This movie was so-so. It had a few twists and turns that surprised me, so at least it wasn't completely straightforward, but it really seemed to get more and more predictable as it went on.
One big thing that surprised me was that, before I started watching it, I was expecting a sort of re-hashing of another of Stephen King's novel-to-movie translations, Misery. Mainly, I was expecting the novelist in this movie to be the good guy through and through, so I was surprised that he turned out to be the crazy one.
I have found that, as gripping as Stephen King's novels can be to read, they don't survive the leap to screen particularly well. So many of the movies made from his books seem rather corny (hah, I guess that's a pun for this one... a steaming bowl of corn...) and false, perhaps even melodramatic. There are a few notable exceptions, done with more subtlety; The Shining was one of the good ones. He also had a few that were kind of a departure for King, containing a tension common to most of his work but with a very different subject matter (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile). Most of his other movies I've seen (like this movie, and Pet Sematary) were just somewhat overdone.
The creepiest part of this movie was during one of Mort's first naps when he dreams, without sound, that something is shaking the door to his cabin while a weird glowing blue light shines in from the outside. Too bad the rest of the movie couldn't maintain near the amount of tension found in that brief scene. The fact that there was no sound to that scene was definitely a plus. The wrong music or sound effects would have completely negated the scary factor.
At least I got my ironing done while watching this movie, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.
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