| abstract
| - Needful Things was a comic and science fiction shop in Galway. It opened in 1994 on Middle Street, run by Ollie Walsh. It later moved to the Eyre Square Centre in 1996 or 1997, and seems to have closed about 1998. This article is a . You can help the My English Wiki by expanding it.
- An 1991 Stephen King novel in which a new store with the strange name of "Needful Things" opens in a small town called Castle Rock. It is run by a seemingly kindly old man named Leland Gaunt and happens to have something that each of the main characters wants. They only need to pay a minimal sum...and they have to agree to play a little prank on someone. It goes downhill from there, as the "harmless pranks" eventually trigger a chain reaction leading to plenty of suicides, killings, and Stuff Blowing Up. The story mainly revolves around Sheriff Alan Pangborn and his attempts to find out just what is going on in his town. Made into a movie in 1993 starring Max Von Sydow as Gaunt and Ed Harris as Sheriff Pangborn.
* A Date with Rosie Palms: Myra's regular visits with the King after she buys a framed photo of Elvis Presley from Mr. Gaunt.
* Affably Evil: Leland Gaunt on his good days.
* The Alcoholic: Hugh Priest.
* A Storm Is Coming: The prologue.
* Berserk Button: Don't call Danforth Keeton "Buster." Just...don't.
* Beware the Nice Ones: Nettie and possibly Polly, near the end.
* Bitch Alert: Wilma Jerzyck. She bullies anyone she can get away with (a favorite target is Nettie Cobb, a victim of Domestic Abuse who killed her husband and spent time in an asylum), is mean as shit to a husband she doesn't love (she would leave him in a heartbeat in the unlikely event that pro wrestler Jay Strongbow expressed an interest in her), and has a Hair-Trigger Temper.
* Bittersweet Ending: Gaunt is defeated, but by then, most of Castle Rock is destroyed. Also, he starts the whole thing again in another town.
* Black Comedy: There's an unnerving cartoonish quality to many of the deadly pranks Gaunt has his customers carry out, even once the bodies start piling up.
* Bloodier and Gorier: In both the book and the movie, Nettie comes home after playing her prank on Buster Keeton to find that her dog, Raider, has been killed. The book has him "merely" getting impaled with a corkscrew, but in the movie, Raider was skinned alive and hung up in Nettie's closet.
* Book Ends: The story starts with a narrator who greets the reader and talks about the people in Castle Rock and the new shop. At the end, a narrator greets the reader in another small town, where a new shop is about to open...
* Call Back: This book serves as an ending of King's entire Castle Rock saga and makes several Call Backs to the other Castle Rock stories, including The Dead Zone (John Smith and Frank Dodd), The Body (Ace Merrill's search for the dead body), Cujo (Polly visits the Camber House, and Cujo himself), The Dark Half (George Stark and the sparrows), and The Sun Dog (Pop Merrill).
* Corrupt Politician: "Buster" Keeton, who started stealing from the town's funds to cover his gambling addiction.
* Canon Welding: Remember Ace, the childhood bully from The Body and its adaptation Stand by Me? He's now working for Gaunt.
* The town seen in the epilogue is from the King novella The Library Policemen, which appeared in the same collection as The Sun Dog.
* Chekhov's Gun: the Tastee-Munch Can and the folding flower trick.
* Chekhov's Hobby: Sheriff Pangborn's shadow puppet skills come in handy against Gaunt, especially when he creates puppets of Cujo and the sparrows from The Dark Half
* The Chessmaster: Gaunt, unusually for a Stephen King villain, does most of his evil work by having his customers play "pranks" on various townspeople in such a way that plays up their various feuds and insecurities to the point where people have turned against each other, committed murder, and even been Driven to Suicide.
* Cool Car: Gaunt's Tucker Talisman... which is more than just a car.
* Concert Kiss: The photo Myra buys gives her realistic visions about Elvis when she touches it. The first one is him pulling her up on stage at a concert and kissing her.
* Conspiracy Theorist: Keeton believes that "Them", a shadowy group of authority figures is after him. What is actually after him is the Bureau of Taxation, because he's stealing from the town's funds.
* Deadly Prank: Part of the payment for every item Gaunt sells in the titular shop. Most of them do not directly result in the death of any person or animal, but the combination of all of the "pranks" lead to multiple murders and suicides.
