Castle Rock

Oh, sure.

Or you've driven through Castle Rock, Maine, you know, checking the rearview mirror.

But you can't actually buy a plane ticket to Castle Rock.

Exactly.

You can't go there.

What's next? A fucking road trip.

We are doing a whole-ass Stephen King retrospect this season, and it's called All Roads Lead to Castle Rock.

So I knew from the jump we had to pick something I knew, I kind of hope, I'm pretty sure we all fucking love, and that is 1982's Creepshow.

Dude, just hearing 82,

the pan of the fucking town

yeah this is going and going and going

and this is like the first time we kind of get like the hint of where this universe is because we see the sign that says castle rock five miles that way yeah

yeah

But what the source material zeroes in on is the setting.

It takes place in Castle Rock.

Right, which for the initiated King fan, is a massive red flag.

Oh, yeah.

Castle Rock is the epicenter of his most terrifying stories.

It's where Cujo happens.

It's where the Dead Zone plays out.

So when you see a Welcome to Castle Rock sign, you assume someone is about to meet a very gruesome end.

So in this case, I mean, this goes back to Stand By Me days.

Seemingly, this is taking place, part one, just the following summer after Stand By Me takes place a few towns over in Castle Rock.

Because it's all set in Maine.

Most of his stories are.

Oh my God

... it's like, what do you mean? I'm gonna write about Castle Rock and I'm gonna write about Derry and all that stuff.

I, I think I would fall apart.

Like, [laughs] I think I would just fall, just because he was, like, my introduction into horror and-

Yeah.

[laughs] I sat down to, to write some notes about it on Monday.

And of course, it mentions Castle Rock in the very first sentence.

Yeah.

Fuck, I don't look up if this movie has a different ending.

Anyway, Chris, we're back in Castle Rock, but not really, because we're only very sometimes in Castle Rock.

Yeah, it's again pretty adjacent, but we are introduced to our protagonist for Needful Things in this movie, who is played by Michael Rooker, Sheriff Alan Pangborn.

Oh my god, he comes back?

I could say that, yeah.

Anyway, Chris, I did not know this movie existed.

You were the one that was like, hey, this is Castle Rock, slap this one down.

I see online it has very mixed reviews.

And really since elementary school, in fact.

Which takes me back to a time when, at age 12, the three of us and another friend... took a journey to uncover the body of a missing boy near the town of Castle Rock, Oregon.

Our journey was quite remarkable.

It involved a stop at the town junkyard, a narrow escape from an oncoming train, a cool dip in a leech-infested pond, and finally a confrontation with some local teenage hoods.

I

don't remember.

But also, did you say Castle Rock, Oregon? Yeah.

Is that what it is in the movie? That's just what Wikipedia said.