Editorials
Top 10 Stephen King Stories in Need of an Adaptation
Stephen King has experienced enormous success seeing his many novels and short stories being brought to life in both cinema and the small screen. When you’ve written as much content as he has and earned the reputation that he’s acquired, it’s not exactly surprising that so many of works have seen adaptation–some even several times over, occasionally with King helping the scripting duties himself. King fans are usually quick to praise some of the writer’s more formative page-to-screen adaptations, such as The Shining, Misery, It, The Shawshank Redemption, or even more recent fare on television like Under the Dome and 11/22/63, but the author still has a rich library that’s remained untouched. We thought we’d highlight some of the more deserving and interesting works of his that could stand to go through the process, and who knows, maybe we’ll be seeing some of these stories come to life before you know it.[/tps_header] [tps_title][/tps_title]
The Bill Hodges Trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch)
Dream Director: David Fincher (Zodiac, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo)
The Bill Hodges Trilogy might be some of the finest work to come out of the later stage of King’s career. It’s almost as if he fell in love with this world and these characters as much as the audience did and just had to keep telling stories through the infinitely affable Bill Hodges. Mr. Mercedes opens with Brody Hartsfield, the Mercedes Killer, running a car into a crowd of people, taking eight lives and injuring many more. Rather than these stories being particularly scary, King instead weaves a dazzling piece of crime fiction that involves some of the most addictive cat-and-mouse storytelling that I’ve ever read. Brody Hartsfield is one of King’s most interesting and sociopathic antagonists and watching him and Hodges egg each other on is just something that needs to be seen on screen. Finders Keepers might be a detour from Hodges and Brody’s game, but it’s the sort of detour that fleshes the world out in a crucial way, not unlike The Wire’s second season. While these stories tell an epic crime yarn, King surprisingly finds a way to turn the concluding chapter, End of Watch, into a supernatural showdown that even calls back to Carrie in a number of satisfying ways. Watching this masterful saga come to life through movies or a lengthier television show should be too tempting of an opportunity. Someone like David Fincher, whose patient, aggressive storytelling that’s evident in works of his like Zodiac and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo would be perfect for bringing this adrenaline rush of a series to life.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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