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* AFatherToHisMen: Sheriff Pangborn. Much more pronounced in the book than the movie, though.
* AdaptationalHeroism: Danforth "Buster" Keeton in the books is an unpleasant person through-and-through, even before he goes crazy. He browbeats his wife (and later murders her), bullies skinny Norris Ridgewick and is so rotten that even mild-mannered Sheriff Pangborn finds himself quietly wishing Buster would just die and spare everyone around him his presence. In the movie, however, a lot of this is toned down: his personality is more small-town yokel than pompous prick, he confesses his embezzlement to Alan outright and levels with him as an equal, and in the movie's climax he even turns on Gaunt outright.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Gaunt in the books is no saint, but in the movie he is all-but-stated to be the actual devil, and in the Needful Things basement Sheriff Pangborn finds a number of old newspapers implying Gaunt to be responsible or at least involved in various disasters of the 20th century. He also gets to add RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil to his belt.
* AdaptedOut: Too many to count, but a special mention should be made for John "Ace" Merrill, the villain of earlier King work ''The Body'' (adapted into the film ''Film/StandByMe''). In the book he is a fairly significant presence, acting as Gaunt's PsychoForHire and the closest thing he has to a [[TheDragon Dragon]], but in the movie he simply never returns to Castle Rock and Gaunt is never given an accomplice at all (he tricks Buster into doing his bidding for a time, but even he turns on Gaunt eventually).
* AdaptationalHeroism: Danforth "Buster" Keeton in the books is an unpleasant person through-and-through, even before he goes crazy. He browbeats his wife (and later murders her), bullies skinny Norris Ridgewick and is so rotten that even mild-mannered Sheriff Pangborn finds himself quietly wishing Buster would just die and spare everyone around him his presence. In the movie, however, a lot of this is toned down: his personality is more small-town yokel than pompous prick, he confesses his embezzlement to Alan outright and levels with him as an equal, and in the movie's climax he even turns on Gaunt outright.
* AdaptationalVillainy: Gaunt in the books is no saint, but in the movie he is all-but-stated to be the actual devil, and in the Needful Things basement Sheriff Pangborn finds a number of old newspapers implying Gaunt to be responsible or at least involved in various disasters of the 20th century. He also gets to add RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil to his belt.
* AdaptedOut: Too many to count, but a special mention should be made for John "Ace" Merrill, the villain of earlier King work ''The Body'' (adapted into the film ''Film/StandByMe''). In the book he is a fairly significant presence, acting as Gaunt's PsychoForHire and the closest thing he has to a [[TheDragon Dragon]], but in the movie he simply never returns to Castle Rock and Gaunt is never given an accomplice at all (he tricks Buster into doing his bidding for a time, but even he turns on Gaunt eventually).
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* CoolCar: Gaunt's Tucker Talisman... which is more than just a car.
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* CoolCar: Book Gaunt's Tucker Talisman... which is more than just a car. In the movie it's just a black Mercedes with no supernatural elements.
* DoingInTheWizard: Of a sort in the movie. While Gaunt is practically stated outright to be the devil, very few of his supernatural elements and abilities actually survive the transition between the book and the film. The climax in particular, which is much more epic in the book, is downgraded to Gaunt simply tanking a huge explosion and then arrogantly sauntering to his car.
* DuelingMessiahs: Reverend Rose of the Baptists and Father Brigham of the Catholics. Made explicit in the movie when Reverend Rose shows up at Wilma's funeral and both pastors start trying to drown each other out with their respective prayers for the deceased.
* EyeColourChange: Book Gaunt's eyes change color depending on who he is talking to, seemingly adopted whatever color will soothe or ingratiate him to them most. In one chapter he even goes full KaleidoscopeEyes.
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* FromBadToWorse
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* FromBadToWorseFromBadToWorse: The story in a nutshell.
** This is disappointingly subverted in the film, which has Gaunt meet with Pangborn early and even in the climax has no fear at all of him.
** Gaunt himself also experiences significant glamour failure in the book, [[spoiler:particularly in the climax where being pressed by Sheriff Pangborn makes it much harder for him to maintain his disguise. After being trashed by The White, his true form is revealed for all too see and he rides out of town screaming in his CoolCar, which is also quickly revealed to be demonic in nature]].
* {{Jesus}}: Directly namedropped by Gaunt in the movie as part of his upgrade from demonic entity to the actual devil.
-->'''Gaunt:''' "The young carpenter from Nazareth? I knew him well. Promising young man. Died badly.'"
-->'''Gaunt:''' "The young carpenter from Nazareth? I knew him well. Promising young man. Died badly.'"
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* KickTheDog: Nearly every character does it at some point.
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* KickTheDog: Nearly every character does it at some point.point, but Hugh Priest takes it ''literally'' with poor Raider.
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* LightningBruiser: 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.
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* LightningBruiser: 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. Subverted with movie Pangborn, who is allowed to save Brian Rusk only to be unceremoniously shot in the climax.
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* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters
* LonelyDollGirl: Myrtle Keeton likes to be alone with the dolls she collects because they don't call her stupid, unlike her husband.
* LonelyDollGirl: Myrtle Keeton likes to be alone with the dolls she collects because they don't call her stupid, unlike her husband.
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* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters
LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: Particularly in the novel. Many of them were AdaptedOut of the movie out of sheer practicality's sake.
* LonelyDollGirl: Myrtle Keeton likes to be alone with the dolls she collects because they don't call her stupid, unlike her husband. This is adapted out in the movie, which seems to merge her character with the snooty Lenore Potter to make Buster more sympathetic.
