and “D.A.R.Y.L.”) who has been tasked with looking after his infirm grandmother while his mother (Darlanne Fluegel) goes out for the afternoon. Georgie feels he is equal to the task, even though he is notoriously terrified of Gramma (voiced by Piper Laurie, played physically by Frederick Long). Gramma does nothing more than lay in bed all day, occasionally calling out for a cup of tea.
While alone with Gramma, Georgie begins to recall weird details about their family, recalling that she might have had some stillborn children. We hear Georgie’s inner monologue throughout the episode as he nervously ponders everything he sees. After accidentally dropping Gramma’s tea, Georgie finds a crack in the floor. He pries up the floorboards, and finds a cold-burning hell-like opening that contains a copy of the Necronomicon. Georgie tries reading it, but can’t make heads or tails of it. What’s a “Cthulhu?”
The episode climaxes with Georgie going to visit his Gramma in bed, and finding that she has transformed into some kind of monster. She seizes Georgie and presses him into her monstrous torso, bodily absorbing him as he screams in terror. When mom comes home, Georgie — now somehow restored — gives her a hug. He says he was scared and that Gramma has died. He then looks at the camera, bearing the same cat-like red eyes that Gramma had.
In Ian Nathan’s 2019 book “Stephen King at the Movies: A Complete History of the Film and Television Adaptations from the Master of Horror,” King was quoted as loving this adaptation of his work, feeling that it was one of the scariest pieces of television he had seen.