* Deal with the Devil: Any transaction that Mr. Gaunt makes with a customer. No matter how much of a bargain the item appears to be and no matter how low the price seems, the consequences of whatever prank you play will come to bite you in the end, the item will turn shoddy, and he may or may not get your soul in his valise.
* Devil in Plain Sight: Mr. Gaunt, who uses his affability to his advantage. At first, even the reader is led to believe that he is just a nice guy who owns a little shop that has anything a person would desire and is willing to sell you the thing you desire for a bargain and the only ones who would think otherwise are readers familiar with Stephen King's formula. There are also multiple hints that he is up to no good and may not even be human even from the beginning, yet no one except Brian, and the only one he tells is his little brother before he shoots himself right in front of him, realizes that he's a malign influence until after bodies start piling up.
* Domestic Abuse: "Buster" Keeton verbally and emotionally abuses his wife, Myrtle, though he doesn't hurt her physically until he goes completely insane and beats her to death with a hammer. Nettie Cobb's husband was a brutal Domestic Abuser, and she eventually killed him. Wilma Jerzyck specializes in utterly breaking down her husband's spirit.
* Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Polly doesn't want anyone to know about her dead son, even her boyfriend. She also tries to hide how much her arthritis torments her.
* Doorstopper
* Driven to Suicide: Brian Rusk, Gaunt's first customer, when he sees that the pranks he did on Gaunt's order indirectly led to the deaths of Wilma and Nettie. Sally Ratcliffe also does herself in. Norris Ridgewick attempts suicide for similar reasons, but changes his mind.
* The Eighties: King has stated that Needful Things is the greedy, negative parts of the decade distilled down into one store.
* Embarrassing Nickname: "Buster" Keeton hates his nickname.
* For the Evulz: Gaunt at one point muses that there is no real point to what he's doing anymore. He simply doesn't need any more souls than he already has. But it sure is fun.
* Freak-Out: Nettie, when she finds her dog dead.
* Freudian Excuse: One of the main conflicts is between the Catholics and the Baptists of the town, because the Catholics want to hold a "Casino Nite", and the Baptist minister fiercely opposes this, because (though he doesn't admit it) his father was a gambling addict who eventually killed himself.
* The Gambling Addict: "Buster" Keeton, one of the town's selectmen is addicted to gambling at the horse tracks, and started embezzling to cover the costs.
* Game Face: Gaunt sometimes looks like a charming and handsome man, but he's actually a demon with claws, and a face that is "a horror of eyes and teeth".
* Genre Blindness: Most of the town. They spend a week playing mean-spirited tricks on people they don't know for reasons they don't understand... not a one of them (except - belatedly - Polly and Eddie) imagines that the mean-spirited tricks played on them might have a similar source.
* Genre Savvy: Sheriff Pangborn. He has been in a King novel before, after all. Gaunt actually seems to sense this about Pangborn, and avoids interacting with him until the novel's climax.
* Glamour Failure: Most of the things that people get from Needful Things are junk, disguised as treasures by an implied magical illusion. The illusion fails sometimes, usually in a My God, What Have I Done? moment or when someone else's treasure is seen.
* Hair-Trigger Temper: Wilma Jerzyck.
* Harmful to Minors: Eleven year old Brian Rusk plays a seemingly harmless prank on Wilma Jerzyk that consists of throwing mud on her clean sheets and results in her and Nettie Cobb killing each other. He hears of their deaths and the role of the muddied sheets in their deaths and the guilt drives him to commit suicide in his garage in front of his seven year old brother.
* Hate Plague: Gaunt's influence makes the townspeople more agressive, to the point that they are willing to commit murder over pranks. When he's finally defeated, all fighting stops immediately.
* Henpecked Husband: Pete Jerzyck, Wilma's husband.
* Humanoid Abomination: Gaunt.
* Intrepid Merchant: Gaunt, again.
* It Got Worse
* Kaleidoscope Eyes: The first clue of Gaunt's supernatural nature is that his eye color is always what his current customer finds the most attractive.
* Kick the Dog: Nearly every character does it at some point.
* Last Dance: Nettie and Wilma.