* LonelyDollGirl: Myrtle Keeton likes to be alone with the dolls she collects because they don't call her stupid, unlike her husband. This is adapted out in the movie, which seems to merge her character with the snooty Lenore Potter to make Buster more sympathetic.
* MadeOfIron: Movie Gaunt walks out of an explosion large enough to blow his whole shop to smithereens none the worse for wear. The book version was not nearly so untouchable, experiencing a slow but steady GlamourFailure in the chapters leading up to the climax.
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* MercyKill: [[spoiler: Ace does this to Buster, after Norris shoots him in the stomach.]]
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* MeaningfulName: In a work chock-full of references to the works of Creator/HPLovecraft, it's a pretty safe bet that Leland ''Gaunt'' wasn't named at random.
* MercyKill: [[spoiler: Ace does this toBuster, Buster in the book, after Norris shoots him in the stomach.]]
* MercyKill: [[spoiler: Ace does this to
* MistreatmentInducedBetrayal: Gaunt in the movie gives Dan Keeton the manhandling he gives Ace in the books in response to catching him praying "on his time". Later in the climax he hectors and calls him "Buster" one time too many.
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* OneWingedAngel: Hinted at when Gaunt advises Ace not to make him mad. Ace asks if he would "Hulk out", and though Gaunt seems annoyed at first, yes, he assents, he would "HulkOut". And later, when Ace ''does'' make him angry, Gaunt's face turns into "a horror of eyes and teeth" blowing steam, his hands become talons and he threatens to disembowel Ace.
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* OminousLatinChanting: The movie soundtrack is ''full'' of it.
* OneWingedAngel: Hinted at in the book when Gaunt advises Ace not to make him mad. Ace asks if he would "Hulk out", and though Gaunt seems annoyed at first, yes, he assents, he would "HulkOut". And later, when Ace ''does'' make him angry, Gaunt's face turns into "a horror of eyes and teeth" blowing steam, his hands become talons and he threatens to disembowel Ace.
* OneWingedAngel: Hinted at in the book when Gaunt advises Ace not to make him mad. Ace asks if he would "Hulk out", and though Gaunt seems annoyed at first, yes, he assents, he would "HulkOut". And later, when Ace ''does'' make him angry, Gaunt's face turns into "a horror of eyes and teeth" blowing steam, his hands become talons and he threatens to disembowel Ace.
* PsychopathicManchild: Buster and to some degree even Gaunt himself in the movie. The way he eggs on Pangborn and Buster with grade-school taunts like "Wussy!" destroys his SophisticatedAsHell façade more effectively than any bomb ever could.
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Gaunt in the books is fairly indifferent to sex outside of one strange conversation with Myra Evans. In the movie he has not one but ''two'' sexual encounters with Polly Chalmers, and in both of them he's pretty obviously using his supernatural powers to mind whammy her into indulging him.
* Really700YearsOld: Gaunt. Practically spelled out for viewers in the movie:
-->'''Norris Ridgewick:''' ''Come on, Alan... 1894?''
-->'''Norris Ridgewick:''' ''Come on, Alan... 1894?''
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* ShoutOut: The book contains several {{Shout Out}}s to the work of Creator/HPLovecraft. 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.
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* ShoutOut: The book contains several {{Shout Out}}s to the work of Creator/HPLovecraft. 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. stories, and later Gaunt sends Ace to a Cambridge slum that is heavily implied to be at least a part of Leng itself. While examining Gaunt's garage, Ace sees a graffiti that reads "Yog-Sothoth Rules". Yog-Sothoth is a cosmic entity in Lovecraft's work.
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* SoulJar: Gaunt collects the souls of people who died because of him, and somehow traps them in a valise.
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* SoulJar: Book Gaunt collects the souls of people who died because of him, and somehow traps them in a valise.valise.
* SoundtrackDissonance: The brutal fight/murder between Nettie and Wilma in the movie is set to Schubert's "Ave Maria", a composition commonly used for this trope.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Brian Rusk survives his suicide attempt in the movie, in the book he is not so lucky.
* SoundtrackDissonance: The brutal fight/murder between Nettie and Wilma in the movie is set to Schubert's "Ave Maria", a composition commonly used for this trope.
* SparedByTheAdaptation: Brian Rusk survives his suicide attempt in the movie, in the book he is not so lucky.
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* LastDance: [[spoiler: Nettie and Wilma.]]
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* LastDance: TheLastDance: [[spoiler: Nettie and Wilma.]]
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** The stink bombs kill at least one person and injure many others, since they cause a stampede toward doors that had been barred beforehand.
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* ImposterForgotOneDetail: In an attempt to get Pangborn into the spiral of murder overtaking the town, Gaunt shows him an illusion of [[spoiler:his wife and son's car being hit by one driven by Ace]]. Pangborn realizes it's a fake when [[spoiler:he realizes they're wearing their seatbelts in the illusion - the reason they died in real life]].
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* HypocriticalHumor: Keeton is outraged when Mr. Gaunt sends Ace Merrill to help him -- Ace is, after all, a ''criminal''. If this is meant to be PlayedForLaughs, though, it's a very dark joke indeed: Keeton has been embezzling for years, [[spoiler:just beat his long-suffering wife's head in with a hammer, and is now planning to blow up most of the town with dynamite.]] Of course, by this point, Keeton is completely insane.
* ImposterForgotOneDetail: In an attempt to get Pangborn into the spiral of murder overtaking the town, Gaunt shows him an illusion of [[spoiler:his wife and son's car being hit by one driven by Ace]]. Pangborn realizes it's a fake when [[spoiler:he realizes they're wearing their seatbelts in the illusion -the reason when they died in real life]].life specifically because they weren't]].
