to be to convince the viewer that the one thing more painful than getting your body shattered by a speeding van is having to sit through a long woe-is-me re-enactment waiting for something interesting or original or intelligent to happen. Maybe this is his way of telling us that the part of his brain that used to be creative is staining a road somewhere in Maine. I used to feel bad for him, but after suffering through this show (and some of the awful books he's written since his recovery), he should be the one who feels bad for me. And I know he was unconscious and bedridden most of the time he was in one, but even soap operas present more convincing hospitals. No wait, the WORST part was the talking animals and the giant anteater. What the fuck was up with that? No, wait again, the worst parts were the moments of what I can only assume the creators thought was zaniness, but was just idiocy that destroyed any last vestige of atmosphere that managed to escape the pestering soundtrack. It was like watching a serious remake of a Mentos commercial. Overall, it would have been nice if the creators set out to make a good horror story instead of poking fun at a good horror story. I would have liked to have seen at least a bit of respect given to a good series rather than have talentless hacks spit in my eye for two hours. And now a worthy American version will never get made, and such utter crap is not likely to encourage the networks to support other horror series on TV. Thanks a lot you bastards