* Lightning Bruiser: We see hints of this with Alan Pangborn when he reveals uncanny reflexes, and at one point Polly is incredulous that a man as big as him can move so quickly. He's so fast that at the climax, he can take Gaunt by surprise.
* Loads and Loads of Characters
* Lonely Doll Girl: Myrtle Keeton likes to be alone with the dolls she collects because they don't call her stupid, unlike her husband.
* Louis Cypher: It is slightly hinted that Gaunt is a demon that is been wandering on Earth for years, collecting souls and triggering chaos and death wherever he goes. In the movie, they explicitely try to show he is Satan himself.
* Manipulative Bastard: Gaunt is like Iago on a large scale. He takes the already existing grudges between the townspeople and makes them worse with his pranks, until they kill each other.
* Mercy Kill: Ace does this to Buster, after Norris shoots him in the stomach.
* Mistaken for Cheating: Non-comedic example. Gaunt manipulates both Sally Ratcliffe and Lester Pratt (who are engaged to each other) to believe that the other one is cheating. This eventually causes their deaths.
* Mutual Kill: Several examples.
* My God, What Have I Done?: Several of Gaunt's pawns have this reaction as they manage to break free of his influence. Three of them try to commit suicide. Two succeed. The third, Deputy Norris Ridgewick, stops himself when he realizes just how badly he was tricked, and takes a level in badass, as seen below, to help stop Gaunt.
* Nervous Wreck: Nettie is always tense and jumpy due to the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband. Keeton also gradually becomes this as paranoia sets in.
* Noodle Incident: Unusually, a future one (only in the movie):
* One-Scene Wonder: Many fans agree that Max Von Sydow's performance as Gaunt is the best reason to watch the movie adaptation. (Although obviously he has a LOT more participation than one scene...)
* Only Sane Man: Alan Pangborn, and even he is very nearly caught up in Gaunt's treachery.
* Paranoia Gambit: Gaunt basically pulls a huge one on the entire town. Everyone is assigned to pull a "prank" on someone they have no particular attachment to, positive or negative. Everyone on the receiving end thinks the prank was done by their worst enemy, and sets out for revenge on the wrong person.
* On a smaller scale, Wilma Jerzyck does this to Nettie Cobb, making threatening phone calls and slow drive-bys of her house just to freak her out.
* Parental Neglect: After Cora gets the sunglasses from Mr. Gaunt, she pretty much stops paying attention to her sons. When Brian commits suicide, she doesn't even realize what happened.
* Pet the Dog: After Gaunt is defeated, Reverend Willie and Father Brigham (who had just been trying to kill each other) are seen, badly injured, leaning on each other for support. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.
* Please Put Some Clothes On: When Cora Rusk angrily storms to Needful Things to see Mr. Gaunt after her visit with the King has been rudely interrupted by the presence of another woman,she doesn't realize that her nightgown is only partially buttoned and showing her privates until Mr. Gaunt points it out to her.
* Poisoned Weapons: The bullets from the guns Gaunt sells have some kind of unknown toxin on them, which causes slow and painful death (if the bullet wound itself isn't fatal).
* Precocious Crush: Eleven-year-old Brian has a crush on the teacher of his speech therapy class, Sally Ratcliffe.
* Pretentious Latin Motto: The shop has this motto on the wall: I DO NOT ISSUE REFUNDS OR MAKE EXCHANGES CAVEAT EMPTOR! (Latin for "let the buyer beware".)
* Pride: Polly's Fatal Flaw and what Gaunt uses to turn her against Pangborn. She eventually snaps out of it.
* Re Cut: TBS aired a version of the movie that was extended almost a full hour, restoring a ton a character scenes and story.
* Redemption Equals Death: Buster Keaton in the film.
* Shout-Out: The book contains several Shout Outs to the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Night-Gaunts are a fictional race that appears in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. Gaunt says that he got his cocaine from the Plains of Leng, a place that appears in several Lovecraft stories. Ace sees a graffiti that reads "Yog-Sothoth Rules". Yog-Sothoth is a cosmic entity in Lovecraft's work.
* Slasher Smile: Mr. Gaunt does this in private after he sells Brian the Sandy Koufax baseball card. Just one of the multiple hints that he is a Devil in Plain Sight and possibly the most obvious of the early ones.