* ImposterForgotOneDetail: In an attempt to get Pangborn into the spiral of murder overtaking the town, Gaunt shows him an illusion of [[spoiler:his wife and son's car being hit by one driven by Ace]]. Pangborn realizes it's a fake when [[spoiler:he realizes they're wearing their seatbelts in the illusion -
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* PoliceAreUseless: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Sheriff Pangborn is 100% solid {{Badass}} to the point that even Gaunt knows to stay clear of him, and deputies Norris, Andy, John, and Seat all pull their weight in trying to save the town, even after getting the crap kicked out of them. The importance of dispatchers are also highlighted late in the book, playing an important role in saving the town, both by simply begin dispatch as well as joining in the brawl when the police station is under attack.
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* PoliceAreUseless: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Sheriff Pangborn is 100% solid {{Badass}} to the point that even Gaunt knows to stay clear of him, and deputies Norris, Andy, John, and Seat all pull their weight in trying to save the town, even after getting the crap kicked out of them. The importance of dispatchers are also highlighted late in the book, playing an important role in saving the town, both by simply begin being dispatch as well as joining in the brawl when the police station is under attack.
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* PoliceAreUseless: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Sheriff Pangborn is 100% solid {{Badass}} to the point that even Gaunt knows to stay clear of him, and deputies Norris, Andy, and John all pull their weight in trying to save the town, even after getting the crap kicked out of them.
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* PoliceAreUseless: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Sheriff Pangborn is 100% solid {{Badass}} to the point that even Gaunt knows to stay clear of him, and deputies Norris, Andy, John, and John Seat all pull their weight in trying to save the town, even after getting the crap kicked out of them.them. The importance of dispatchers are also highlighted late in the book, playing an important role in saving the town, both by simply begin dispatch as well as joining in the brawl when the police station is under attack.
** RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Aside from Alan himself, this is what the Castle County Sheriff's Office seems to be made up of. Alan is quite aware of it, but he's AFatherToHisMen and won't have anyone mistreating them. His loyalty to them is repaid in spades, as their inner badasses are all brought out over the course of the book.
** RagtagBunchOfMisfits: Aside from Alan himself, this is what the Castle County Sheriff's Office seems to be made up of. Alan is quite aware of it, but he's AFatherToHisMen and won't have anyone mistreating them. His loyalty to them is repaid in spades, as their inner badasses are all brought out over the course of the book.
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* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler: Buster Keaton in the film.]]
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* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler: Buster Keaton Keeton in the film.]]
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* TookALevelInBadass: Norris Ridgewick, who first appeared as a CluelessDeputy in the previous novel ''Literature/TheDarkHalf''. [[spoiler: Here, he finishes off Gaunt's henchmen "Buster" Keeton and Ace]]. ''Literature/BagOfBones'' reveals he goes on to become sheriff of Castle County.
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* TookALevelInBadass: All of Alan's deputies over the course of the novel, but especially Norris Ridgewick, who first appeared as a CluelessDeputy in the previous novel ''Literature/TheDarkHalf''. [[spoiler: Here, he finishes off Gaunt's henchmen "Buster" Keeton and Ace]]. ''Literature/BagOfBones'' reveals he goes on to become sheriff of Castle County.
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* RageBreakingPoint: Nettie Cobb endured years of abuse from her husband...until he broke one of her pieces of carnival glass and she stabbed him to death in his sleep.
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* OneWingedAngel: Hinted at when Gaunt advises Ace not to make him mad. Ace asks if he would "Hulk out", and though Gaunt seems annoyed at first, yes, he assents, he would "HulkOut". And later, when Ace *does* make him angry, Gaunt's face turns into "a horror of eyes and teeth" blowing steam, his hands become talons and he threatens to disembowel Ace.
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* OneWingedAngel: Hinted at when Gaunt advises Ace not to make him mad. Ace asks if he would "Hulk out", and though Gaunt seems annoyed at first, yes, he assents, he would "HulkOut". And later, when Ace *does* ''does'' make him angry, Gaunt's face turns into "a horror of eyes and teeth" blowing steam, his hands become talons and he threatens to disembowel Ace.
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* OneWingedAngel: Hinted at when Gaunt advises Ace not to make him mad. Ace asks if he would "Hulk out", and though Gaunt seems annoyed at first, yes, he assents, he would "HulkOut". However, in the long run, we never actually see him do it.
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* OneWingedAngel: Hinted at when Gaunt advises Ace not to make him mad. Ace asks if he would "Hulk out", and though Gaunt seems annoyed at first, yes, he assents, he would "HulkOut". However, in the long run, we never actually see And later, when Ace *does* make him do it.angry, Gaunt's face turns into "a horror of eyes and teeth" blowing steam, his hands become talons and he threatens to disembowel Ace.
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* OneWingedAngel: Hinted at when Gaunt advises Ace not to make him mad. Ace asks if he would "Hulk out", and though Gaunt seems annoyed at first, yes, he assents, he would "HulkOut". However, in the long run, we never actually see him do it.
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* TheEighties: King has stated that Needful Things is the greedy, negative parts of the decade distilled down into one store.
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* TheEighties: King has stated that Needful Things is the greedy, negative parts of the decade distilled down into one store.
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Aphabetizing.
* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: 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.
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* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: 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.
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* ADateWithRosiePalms: Myra's regular [[UnusualEuphemism visits with the King]] after she buys a framed photo of Elvis Presley from Mr. Gaunt.
