Jack Frank plays the frustrated Alfie Zimmer who checks into a hotel – a regular occurrence for Stephen King for sure (see 1408 & The Shining for starters) – before entering a dark room. Here he’s confronted by Emma (Carys Jones), Mary (Leona Clarke) and the very mouthy Zoe (Gabriella Leonardi) who discuss Alfie’s current situation.

Suicidal and sick of his job, it is shown that the females are in fact Alfie’s projections. Signifiers of the graffiti he has been collecting, the women bring attention to the fact they are not real and it's revealed that we are deep in the conscious of a disturbed man. 

Harms has done a good job of personifying the internal struggles present in the book using this idea and the ladies and a number of male projections argue around Alfie’s room. Pushing him in different directions, they act like angels and devils on his shoulders as he contemplates whether he should continue with life.

Shot in just 5 days on a small £4k budget, the film shows what can be successfully achieved with limited resources. Director/writer Hendrik Harms clearly has a passion for the original work and the usual King tropes seem all well and present from strange hotel staff to the eerie atmosphere and almost supernatural shenanigans.

Some strong purple-coloured lighting harks to Italian horror and appears when representing the protagonists fragile mind, rather than the more “sane” segments when bickering with the hotel’s concierge. At times Alfie sexually “worships” his projections and others try and illuminate him on his mindset. A clever conceit, the graffiti “people” are able to show Alfie’s obsession with words in a more cinematic way.

Does King’s 16-page short hold for a full 40-minute translation? For me, not quite. The set up explaining the characters are within his mind is given away early without build up. And it didn’t have the immediacy of Harms’ more successful Wild Hunt horror short (our review here).

It’s an interesting study but, perhaps like King’s short, the film if full of ideas which don’t quite coalesce. The protagonist’s fragile mind is explored but his haphazard thoughts do not translate into a clear enough narrative. 

The highs outweigh the drawbacks though and Harms has taken a difficult to adapt short story and made a complex film on introspection but for me it’s slightly too long given the original’s content. However, fans of King’s work will find a unique adaptation that explores a fragile mind on the edge of despair which this film captures remarkably well.