Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King/Battleground

Battleground
Episode 1
Airdate	July 12, 2006
Written by	Richard Christian Matheson
Directed by	Brian Henson
— N/A	2 → Crouch End
Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King

Battleground is the first episode of Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King. Hitman Jason Renshaw receives a present of army men in the mail a short time after he had killed a toy maker. However these toy soldiers come to life and Renshaw's apartment becomes a war zone.

Starring: William Hurt (Jason Renshaw)

Co-Stars: Bruce Spence (Hans Morris), Mia Sara (Beautiful Passenger), Krista Vendy (Front Desk Clerk), Lynda Kinkade (CNN Anchor), Enrico Mammarella (Guard #1), Brad McMurray (Guard #2), Jackie Kelleher (Hans Morris Mother)

Plot Overview

A man breaks into a building and only steals a ballerina figurine, but not before killing the toy manufacturer. When he gets home he receives a package containing toys of army men. He walks away heading to bed but hears that the package has fallen to the floor. He explores to see if anyone else is there, and when he reaches the package all of the army men have disappeared.

When trying to find them, the army men begin to launch an assault on the man. He runs into his bedroom but later comes back out and fights back, first with a handgun and then with a machine gun under the bar. However there are more soldiers who come out with helicopters and force him back into his bedroom. Eventually they break through the door and the man must fight back. He continues to do this until they begin shooting cannons through the door and then he escapes through the window onto the ledges of the building.

The army of helicopters follow him there. He runs out of bullets and tries to make a run. He finds his way back to his balcony. He uses a rubber duck to distract the soldiers while he gets back into the apartment and puts a fire hydrant on the cannon team and uses a hairspray and lighter to burn the ground soldiers. After killing the remaining soldiers he puts them into a garbage disposal.

However he finds that they are not dead when he is attacked while in the jacuzzi. He decides to leave and go to the hospital, but his elevator is damaged by the soldiers who then launch a covert attack with him inside. He manages to escape to the ground floor by hopping on an adjacent elevator but the one remaining soldier has come with him and tries to finish him off by stabbing him in the chest. The man pretends to be dead to lure the soldier but then grabs him and sticks him in between the closing elevator doors. However, the soldier was rigged with a nuclear bomb that takes out much of the building.

Notes

• There is no dialogue in this episode. While the man is in the airport we briefly see a news cast with a reporter talking, but there is no dialogue between any characters.
• This episode brought in 5.2 million viewers. That made it the 2nd most watched TV show, and 4th most watched program, on cable for the week of July 10-16, 2006.

Trivia

• The story of Battleground is taken from the short-story collection Night Shift, not Nightmares & Dreamscapes.

Reviews

• Overall Grade: B- with 1 review
• Review Breakdown: A+: 0 A: 0 A-: 0 B+: 0 B: 0 B-: 1 C+: 0 C: 0 C-: 0 D: 0 F: 0
• B- This is a promising start to the "softcore" horror series on TNT. I say that because they managed to take one of my least favorite Stephen King shorts and make it rather fun and suspenseful. And I love how they managed to keep it completely in the quite; though I think if they had dropped the music in addition to the dialogue it would have been even more intense. Nevertheless this is a fairly solid first episode. --MateoP 09:35, 16 July 2006 (EDT)