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* ADateWithRosiePalms: Myra's regular [[UnusualEuphemism visits with the King]] after she buys a framed photo of Elvis Presley from Mr. Gaunt. Same case with Cora Rusk, only with a pair of (supposedly) the King's sunglasses.
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** How Polly realizes the letter from San Francisco is fake; [[spoiler: it uses Patricia, not Polly.]]
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* ItAmusedMe: Gaunt takes souls from those who die as a result of his machinations, but he admits that he's not really doing any of this for the souls. He has plenty of them at this point. He just finds all of this really, really funny.
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Natter
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** [[spoiler:The shop name, however, implies that ''Heaven'' is behind this one, so it may not be quite that bad.]]
** [[spoiler:Unless it simply means that he has nothing to fear from Heaven, and by extension, God...]]
** [[spoiler:Unless it simply means that he has nothing to fear from Heaven, and by extension, God...]]
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* TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat: Gaunt leaves a tape for his [[TheDragon 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 [[AndIMustScream fate worse than death]]. It's at this point that Ace realizes that the tape player isn't even plugged in.
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* TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat: Gaunt leaves a tape for his [[TheDragon 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 [[AndIMustScream fate worse than death]]. It's at this point that Ace realizes that [[ItWontTurnOff the tape player isn't even plugged in.in]].
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* ForTheEvulz: 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. And besides, he's a BORED immortal.
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* ForTheEvulz: 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. And besides, [[WhoWantsToLiveForever he's a BORED immortal.]]
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* ForTheEvulz: 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.
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* ForTheEvulz: 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. And besides, he's a BORED immortal.
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* NonFatalExplosions: Averted [[spoiler:Frank Jewett and George Nelson do NOT escape after their last-minute reconciliation.]]
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Made into a movie in 1993 starring Creator/MaxVonSydow as Gaunt and Ed Harris as Sheriff Pangborn.
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Made into a movie in 1993 starring Creator/MaxVonSydow as Gaunt and Ed Harris Creator/EdHarris as Sheriff Pangborn.
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* PoliceAreUseless: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Sheriff Pangborn is 100% solid {{Badass}} to the point that even Gaunt knows to stay clear of him, and deputies Norris, Andy, and John all pull their weight in trying to save the town, even after getting the crap kicked out of them.
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* ADateWithRosiePalms: Myra's regular [[UnusualEuphemism visits with the King]] after she buys a framed photo of Elvis Presley from Mr. Gaunt.
** Implied with Sally Ratcliffe, feeling unusually excited after playing her prank on Frank Jewett.
** Implied with Sally Ratcliffe, feeling unusually excited after playing her prank on Frank Jewett.
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* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler: the Tastee-Munch Can and the folding flower trick.]]
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* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler: the The Tastee-Munch Can and the folding flower trick.]]
* ADateWithRosiePalms: Myra's regular [[UnusualEuphemism visits with the King]] after she buys a framed photo of Elvis Presley from Mr. Gaunt.
** Implied with Sally Ratcliffe, feeling unusually excited after playing her prank on Frank Jewett.
** Implied with Sally Ratcliffe, feeling unusually excited after playing her prank on Frank Jewett.
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* LouisCypher: [[spoiler:Gaunt is some kind of a demon that has 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.]]
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* LouisCypher: [[spoiler:Gaunt is some kind of a demon that has been wandering on Earth for years, collecting souls and triggering chaos and death wherever he goes. In the movie, they explicitely explicitly try to show he is Satan himself.]]
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** Implied with Sally Ratcliffe, feeling unusually excited after playing her prank to Frank Jewett.
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** Implied with Sally Ratcliffe, feeling unusually excited after playing her prank to on Frank Jewett.
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** implied with Sally Ratcliffe , feeling unusually excited after playing her prank to Frank Jewett.
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** implied Implied with Sally Ratcliffe , Ratcliffe, feeling unusually excited after playing her prank to Frank Jewett.
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** implied with Sally Ratcliffe , feeling unusually excited after playing her prank to Frank Jewett,
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** implied with Sally Ratcliffe , feeling unusually excited after playing her prank to Frank Jewett,Jewett.
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* LouisCypher: [[spoiler:Gaunt is some kind of 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.]]
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* LouisCypher: [[spoiler:Gaunt is some kind of a demon that is has 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.]]
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Made into a movie in 1993 starring Max Von Sydow as Gaunt and Ed Harris as Sheriff Pangborn.
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Made into a movie in 1993 starring Max Von Sydow Creator/MaxVonSydow as Gaunt and Ed Harris as Sheriff Pangborn.
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Edited for clarity
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* TooAwesomeToUse: 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 [[GlamourFailure see and point out]] [[spoiler:that their treasure is really junk. Unfortunately, this trend doesn't hold true when Gaunt starts selling guns...]]
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* TooAwesomeToUse: 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 [[GlamourFailure see and point out]] [[spoiler:that their treasure is really junk. Unfortunately, this trend the trope doesn't hold true when Gaunt starts selling guns...]]
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[[quoteright:280:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Needful_Things_-_Cover_Art_7986.jpg]]
->''CAVEAT EMPTOR'' [[note]]"Let the buyer beware".[[/note]]
A 1991 Creator/StephenKing novel in which a new store with the strange name of "Needful Things" opens in the small Maine town of 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. [[FromBadToWorse It goes downhill from there,]] as the "harmless pranks" eventually trigger a chain reaction leading to plenty of suicides, killings, and StuffBlowingUp.
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.
