General Discussion

A new shop named "Needful Things" opens in the small town of Castle Rock, Maine, sparking the curiosity of its citizens. The proprietor, Leland Gaunt, is a charming elderly gentleman purportedly from Akron, Ohio who always seems to have an item in stock that is perfectly suited to any customer. The prices are surprisingly low, considering the merchandise – such as a rare Sandy Koufax baseball card, a picture of Elvis Presley, a carnival glass lampshade, and a fragment of petrified wood stated to be from Noah's Ark – but he expects each customer to also play a "prank" on someone else in town. Each customer enters a trance and becomes highly agreeable when making a deal with Gaunt, afterwards forgetting anything abnormal about the encounter. Gaunt has complete knowledge of the long-standing private histories and conflicts between the various townspeople, and the pranks are his means of forcing them to escalate.