Ladies and gentlement, it is now October 2021. That means one thing: Horror movies! There are a couple of non-horror movies being released this month including No Time To Die and Dune, but my focus for October is going to be horror movies and thrillers, because this is the time of year when people like being scared. It’s Trick Or Treat Month. People obviously dress up as ghouls and goblins and try to scare each other silly. So, yesterday on October 1st, I did an audio review of Venom: Let There Be Carnage. To sum up, it was an alright movie that could’ve benefitted from a longer run time and much better writing. But it was still a lot of fun. To kick off the festivities of All Hallow’s Eve Month, I’m going to start with a Best/Worst list, and what better way to do that than to a do a list of the best and worst adaptations of Stephen King’s stories? Stephen King is an author that really needs no introduction. He’s one of the most celebrated horror novelists of the 20th century. Like all successful novelists, Mr. King has had a lot of success, but he’s had a few bumps in the road here and there. The film adaptations of his stories are just as varied. So, let’s take a deep dive into some of the best AND worst adaptations of the works of Stephen King.
The Best/Worst: Maximum Overdrive
What can I say? This one’s a total guilty pleasure. It’s not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I get the feeling that Stephen King was going for something a bit more campy than his original short story. This is the first and ONLY movie that was directed by Stephen King, and it shows. Some of the shots are too long and some of the editing is a little wonky, but the dialogue is all sorts of cheesy. I will say this though, while Stephen King may be a master of horror in his novels, he absolutely has no problems blowing shit up. There’s a lot of destruction in this movie, but that’s kind of to be expected when your movie is about a bunch of machines that come to life and try to destroy the human race because of a comet. It’s silly as hell, but it’s awesome at the same time. What can I say? I love it.
The Best: The Mist
At it’s core, the story of The Mist is about monsters. But it asks the question: Who are the real monsters? Is it the otherworldly creatures that show up out of the mysterious mist that envelopes the town, or is it the people inside the store? What would you do if the terrified people inside your store were influenced by a rabid religious fanatic? People have a tendency to cling to things and ideas that would keep them alive, and The Mist shows that. I’ve read the novella and the movie does a fantastic job of translating it to the big screen. While most audiences and critics tend to agree that The Mist is one of the best Stephen King adaptations, the one aspect of the movie that has split them down the middle is the ending. While the novella had a more ambiguous ending, Frank Darabont opted for more of a gut-punch ending for the film, and it’s brutal. It didn’t make my list of Best Endings because it was so divisive. People either love it, or they flat-out hate it. But there’s no doubt that the ending to The Mist got people talking.
The Worst: Dreamcatcher
While most of us would agree that movie adaptations of books are usually not as good as the source material, it’s even more startling when you see a movie that is as bad as the source material. Dreamcatcher, as far as I’m concerned, is one of the worst books that Stephen King has ever written. It’s an alien invasion thriller, and not a very good one. Two words: Shit weasel. I’m not kidding. It’s feels like a bad rip-off of the Alien films. Even Stephen King himself has come out said that Dreamcatcher wasn’t that good. The movie was just as bad. Despite having an all-star cast that includes Thomas Jane, Morgan Freeman, Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, and Donnie Wahlburg, there is very little about this movie that one could consider to be good. While Damian Lewis was great with a dual personality, Morgan Freeman’s character was completely over-the-top. The movie was bad enough that I never even bothered to upgrade it to DVD or Blu-Ray. Yep, it’s stuck in VHS, because I’m not going to spend the money to upgrade a movie that I hate.
The Best: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining
Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining is one of the most celebrated horror movies of all time. It had a great cast with Jack Nicholson, Shelly Duval, and Scatman Crothers. The movie also features some of the most iconic moments in cinema history, including when young Danny encounters twin girls when he’s riding around the Overlook Hotel. It’s a haunted house story that just happens to be a gigantic hotel. Jack Nicholson puts in one of his most iconic performances that he’s ever done as Jack Torrance. Yet all the praise from the audience and critics hasn’t stopped Stephen King from tearing it to shreds, saying that it doesn’t live up to the spirit of his book, so to speak. I’ve never seen a novelist hate an adaptation the way Stephen King did with The Shining. This is one of those cases where I think Stephen King is 100 percent wrong, as some of the events, creatures and ideas in his book couldn’t translate well to the big screen, so Mr. Kubrick opted to stream-line the story down to its bare essentials, and the movie actually works because of that. Which leads us to the next entry:
The Worst: Stephen King’s The Shining
It was no secret that Stephen King HATED Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, so when the opportunity came to do a mini-series of the book, King jumped into the producer’s chair to ensure that it was done right. Well, the mini-series was more faithful to the book in terms of its structure, but it was a terrible mini-series. Half-baked acting, weak special effects, and terrible pacing. Like I said earlier, The Shining is one of those rare cases in which the author of the source material is 100 percent wrong. The 1997 min-series was just too cheesy to be taken seriously and the cinematography was awful. Just because a mini-series or movie is accurate to the source material, doesn’t make it faithful or as good, and The Shining is a perfect example of that. Both the movie and the min-series are the same story, but they two very different experiences, and quite frankly, Kubrick’s movie is the better version.