----
!!This book provides examples of:
* ADateWithRosiePalms: Myra's regular [[UnusualEuphemism visits with the King]] after she buys a framed photo of Elvis Presley from Mr. Gaunt.
** implied with Sally Ratcliffe , feeling unusually excited after playing her prank to Frank Jewett,
* AffablyEvil: Leland Gaunt on his good days.
** FauxAffablyEvil the rest of time.
* TheAlcoholic: Hugh Priest.
* AStormIsComing: The prologue.
* AuthorTract: The book could be seen as a commentary on small-town psychology. On the surface, Castle Rock is an idyllic New England town where everyone is polite and friendly. But Gaunt just pulls a little thread here and there, and in a mere week all the simmering grudges just under the surface boil over until the entire town is killing each other. King being from small-town New England, several of his stories have similar themes.
* BerserkButton: Don't call Danforth Keeton "Buster." Just...don't.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Nettie [[spoiler: and possibly Polly, near the end.]]
* BitchAlert: Wilma Jerzyck. She bullies anyone she can get away with (a favorite target is Nettie Cobb, a victim of DomesticAbuse 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 HairTriggerTemper.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Gaunt is defeated, but by then, most of Castle Rock is destroyed. Also, he starts the whole thing again in another town]].
** [[spoiler:The shop name, however, implies that ''Heaven'' is behind this one, so it may not be quite that bad.]]
** [[spoiler:Unless it simply means that he has nothing to fear from Heaven, and by extension, God...]]
* BlackComedy: 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.
* BloodierAndGorier: In both the book and the movie, Nettie comes home after playing her prank on Buster Keeton to find that [[spoiler:her dog, Raider]], has been killed. The book has him "merely" getting impaled with a corkscrew, but in the movie, [[spoiler:Raider]] was [[spoiler:skinned alive and hung up in Nettie's closet]].
* BookEnds: [[spoiler: 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...]]
* CallBack: 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 ''Literature/TheDeadZone'' (John Smith and Frank Dodd), "[[Film/StandByMe The Body]]" (Ace Merrill's search for the dead body), ''Literature/{{Cujo}}'' (Polly visits the Camber House, and Cujo himself), ''Literature/TheDarkHalf'' (George Stark and the sparrows), and ''The Sun Dog'' (Pop Merrill).
* CorruptPolitician: "Buster" Keeton, who started stealing from the town's funds to cover his gambling addiction.
* CanonWelding: Remember Ace, the childhood bully from ''The Body'' and its adaptation ''Film/StandByMe''? He's now working for Gaunt.
** [[spoiler: The town seen in the epilogue]] is from the King novella ''The Library Policemen'', which appeared in the same collection as ''The Sun Dog''.
* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler: the Tastee-Munch Can and the folding flower trick.]]
* ChekhovsHobby: [[spoiler: Sheriff Pangborn's shadow puppet skills come in handy against Gaunt, especially when he creates puppets of Literature/{{Cujo}} and the sparrows from ''Literature/TheDarkHalf'']]
* TheChessmaster: Gaunt, unusually for a Stephen King villain, does most of his evil work by having his customers play [[DeadlyPrank "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 DrivenToSuicide.
* CoolCar: Gaunt's Tucker Talisman... which is more than just a car.
* ConcertKiss: 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.
* ConspiracyTheorist: 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.
* DeadlyPrank: 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.
* DealWithTheDevil: 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.
* DevilInPlainSight: Mr. Gaunt, who uses his [[AffablyEvil 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 [[spoiler:except Brian, and the only one he tells is his little brother before he [[AteHisGun shoots himself]] [[HarmfulToMinors right in front of him,]]]] realizes that he's a malign influence until after bodies start piling up.
* DomesticAbuse: "Buster" Keeton verbally and emotionally abuses his wife, Myrtle, though he doesn't hurt her physically [[spoiler: until he goes completely insane and beats her to death with a hammer]]. Nettie Cobb's husband was a brutal DomesticAbuser, and she eventually killed him. Wilma Jerzyck specializes in utterly breaking down her husband's spirit.
* DontYouDarePityMe: 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.
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: 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.]]
* TheEighties: King has stated that Needful Things is the greedy, negative parts of the decade distilled down into one store.
* EmbarrassingNickname: "Buster" Keeton hates his nickname.
* ForTheEvulz: 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.
* FreakOut: Nettie, when [[spoiler: she finds her dog dead.]]
* FreudianExcuse: 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.
* FromBadToWorse
* TheGamblingAddict: "Buster" Keeton, one of the town's selectmen is addicted to gambling at the horse tracks, and started embezzling to cover the costs.
* GameFace: 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".
* GenreBlindness: 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 - [[spoiler: Polly and Eddie]]) imagines that the mean-spirited tricks played on ''them'' might have a similar source.
* GenreSavvy: Sheriff Pangborn. He has been in a King [[Literature/TheDarkHalf novel]] before, after all. Gaunt actually seems to sense this about Pangborn, and avoids interacting with him until the novel's climax.
-->'''Gaunt:''' "That sheriff is what we in the business call a 'hard sell.'"
* GlamourFailure: [[spoiler: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 MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment or when someone else's treasure is seen.]]
* HairTriggerTemper: Wilma Jerzyck.
* HarmfulToMinors: Eleven year old Brian Rusk plays two [[spoiler:seemingly]] harmless pranks on Wilma Jerzyk [[spoiler:one, throwing mud on her clean sheets; two, throwing rocks at her house with messages rubber banded to them. This results in her and Nettie Cobb killing each other. He hears of their deaths and the role of his pranks in their deaths and the guilt drives him to commit suicide in his garage]] in front of his seven year old brother.
