The Tommyknockers is the story of a buried spaceship in the Maine woods. The story’s female protagonist, Bobbie, a somewhat solitary writer of Westerns, discovers the ship. Another prominent figure in the movie is Gardner, an alcoholic poet and Bobbie’s companion. Bobbie becomes obsessed with excavating the ship after feeling a strange energy flow through her when she touches its metallic surface. Soon she has the ability to build wondrous machines, such as a psychic typewriter that writes her novels while she dreams.

Along with Bobbie’s new-found mechanical skills are startling physical changes as well, much like those suffered by victims of radiation sickness. She loses weight, teeth, and patches of hair as she uncovers more and more of the ship. Soon the ship’s toxic influence affects the entire town, like a malignant cloud, and soon all of the townspeople are involved in the excavation of the mammoth ship. Only Gardner, who has a metal plate in is head from a previous injury, is immune to the effects of the Tommyknocker ship.

The Tommyknockers uses many elements to convey both its overt message and its subtext. First are the very real melodramas going on in the small town and the skillful characterization of its citizens. While some of the bit characters are stereotypes (for example, the lusty young postal worker as the “town whore” stereotype, played by Traci Lords), the main characters are well developed and interesting. What brings the conflicts between the townspeople to light is their newly-found ability, courtesy of the Tommyknockers, to read the minds of one another. In several extreme cases, these differences of opinion are enough to drive the citizens to murder.

A second major element, presented as subtext, is the effects of the Tommyknocker ship as the allegory to the terrible effects of nuclear radiation. King has admitted to this none-too-subtle metaphor in the story as a way to play upon society’s fear of nuclear power and the deadly potential of the world’s nuclear arsenal. Th e Tommyknocker’s power glows green like radiation, and causes rapid physical deterioration. King presents the downside of nuclear energy in dialogue as well, during a reception in which a drunk Gardner confronts a nuclear power plant executive.

Another common theme in The Tommyknockers is that of the outsider versus the group. As the Tommyknocker ship affects the town, they develop a mass consciousness and the ability to communicate telepathically. Gardner, who is immune to the ship, represents the outsider and therefore a threat to the common goal of the group to excavate the ship.

King also presents a mechanized monster in the film, a concept he would explore much more deeply in Trucks and Maximum Overdrive. In The Tommyknockers, the mechanical menace is a Coke machine that goes haywire and ends up killing the grandfather in the movie.

There is also the concept of the haunted woods where Bobbie discovers the alien ship. It is located in a part of the Maine woods called by the Indians “The Burning Woods” due to the strange lights that are seen there, and as Bobbie unearths the ship the woods glow radiation green.

It is interesting to note King’s treatment of law enforcement in the movie. In his college days King was something of a rebel, an anti-establishment “long hair” that participated in several anti-war demonstrations on campus.

Despite this, his most ethical and heroic characters often come from the local police force. Th is may come from King’s own exposure to small town police, or may simply be King’s attempt to show the reader a small town way of life and its sharp contrasts to the corruption and crooked politics of the big city. In any case, the police do their best to stop the Tommyknockers (albeit not successfully) and are shown in a very positive light. It is also interesting to note that the town sheriff in King’s Storm of the Century is also portrayed as a hero in that movie as well.

Like many of King’s works, The Tommyknockers includes a short chant-like poem that is repeated throughout the film to reinforce the terror:

Last night,

And the night before,

Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers,

Knocking at my door.

King often uses children as the mouthpieces for these messages to show that the innocents (King rarely presents saint-like adults; almost all are flawed in some respect) have been “turned” by the evil forces.