The Best: The Shawshank Redemption
Not everything that Stephen King wrote was horror. He wrote some pretty dramatic and powerful stuff as well, but the one thing that really connects most of his stories, is that they’re about people. That is the single common thread throughout his works: People. While The Shawshank Redemption told the story of a man who was falsely convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison, the movie is about hope. That’s not exactly something that I would ever read or see from somebody like Stephen King, but The Shawshank Redemption is not only one of the best adaptations, it’s one of the best movies period. It’s got an outstanding cast with Morgan Freeman, Tim Robbins, Clancy Brown, and James Whitmore.
The Worst: The Stand (1994)
Now, for some people this is going to seem blasphemous, but I never liked The Stand. The book was huge at nearly 1,100 pages and it took me six months to read it. I found the pacing in the book to be plodding and slow. The TV mini-series from 1994 wasn’t much better. The problem wasn’t necessarily the source material, it was the way it was adapted. The production values for those kinds of mini-series weren’t that great, and you could tell because some of the visual effects and stunt-work were pretty lousy. The story is good, but it just ended up being too long for my taste, and the mini-series is ALL sorts of cheesy. It doesn’t hold up at all.
The Best: Carrie
If you couldn’t tell by some entries in this list, Stephen King has real issues with out-of-control religious zealotry. Carrie is the story of a young woman who has been abused by an overbearing religious mother, and that abuse has led to Carrie developing telekinetic abilities. Between an overbearing mother and school bullies, it all culminates in one of the most shocking and brutal sequences in a horror movies, particularly in 1976. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but it’s a pretty good movie from what I remember.
The Worst: The Lawnmower Man
When you take a short story from Stephen King and change it up so much that the author ends up suing you, you fucked up. That’s exactly what happened with The Lawnmower Man. The adaptation was so far removed from what Stephen King had written, that the only thing that remained the same was the name. The short story didn’t have a mentally challenged lawnmower man play virtual reality games to get smarter. Because the film had no resemblance whatsoever to King’s short story, he sued not only the film-makers, but New Line Cinema as well to have his name removed from the film. The courts sided with King, of course, but in defiance of the courts, New Line would continue to market the film using Stephen King’s name. They would eventually be found in contempt of court, and all the profits made by the movie would go to King. This is one of those cases where the story surrounding the film is more interesting than the movie itself, which was pretty awful.
The Best: It(2017,2019)
While I believe that the mini-series adaptation of Stephen King’s It was pretty solid in its own right with a spectacular performance from Tim Curry, it pales in comparison to what director Andy Muschietti cooked up in 2017 and 2019. While the new movies are not free from some of the cheesy aspects of the book, it’s taken a lot more seriously, and it’s more violent. As much as I love Tim Curry as Pennywise, Bill Skarsgaard is even creepier. Unlike the mini-series, the first movie focuses specifically on our heroes when they were kids. The second movie takes place when they’re adults, and it works better that way. It’s more consistent in its story-telling and character development. Oh, and by the way: I fucking hate clowns.
The Best/Worst: Children of the Corn
Another film based on one of Stephen King’s short stories, Children of the Corn is both amazing and awful at the same time. Because this was 1984, it ended up being one of the cheesiest movies of the year. To be fair, there’s a lot about the film that does work, namely the performances by Linda Hamilton and John Franklin. Franklin plays the psychotic child priest Isaac, who is a prophet for “He Who Walks Behind The Rows.” For the most part, it’s a pretty good movie, but it’s almost undone by a ridiculous ending. For anybody who says that kids aren’t creepy, show them Children of the Corn. Yes. Yes, they are creepy.
There are definitely more adaptations out there, and I know some people are going to lambaste me for leaving out movies like Misery. The truth is, that one never really interested me. As you can see, adaptations of Stephen King’s work can be hit or miss, much like his stories, and I would say the average would be about 50/50. Half of them are outstanding and the other half are pretty bad, even if I do enjoy them on a certain level. What is certain is that film-makers will continue to try and adapt Stephen King’s work from now until long after he’s gone. Stephen King as far as I’m concerned, will be mentioned in the same breath as Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. I genuinely believe that. So whatever comes next, I’m looking to seeing how it’s done. Good or bad, Stephen King’s stories will continue to inspire authors and film-makers for decades to come.