* HatePlague: Gaunt's influence makes the townspeople more aggressive, to the point that they are willing to commit murder over pranks. [[spoiler:When he's finally defeated, all fighting stops immediately.]]
* HenpeckedHusband: Pete Jerzyck, Wilma's husband.
* HumanoidAbomination: Gaunt.
* HurtingHero: Alan Pangborn has never gotten over his wife and son's death in a car accident several years before.
* ImposterForgotOneDetail: In an attempt to get Pangborn into the spiral of murder overtaking the town, Gaunt shows him an illusion of [[spoiler:his wife and son's car being hit by one driven by Ace]]. Pangborn realizes it's a fake when [[spoiler:he realizes they're wearing their seatbelts in the illusion - the reason they died in real life]].
* IntrepidMerchant: Gaunt, again.
* KaleidoscopeEyes: The first clue of Gaunt's supernatural nature is that his eye color is always what his current customer finds the most attractive.
* KickTheDog: Nearly every character does it at some point.
* LastDance: [[spoiler: Nettie and Wilma.]]
* LightningBruiser: 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.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters
* LonelyDollGirl: Myrtle Keeton likes to be alone with the dolls she collects because they don't call her stupid, unlike her husband.
* LouisCypher: [[spoiler:Gaunt is some kind of 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.]]
* ManipulativeBastard: Gaunt is like [[Theatre/{{Othello}} 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.
* MercyKill: [[spoiler: Ace does this to Buster, after Norris shoots him in the stomach.]]
* MistakenForCheating: 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. [[spoiler: This eventually causes their deaths]].
* MutualKill: Several examples.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Several of Gaunt's pawns have this reaction as they manage to break free of his influence. Three of them try to commit suicide. [[spoiler: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]].
* NervousWreck: 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.
* NoodleIncident: Unusually, a future one (only in the movie):
-->'''Gaunt:''' ''Oh, by the way, give my regards to your grandson. Bob will be his name, international trade his game. I'll see him in Jakarta, 2053. August 14th. 10 a.m. A nice, sunny day. We'll make headlines.''
* OnlySaneMan: Alan Pangborn, and even he is very nearly caught up in Gaunt's treachery.
* ParanoiaGambit: Gaunt basically pulls a huge one on the entire town. Everyone is assigned to pull a [[DeadlyPrank "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.
* ParentalNeglect: After Cora gets the sunglasses from Mr. Gaunt, she pretty much stops paying attention to her sons. [[spoiler:When Brian commits suicide, she doesn't even realize what happened.]]
* PetTheDog: [[spoiler: 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 CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
* PleasePutSomeClothesOn: 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.
* PoisonedWeapons: 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).
* PrecociousCrush: Eleven-year-old Brian has a crush on the teacher of his speech therapy class, Sally Ratcliffe.
* PretentiousLatinMotto: 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 FatalFlaw [[spoiler:and what Gaunt uses to turn her against [[TheHero Pangborn]]. She eventually snaps out of it.]]
* ReCut: TBS aired a version of the movie that was extended almost a full hour, restoring a ton a character scenes and story.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler: Buster Keaton in the film.]]
* RedRightHand: One of the early signs that something's wrong with Gaunt are his hands: peculiarly long-fingered, and the first and second finger are exactly the same length. They're also rough and extremely unpleasant and even sickening to the touch.
* ShoutOut: The book contains several {{Shout Out}}s to the work of Creator/HPLovecraft. 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.
* SlasherSmile: 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 DevilInPlainSight and possibly the most obvious of the early ones.
* SophisticatedAsHell: Gaunt.
* SoulJar: Gaunt collects the souls of people who died because of him, and somehow traps them in a valise.
* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: 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.
* TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat: Gaunt leaves a tape for his [[TheDragon 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 [[AndIMustScream fate worse than death]]. It's at this point that Ace realizes that the tape player isn't even plugged in.
* TooAwesomeToUse: 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 [[GlamourFailure see and point out]] [[spoiler:that their treasure is really junk. Unfortunately, this trend doesn't hold true when Gaunt starts selling guns...]]
* TookALevelInBadass: Norris Ridgewick, who first appeared as a CluelessDeputy in the previous novel ''Literature/TheDarkHalf''. [[spoiler: Here, he finishes off Gaunt's henchmen "Buster" Keeton and Ace]]. ''Literature/BagOfBones'' reveals he goes on to become sheriff of Castle County.
* TreasureMap: Ace buys a TreasureMap from Gaunt to his uncle's fortune. At least that's what he thinks.
* UnusualEuphemism: [[ADateWithRosiePalms Visiting with the King]].
* VomitingCop: As previously established in ''The Dark Half'', Norris Ridgewick is a sensitive soul. He tends to throw up when working bad car wrecks. He even does so when the driver has managed to escape injury because of how bad it ''could'' have been.
* WentToTheGreatXInTheSky: "Pop Merrill's gone to that big flea-market in the sky".
* WhatHaveWeEar: Sheriff Pangborn, an amateur magician does the trick with Sean Rusk. He also attempts it with Brian, who's too far gone by this point to react with anything but mild relief that it wasn't something horrible.
->''CAVEAT EMPTOR'' [[note]]"Let the buyer beware".[[/note]]
A 1991 Creator/StephenKing novel in which a new store with the strange name of "Needful Things" opens in the small Maine town of 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. [[FromBadToWorse It goes downhill from there,]] as the "harmless pranks" eventually trigger a chain reaction leading to plenty of suicides, killings, and StuffBlowingUp.