* Sophisticated As Hell: Gaunt.
* Soul Jar: Gaunt collects the souls of people who died because of him, and somehow traps them in a valise.
* The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Somewhat subverted, as the building itself was there yesterday and will be there tomorrow: it's run as a perfectly normal small town curio store, complete with "coming soon" signs before the grand opening and regular business hours. (Tuesdays and Thursdays by appointment.) Less suspicious that way.
* The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Gaunt leaves a tape for his Dragon, Ace Merrill, giving instructions for what he should do. When Ace considers ignoring the instructions and just stealing Gaunt's stuff, the tape starts up again on its own and threatens him with a fate worse than death. It's at this point that Ace realizes that the tape player isn't even plugged in.
* Too Awesome to Use: Used in-universe; most people who buy their personal "needful thing" from Gaunt become too obsessed with protecting and guarding it to ever use it in the manner intended. It's implied that this is by design, lest someone else see and point out that their treasure is really junk. Unfortunately, this trend doesn't hold true when Gaunt starts selling guns...
* Took a Level In Badass: Norris Ridgewick, who first appeared as a Clueless Deputy in the previous novel The Dark Half. Here, he finishes off Gaunt's henchmen "Buster" Keeton and Ace.
* Treasure Map: Ace buys a Treasure Map from Gaunt to his uncle's fortune. At least that's what he thinks.
* Unusual Euphemism: Visiting with the King
* Went to the Great X In the Sky: "Pop Merrill's gone to that big flea-market in the sky".
* What Have We Ear?: Sheriff Pangborn, an amateur magician does the trick with Sean Rusk.
- Today's Shopping List Black Tar Cairn Bolete Cap Harrada Rot Scale Bone Marrow Funnel Seeds Wisp Stalk Caps Vampire Dust Note: See that stuffy Dark Elf with a stick up his bum about the dust. He's got plenty.
- The story is set in the small fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine, where a new shop named "Needful Things" opens, to the curiosity of the townspeople. The story starts out in first person with the narrator greeting the reader and moves to third-person, introducing each of the book's diverse cast of characters and their complicated histories. Castle Rock's citizens then begin to come into Needful Things, each of them drawn by an item they want more than anything else. They are all greeted by the seemingly kind old man claiming to be from Akron, Ohio[1] (a possible reference to Acheron), Leland Gaunt, and they all ignore the sign hanging in his shop, "Caveat emptor" ("Let the buyer beware"). One person after another buys the treasures he has in stock, paying surprisingly low prices and performing small "favors" (pranks) at his request. The person doing a prank usually knows the target, but has no real quarrel or relationship with him/her. Little by little, the pranks worsen existing grudges between the townspeople until they start turning against each other or themselves, nearly bringing about the violent destruction of the entire town. The first to enter the shop, Brian Rusk, buys a Sandy Koufax '56 TOPPS card for eighty-five cents and a prank to be played on Wilma Jerzyck, a bitter woman with a severe dislike of a woman named Nettie Cobb. Brian sneaks to Wilma's house while she is away and ruins her laundry sheets by flinging heaps of mud at them. At the scene, he leaves a note warning Wilma that it is her last warning. Wilma presumes the note to belong to Nettie Cobb due to their rivalry. Wilma warns Nettie over the phone that she will get revenge. Later, Brian is told that he must perform one more prank to finish paying for the card. He is sent to Wilma's house where he destroys her windows, tv, and microwave with large rocks. Meanwhile, the town drunk Hugh Priest buys a fox tail from Gaunt and pays for it by sneaking into Nettie's house and murdering her dog. Another note is left at this crime. The murder of her beloved dog leads Nettie to take a meat cleaver and head toward Wilma's house. At the same time, Wilma has seen the damage to her house and left with a large knife of her own. The two meet at a street corner and brutally murder each other. The gruesome scene is quickly discovered by police. Ace Merrill (whose uncle "Pop" Merrill appears in the short story 'The Sun Dog' from Four Past Midnight) buys a treasure map from Gaunt, paying by becoming Gaunt's shop assistant. His first job is to bring a large shipment of guns to Needful Things. The guns, automatic pistols with poison-tipped bullets, are eventually sold to all of Gaunt's customers after his business brings various grudges to the boiling point. Nettie Cobb, before her