AllMovie

Masters of Horror creator Mick Garris joins forces with literary horror icon Stephen King for this, the pair's sixth onscreen collaboration. In the wind-swept Nevada town of Desperation, a malevolent sheriff (Ron Perlman) delivers arrestees to a jail cell from which, by all accounts, no one has emerged alive. The streets are littered with the corpses of dead residents, and it appears that a sinister supernatural force has tightened its deadly grip on the once-thriving community. Arrested by the sinister lawman and subsequently thrown behind bars, a vacationing family, a traveling writer (Tom Skeritt), and a drifting hitchhiker (Steven Weber) narrowly thwart death by escaping their cold metal confines. Upon coming into contact with a mysterious prepubescent boy named David (Shane Haboucha) who seems to possesses an eerie insight into the ancient evil that haunts the town, the brave group boldly determines to solve the combat the evil that has infected this desolate landscape. Despite some notable help from the surviving town veteran (Charles Durning) and the dejected female half of a married couple (Annabeth Gish) who recently incurred the wrath of the nefarious sheriff, this unlikely band of weakened mortals seems no match for the powerful evil that now inhabits the town of Desperation.