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.
----
!!This book provides examples of:
* ADateWithRosiePalms: Myra's regular [[UnusualEuphemism visits with the King]] after she buys a framed photo of Elvis Presley from Mr. Gaunt.
** implied with Sally Ratcliffe , feeling unusually excited after playing her prank to Frank Jewett,
* AffablyEvil: Leland Gaunt on his good days.
** FauxAffablyEvil the rest of time.
* TheAlcoholic: Hugh Priest.
* AStormIsComing: The prologue.
* AuthorTract: The book could be seen as a commentary on small-town psychology. On the surface, Castle Rock is an idyllic New England town where everyone is polite and friendly. But Gaunt just pulls a little thread here and there, and in a mere week all the simmering grudges just under the surface boil over until the entire town is killing each other. King being from small-town New England, several of his stories have similar themes.
* BerserkButton: Don't call Danforth Keeton "Buster." Just...don't.
* BewareTheNiceOnes: Nettie [[spoiler: and possibly Polly, near the end.]]
* BitchAlert: Wilma Jerzyck. She bullies anyone she can get away with (a favorite target is Nettie Cobb, a victim of DomesticAbuse 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 HairTriggerTemper.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Gaunt is defeated, but by then, most of Castle Rock is destroyed. Also, he starts the whole thing again in another town]].
** [[spoiler:The shop name, however, implies that ''Heaven'' is behind this one, so it may not be quite that bad.]]
** [[spoiler:Unless it simply means that he has nothing to fear from Heaven, and by extension, God...]]
* BlackComedy: 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.
* BloodierAndGorier: In both the book and the movie, Nettie comes home after playing her prank on Buster Keeton to find that [[spoiler:her dog, Raider]], has been killed. The book has him "merely" getting impaled with a corkscrew, but in the movie, [[spoiler:Raider]] was [[spoiler:skinned alive and hung up in Nettie's closet]].
* BookEnds: [[spoiler: 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...]]
* CallBack: 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 ''Literature/TheDeadZone'' (John Smith and Frank Dodd), "[[Film/StandByMe The Body]]" (Ace Merrill's search for the dead body), ''Literature/{{Cujo}}'' (Polly visits the Camber House, and Cujo himself), ''Literature/TheDarkHalf'' (George Stark and the sparrows), and ''The Sun Dog'' (Pop Merrill).
* CorruptPolitician: "Buster" Keeton, who started stealing from the town's funds to cover his gambling addiction.
* CanonWelding: Remember Ace, the childhood bully from ''The Body'' and its adaptation ''Film/StandByMe''? He's now working for Gaunt.
** [[spoiler: The town seen in the epilogue]] is from the King novella ''The Library Policemen'', which appeared in the same collection as ''The Sun Dog''.
* ChekhovsGun: [[spoiler: the Tastee-Munch Can and the folding flower trick.]]
* ChekhovsHobby: [[spoiler: Sheriff Pangborn's shadow puppet skills come in handy against Gaunt, especially when he creates puppets of Literature/{{Cujo}} and the sparrows from ''Literature/TheDarkHalf'']]
* TheChessmaster: Gaunt, unusually for a Stephen King villain, does most of his evil work by having his customers play [[DeadlyPrank "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 DrivenToSuicide.
* CoolCar: Gaunt's Tucker Talisman... which is more than just a car.
* ConcertKiss: 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.
* ConspiracyTheorist: 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.
* DeadlyPrank: 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.
* DealWithTheDevil: 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.
* DevilInPlainSight: Mr. Gaunt, who uses his [[AffablyEvil 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 [[spoiler:except Brian, and the only one he tells is his little brother before he [[AteHisGun shoots himself]] [[HarmfulToMinors right in front of him,]]]] realizes that he's a malign influence until after bodies start piling up.
* DomesticAbuse: "Buster" Keeton verbally and emotionally abuses his wife, Myrtle, though he doesn't hurt her physically [[spoiler: until he goes completely insane and beats her to death with a hammer]]. Nettie Cobb's husband was a brutal DomesticAbuser, and she eventually killed him. Wilma Jerzyck specializes in utterly breaking down her husband's spirit.
* DontYouDarePityMe: 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.
* DrivenToSuicide: [[spoiler: 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.]]
* TheEighties: King has stated that Needful Things is the greedy, negative parts of the decade distilled down into one store.
* EmbarrassingNickname: "Buster" Keeton hates his nickname.
* ForTheEvulz: 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.
* FreakOut: Nettie, when [[spoiler: she finds her dog dead.]]
* FreudianExcuse: 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.
* FromBadToWorse
* TheGamblingAddict: "Buster" Keeton, one of the town's selectmen is addicted to gambling at the horse tracks, and started embezzling to cover the costs.
* GameFace: 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".
* GenreBlindness: 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 - [[spoiler: Polly and Eddie]]) imagines that the mean-spirited tricks played on ''them'' might have a similar source.
* GenreSavvy: Sheriff Pangborn. He has been in a King [[Literature/TheDarkHalf novel]] before, after all. Gaunt actually seems to sense this about Pangborn, and avoids interacting with him until the novel's climax.
-->'''Gaunt:''' "That sheriff is what we in the business call a 'hard sell.'"
* GlamourFailure: [[spoiler: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 MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment or when someone else's treasure is seen.]]
* HairTriggerTemper: Wilma Jerzyck.
