Battleground (short story)
 |
| "Battleground" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Stephen King | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Horror |
| Publication | |
| Published in | Night Shift |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Publication date | 1978 |
"Battleground" is a short story by Stephen King, first published in the September 1972 issue of Cavalier magazine, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift.
Plot summary
Renshaw is a professional hit-man who returns from his assassination of a toy-maker to find a package delivered to his penthouse apartment. The package contains a G.I. Joe Vietnam Footlocker, sent to him by the mother of the toy-maker he had recently killed. When he opens the package he finds that the toy soldiers are alive with working copies (albeit miniature) of weapons, jeeps, and helicopters. To Renshaw's surprise the tiny soldiers begin to attack him. At one point, the toy soldiers even offer him the chance to surrender on a small sheet of paper passed under a door, Renshaw does not and is then attacked with more force. Renshaw plots to attack the soldiers with a Molotov cocktail constructed from a bottle of lighter fluid, but before the cocktail detonates the entire apartment explodes, and kills him. At the very end of the story, a couple finds Renshaw's bloody t-shirt, and the other contents of the footlocker are revealed, including one made-to-scale thermonuclear weapon, which was what ultimately killed Renshaw.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
"Battleground" was converted to a teleplay by Richard Christian Matheson for the television series Nightmares & Dreamscapes. Originally airing on Wednesday, July 12, 2006, the episode was directed by Brian Henson and starred William Hurt as Renshaw the assassin. There is no dialogue in the entire show.
The episode featured a much longer ending than the short story, in which Renshaw is attacked again and makes it out of the penthouse for a final showdown in the elevator shaft with an angry plastic commando (played by an uncredited Bill Barretta). Renshaw defeats the final commando, only to find it had armed a thermonuclear weapon that then explodes and kills him.
It was also made into an animated short film, Srazhenie ([Сражение] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help)) - see External Links - by the Soviet Kievnauchfilm studio in 1986, directed by Mikhail Titov.[1]
Trivia
At several points during the televised episode, the killer Zuni fetish doll from the "Amelia" segment of the 1975 television movie Trilogy of Terror can be spotted as part of Renshaw's trophy collection. This is an homage to Richard Matheson the father of Richard Christian Matheson and the author of Trilogy of Terror. The episode also has a similar plot and structure to Richard Matheson's classic 1961 episode of The Twilight Zone, "The Invaders" which presents a similar sort of battle between a silent protagonist and miniature attackers.
The concept of a person being attacked and killed by group of living green plastic soldiers was also featured in the Darkroom anthology horror/thriller series episode "Siege of 31 August".
A similar concept made it to the screen in the films Small Soldiers and Tales from the Hood.
Renshaw's response to the tiny plastic soldiers' demand for surrender is "NUTS", the response given by General Anthony McAuliffe to the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. His response was changed to "SCREW YOU!" in the televised episode.
External links
Soviet cartoon adaptation (Russian-language) [1]
