Insomnia Film Stephen King
Torie Crivello
Insomnia is a 1994 horror/fantasy novel by American writer Stephen King. It follows retired widower Ralph Roberts, whose increasing insomnia allows him to perceive auras and other hidden things, leading him to join a conflict between the forces of the Purpose and the Random. Like It and Dreamcatcher, the story is set in the fictional town of Derry, Maine. It includes connections to other Stephen King stories, particularly his novel series The Dark Tower. Insomnia was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel in 1994.[1]
The story is set in the fictional town of Derry, Maine. Retiree Ralph Roberts encounters his formerly good-natured acquaintance Ed Deepneau at the local airfield. Ed is aggressive and swearing obscenely at a driver he accuses of secretly transporting fetal tissue from abortions. Some months later, Ralph (now a widower) encounters Ed's wife Helen who has been badly beaten by her husband after having signed a pro-choice petition. Months later, Helen leaves Ed and hides at a women's shelter.
Ralph begins to suffer from sleep maintenance insomnia, waking earlier each night until he is barely able to sleep an hour each night. As his insomnia develops, he begins to see things invisible and intangible to others: colorful manifestations of life-force surrounding people (auras) and diminutive white-coated beings he calls "little bald doctors", based on their appearance. He gradually concludes these are not hallucinations but genuine things present on a different level of reality. He realizes that Ed also sees these things. Ralph's friend Lois Chasse admits to him that she too has recently begun seeing auras which she can interpret.
Ralph and Lois encounter two bald doctors, calling themselves Clotho and Lachesis, who act with dignity and free people from life when it is "their time" to pass away. A third bald doctor, Atropos, is a crazed rogue who seems to delight in disrupting lives and prematurely ending them. Ralph and Lois learn that life is largely governed by "The Purpose" and "The Random", forces or entities which are not enemies so much as opposites. Ed is one of a few very rare beings who is not assigned to either force and can, therefore, greatly change existence.
Ralph and Lois learn of the "Crimson King," a shape-shifting higher-dimensional being who feeds on negative emotions and craves chaos to rule over. The Crimson King has sent Atropos to manipulate Ed as part of a plan to upset the entire order of the universe. Unable to intervene directly, Clotho and Lachesis, agents of the Purpose, gave Ralph and Lois insomnia to help them perceive, gain and even access other levels of reality so they can defeat Atropos. The benign bald doctors describe these levels as beams of a "skyscraper", and Ralph has a vision of The Dark Tower, a representation of the multiverse.
Controversial pro-choice activist Susan Day is due to talk at the Derry civic center. Lois and Ralph see the building shrouded by a black aura, signifying a dark future. The Crimson King has been provoking Ed's feelings regarding abortion, turning him into a violent and paranoid fanatic. With a small plane containing C-4 explosives, Ed intends to make a kamikaze attack on the civic center during Day's speech, killing her and everyone within. Lois and Ralph are resentful at being manipulated by outside forces but decide they must prevent the attack.
Allies of Ed set fire to the shelter where Helen has been staying since leaving him. Ralph and Lois save the residents, then seek out Atropos. Ralph overcomes the malicious being, extracting a promise from Atropos that he will not interfere with him and Lois, knowing the little bald doctors are bound to their promises. Once released, Atropos torments Ralph with a vision of a car accident in the near future that will take the life of Helen's young daughter Natalie. Her death will be retaliation for Atropos not being able to interfere with Ralph.
Ralph tells the benign bald doctors he will not stop Ed unless they allow him to save Natalie later, offering his own life for hers. A higher-level entity briefly manifests, causing awe in Clotho and Lachesis as it declares that Ralph's terms are acceptable. He and Lois learn that "almost all of reality has stopped to watch the events unfolding," as the success or failure of Ed's attack could affect all of reality. The Crimson King's true target is not Day, as they had assumed, but a boy from the shelter who will be in the audience: Patrick Danville, a young artist prophesied to one day play an instrumental role in preserving the Dark Tower and aiding in the defeat of the Crimson King. The Crimson King has repeatedly tried to end the life of a "messiah" but in Derry, a place of convergence, this is now possible.