* HarmfulToMinors: Eleven year old Brian Rusk plays two [[spoiler:seemingly]] harmless pranks on Wilma Jerzyk [[spoiler:one, throwing mud on her clean sheets; two, throwing rocks at her house with messages rubber banded to them. This results in her and Nettie Cobb killing each other. He hears of their deaths and the role of his pranks in their deaths and the guilt drives him to commit suicide in his garage]] in front of his seven year old brother.
* HatePlague: Gaunt's influence makes the townspeople more aggressive, to the point that they are willing to commit murder over pranks. [[spoiler:When he's finally defeated, all fighting stops immediately.]]
* HenpeckedHusband: Pete Jerzyck, Wilma's husband.
* HumanoidAbomination: Gaunt.
* HurtingHero: Alan Pangborn has never gotten over his wife and son's death in a car accident several years before.
* ImposterForgotOneDetail: In an attempt to get Pangborn into the spiral of murder overtaking the town, Gaunt shows him an illusion of [[spoiler:his wife and son's car being hit by one driven by Ace]]. Pangborn realizes it's a fake when [[spoiler:he realizes they're wearing their seatbelts in the illusion - the reason they died in real life]].
* IntrepidMerchant: Gaunt, again.
* KaleidoscopeEyes: The first clue of Gaunt's supernatural nature is that his eye color is always what his current customer finds the most attractive.
* KickTheDog: Nearly every character does it at some point.
* LastDance: [[spoiler: Nettie and Wilma.]]
* LightningBruiser: 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.
* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters
* LonelyDollGirl: Myrtle Keeton likes to be alone with the dolls she collects because they don't call her stupid, unlike her husband.
* LouisCypher: [[spoiler:Gaunt is some kind of 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.]]
* ManipulativeBastard: Gaunt is like [[Theatre/{{Othello}} 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.
* MercyKill: [[spoiler: Ace does this to Buster, after Norris shoots him in the stomach.]]
* MistakenForCheating: 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. [[spoiler: This eventually causes their deaths]].
* MutualKill: Several examples.
* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Several of Gaunt's pawns have this reaction as they manage to break free of his influence. Three of them try to commit suicide. [[spoiler: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]].
* NervousWreck: 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.
* NoodleIncident: Unusually, a future one (only in the movie):
-->'''Gaunt:''' ''Oh, by the way, give my regards to your grandson. Bob will be his name, international trade his game. I'll see him in Jakarta, 2053. August 14th. 10 a.m. A nice, sunny day. We'll make headlines.''
* OnlySaneMan: Alan Pangborn, and even he is very nearly caught up in Gaunt's treachery.
* ParanoiaGambit: Gaunt basically pulls a huge one on the entire town. Everyone is assigned to pull a [[DeadlyPrank "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.
* ParentalNeglect: After Cora gets the sunglasses from Mr. Gaunt, she pretty much stops paying attention to her sons. [[spoiler:When Brian commits suicide, she doesn't even realize what happened.]]
* PetTheDog: [[spoiler: 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 CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming.
* PleasePutSomeClothesOn: 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.
* PoisonedWeapons: 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).
* PrecociousCrush: Eleven-year-old Brian has a crush on the teacher of his speech therapy class, Sally Ratcliffe.
* PretentiousLatinMotto: 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 FatalFlaw [[spoiler:and what Gaunt uses to turn her against [[TheHero Pangborn]]. She eventually snaps out of it.]]
* ReCut: TBS aired a version of the movie that was extended almost a full hour, restoring a ton a character scenes and story.
* RedemptionEqualsDeath: [[spoiler: Buster Keaton in the film.]]
* RedRightHand: One of the early signs that something's wrong with Gaunt are his hands: peculiarly long-fingered, and the first and second finger are exactly the same length. They're also rough and extremely unpleasant and even sickening to the touch.
* ShoutOut: The book contains several {{Shout Out}}s to the work of Creator/HPLovecraft. 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.
* SlasherSmile: 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 DevilInPlainSight and possibly the most obvious of the early ones.
* SophisticatedAsHell: Gaunt.
* SoulJar: Gaunt collects the souls of people who died because of him, and somehow traps them in a valise.
* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: 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.
* TheTapeKnewYouWouldSayThat: Gaunt leaves a tape for his [[TheDragon 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 [[AndIMustScream fate worse than death]]. It's at this point that Ace realizes that the tape player isn't even plugged in.
* TooAwesomeToUse: 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 [[GlamourFailure see and point out]] [[spoiler:that their treasure is really junk. Unfortunately, this trend doesn't hold true when Gaunt starts selling guns...]]
* TookALevelInBadass: Norris Ridgewick, who first appeared as a CluelessDeputy in the previous novel ''Literature/TheDarkHalf''. [[spoiler: Here, he finishes off Gaunt's henchmen "Buster" Keeton and Ace]]. ''Literature/BagOfBones'' reveals he goes on to become sheriff of Castle County.
* TreasureMap: Ace buys a TreasureMap from Gaunt to his uncle's fortune. At least that's what he thinks.
* UnusualEuphemism: [[ADateWithRosiePalms Visiting with the King]].
* VomitingCop: As previously established in ''The Dark Half'', Norris Ridgewick is a sensitive soul. He tends to throw up when working bad car wrecks. He even does so when the driver has managed to escape injury because of how bad it ''could'' have been.
* WentToTheGreatXInTheSky: "Pop Merrill's gone to that big flea-market in the sky".
* WhatHaveWeEar: Sheriff Pangborn, an amateur magician does the trick with Sean Rusk. He also attempts it with Brian, who's too far gone by this point to react with anything but mild relief that it wasn't something horrible.