murder, buys a piece of carnival glass. Her payment comes in the form of wallpapering traffic violation warnings over every surface of Danforth Keeton's house while he's away. The violation slips are stamped with the name of town deputy Norris Ridgewick. Danforth "Buster" Keeton, gambling addict and Town Selectman, buys a game that allegedly predicts horse race winners. After seeing the violation slips papering his house, he confronts Ridgewick. Danforth, being a paranoid and mentally unstable man, begins to believe a shadowy cabal authority - "Them" - is persecuting him at every turn. He joins Ace Merrill as an assistant of Gaunt. Polly Chalmers, lover of Sheriff Alan Pangborn, buys a "magic" charm from Needful Things in a desperate attempt to cure her severely painful arthritis. Her payment is to plant a letter at one of the X's on the map Ace Merill bought. Ace believes his dead uncle "Pop" buried his riches. Unknown to Polly, the letter is a forged writing supposedly by Pangborn, mocking Ace and telling him that Pangborn got the treasure first. Ace becomes furious and plans to murder Sheriff Pangborn. Another to buy from Needful Things is Cora Rusk, Brian's obese mother. She purchases a pair of sunglasses said to have belonged to her celebrity crush Elvis Presley. Her friend Myra Evans, also a Presley fan, buys a photo of the man. When each holds their respective item, they enter an illusionary world in which they enjoy progressively kinkier sexual pleasures with "The King". Eventually, Cora discovers Myra in this "other world" and goes to her house to kill her. Myra, however, is prepared for her, and shoots her fatally. Hugh Priest's car is later vandalized by another Needful Things buyer. A note is left framing Henry Beaufort, the owner of Castle Rock's only tavern. Hugh heads to the tavern - The Mellow Tiger - to murder Henry. At the same time, Henry finds his own car ruined and a note framing Hugh. When they meet at The Mellow Tiger, Hugh is killed instantly by a shotgun blast to the chest, while Henry has a lung punctured by an automatic pistol Hugh purchased from Gaunt and dies slowly. He is rescued later to die in the emergency room. A man named Lester Pratt has his skull broken open when he attacks John LaPointe at the police station. A photo had earlier been planted in Pratt's car by the stuttering "Slopey" Dodd, leading Lester to think his girlfriend Sally Ratcliffe was having an affair with LaPointe. Before this, a letter and photos were planted to lead Sally to think Lester was cheating on her. She cuts off all contact with Lester without explanation and later hangs herself over the guilt of his death. Frank Jewett, Brian's school principal, a cocaine addict, and a closet pedophile, finds pedophilia magazines strewn all over his office - Sally Ratcliffe's payment to Gaunt - with a note from his "friend" George Nelson, also a coke addict and pedophile. Frank breaks into George's house and kills his pet parakeet, destroys his various possessions and furniture, then defecates on a framed photo of George's mother. The two meet on the steps of the town hall and prepare to kill each other. Danforth eventually murders his wife. Andy Clutterbuck's wife is murdered due to a case of mistaken identity. The Baptists and Catholics of the town - already in a religious rivalry - are turned against each other by "favors" performed for Gaunt and a massive, murderous battle breaks out in the middle of town. Finally, Gaunt begins to sell his poison-bullet automatic pistols (which will be used by Hugh, Cora, and Myra, among others). Ace Merrill and Danforth "Buster" Keeton begin, on Gaunt's orders, to plant dynamite around the town. They are caught by Norris Ridgewick who shoots Danforth - and is shot himself - and escapes. Ace, seeing Danforth suffering from the fatal gunshot, shoots him three times in the head as a mercy killing. Meanwhile, Brian Rusk, tortured by his guilt in playing a role in Wilma and Nettie's murders and maddened by his obsession over the card Gaunt sold him, commits suicide via shotgun after making his younger brother Sean promise to never buy anything from Needful Things. Sean Rusk is taken, in a state of shock, to the hospital in another town. Alan Pangborn, head sheriff of town, has grown increasingly suspicious of the chaos in town and visits Sean in the hospital. After Sean tells him about his promise to Brian, Alan's suspicions about the source of the chaos prove true and he orders Gaunt arrested. It is explained that Gaunt has, for centuries, been wandering through different countries and selling people useless junk. These objects appear to the buyer to be whatever they want most, and once acquired, have the power to strongly affect their moods. Buyers develop severe paranoia and anxiety if they