Ed takes off in his plane and Ralph fights him on board. The Crimson King manifests to prevent him from interrupting Ed's mission, but Ralph succeeds in causing the plane to crash some distance away from the center, surviving by shifting himself to a higher plane of reality before impact. Returning to his proper place and reality, Ralph and Lois fall in love and get married, gradually forgetting their adventures with the little bald doctors.
In an epilogue taking place some years later, Ralph again starts experiencing insomnia. He once again sees auras and eventually remembers the promise he made to exchange his life for Natalie's. He arrives in time to see the car from his vision appear and veer towards Natalie. Ralph pushes her to safety, losing his own life in the process. He dies peacefully with Lois at his side as Clotho and Lachesis watch over him.
Horror master Stephen King's 1994 horror-fantasy novel Insomnia deserves a movie adaptation. The book, which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel the year it was released, has numerous classic King story elements that would certainly transfer well to the big screen. The story of Insomnia centers on the character Ralph Roberts, who is a retired widower. Ralph suffers from severe insomnia; he keeps waking up from his sleep during the night. Each night, he awakes earlier and earlier, and eventually starts living off of barely an hour of sleep each night.
As his situation gets worse, Ralph begins to see strange phenomena, like color manifestations - or auras - of people and strange white-coated creatures he refers to as "little bald doctors." Soon enough, he realizes what he's seeing are things from another level of reality. As the book goes on, things get exciting and scary; a villain named "the Crimson King" - who feeds on fear and grief - attempts to undo the entire order of the universe. It turns out Ralph, along with his friend Lois, must intervene to help save the day.
The book has several themes and lessons posed throughout its pages. Abortion, for example, is one of several hot-button issues King touches on throughout the story, which opens the door for Insomnia to fit into the popular social and political horror trend. In the second half of Insomnia, things get more action-packed as Ralph fights a character on a plane and survives a crash by entering a different reality. Viewers could easily be on the edges of their seats if they saw these events on the screen, and would surely be chilled by the story's ending. These elements, and more, make Insomnia the perfect book to be turned into a movie, especially given the success other King adaptations have enjoyed in recent years.
The book Insomnia has many connections to other King works, so fans of the author's other movie and TV show adaptations would certainly be pleased with those references, if they were to be included in the movie. For one, the book takes place in the infamous fictional town of Derry, Maine. Pennywise, the evil clown from IT, is oft mentioned in the book; the Crimson King shares many qualities with Pennywise - like shape-shifting and taking the form(s) of whatever people fear - and even makes references to the events of IT. [On a separate note, many King fans think the Crimson King is Pennywise - or at least related to him.] The Crimson King also directly ties Insomnia to King's Dark Tower series of books, in which he's a key villain. Plus, Ralph has visions of the Dark Tower itself. Insomnia also includes references to Gerald's Game and Pet Sematary. The movie would certainly be perfect for another famous Stephen King cameo.
In recent years, there's been a slew of television and movie adaptations of Stephen King works, as well as remakes of older adaptations, like Pet Sematary and Carrie. Some of these adaptations ended up being panned by critics, but many of them have been welcomed and acclaimed by audiences and critics alike. To mention just a handful of them: The Dark Tower was released in 2017, IT in 2017 and its sequel in 2019, and Gerald's Game in 2017. Given the seemingly everlasting status of King's enduring popularity, his stories seem to not go out of style. As adaptations of his works are arguably more popular than ever, now is the perfect time to adapt one of his lesser-known works.
If the lead part of the protagonist, Ralph, were to go to a high-profile actor, the movie version of Stephen King's Insomnia could draw additional appeal. Mainstream releases tend to rely on A-list cast members to boost chances of success, but King's name still carries weight on its own. Plus, the visual elements described in the book would look great on the big screen; the auras and the various beings Ralph encounters could be designed expertly with CGI. Overall, Ralph is a relatable character who could earn new appreciation in a movie version. Insomnia's enthralling story of an ordinary man's supernatural journey also would be relatable to a broad audience, which is always a good target to hit.
By now, most new Stephen King fans find themselves reading his books because they've seen his screen adaptations, not the other way around. It's hard to believe that after 49 years of his writing and 49 screen adaptations, not all of King's novels have even been put to the screen yet! Twenty of his novels are still yet to be given the movie or TV treatment, and these are the top 10 that need to be adapted:
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