are not physically holding the purchased items. By threatening to either take away the item, destroy it, or remove its power, Gaunt is able to blackmail, coerce, and intimidate his customers into doing whatever he wants. In the end "he always sells weapons", which everyone eagerly buys so they can defend their property. Sheriff Pangborn immediately heads back to Castle Rock and enters Needful Things to find it empty, but he finds a videotape on the counter with a note from Gaunt telling him it will reveal how his wife and son died years earlier. The tape shows Ace Merrill running their car off the road into the tree that kills them. Alan leaves the shop to kill Ace Merill. Polly, who has realized her "favor" to Gaunt has set up Alan's murder, removes the charm she bought and kills the creature inside that was feeding on her arthritic pain before heading to Needful Things. She sees Alan and brings him to his senses only to be taken hostage by Ace Merrill, who threatens to kill her unless Alan gives him the treasure he stole. Norris Ridgewick, who had been prepared to commit suicide before realizing he still had his duty as a police officer, arrives a distance away and prepares to shoot Ace, until he sees Polly blocking his shot. At this time, Gaunt is preparing to leave. Alan, ignoring Ace, quickly confronts him and steals his briefcase which, Alan correctly believes, contains the captured souls of everyone who bought from Needful Things, holding them under Gaunt's power. While Ace is distracted by the confrontation, Polly escapes his grasp. Norris, now having a clear shot, kills Ace with a bullet straight to the head. Gaunt becomes annoyed, agitated, then furious, and attacks Alan. Alan avoids the potentially fatal strike and produces a bouquet of paper flowers from a magician's trick he carries with him. The bouquet emits a blinding white light which appears to harm Gaunt, causing his human facade to melt away and reveal his true form as a slightly reptilian, dwarf-like humanoid. His car, parked nearby, transforms into a carriage pulled by a single deathly-white horse with glowing red eyes. The words on the side of the carriage read "Caveat Emptor" ("Buyer Beware"). Leland Gaunt leaves town in the carriage, which flies, and the town is destroyed by mass riots, murder, and numerous explosions of dynamite. Those who have survived the entire harrowing ordeal find themselves facing an uncertain future in what is left of Castle Rock. The novel ends as it began, in the first-person welcome to the reader as a new person in town. The beginning and end of the book are almost word for word with the only real difference being the setting and the name of the store. In the beginning of the book, the reader was welcomed to Castle Rock, noting the new sign for Needful Things. In the end, the narrator welcomes the reader to Junction City, Iowa, noting the new sign for the store "Answered Prayers" - suggesting that Leland Gaunt has set up shop someplace else to begin his business cycle all over again.
- Needful Things is the name of an antique shop run by Mr. Needful. It appeared in the episode "Something Ricked This Way Comes". Summer's first job was working at the shop. Needful Things was a shop that sold cursed items to unsuspecting customers. The merchandise was sold by informing the buyer of its "positive" effects, never mentioning the ironic curse attached to the object. Mr. Needful never asked for money in return for the items, saying that customers "never pay here... not with money" (implying that the curses are the customers' form of payment). The shop was successful until Rick, annoyed that Mr. Needful attempted to curse him and secretly jealous of Mr. Needful and Summer's grandfather/granddaughter relationship, decided to ruin Mr. Needful's business. Rick opened Curse Purge Plus! to remove the curses from the items while keeping their benefits using science and technology. Because Needful Things did not charge for its items, the inventory was soon cleared out and the curses removed, driving the shop to bankruptcy. After extensive work and modernizing by Mr. Needful and Summer, Needful Things became n33dful.com. The negative effects only appear to come into play after an item has been removed from the shop, as Summer is able to use a monkey paw's three wishes without consequence. Other explanations could be that Summer has employee benefits and can get items free, or that she was affected and the effects just haven't kicked in yet.
- Needful Things received generally negative reviews from critics. Still it was nominated at the 1993 Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films Awards for three Saturn Awards and won one: Amanda Plummer for best supporting actress.
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