Editorials
The Top 10 Stephen King Adaptations!
Fox Home Entertainment is bringing several horror classics to hi-def Blu-ray as part of their Feed Your Fear campaign, with most of them already at a store near you. We’ve joined forces with them to bring you four top 10 lists related to one or more of the titles. In lieu of the classic Stephen King adaptations Misery and Carrie now available on Blu-ray, we present to you “The Top 10 Stephen King Adaptations.” Watch for another two features in the coming weeks leading up to Halloween.
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Okay, can we just be real here? Most Stephen King movies kinda suck. But when you think about it, so do most movies in general. I mean, hardcore King fans are just being unrealistic when they expect a top-shelf adaptation of every single one of his stories. Of course, as with any author who has captured the popular imagination, King’s followers feel his work deserves a screen treatment to match the vivid, skin-crawling nightmares that he brings to the page. To that all I can say is: welcome to Hollywood, where the grandiose, unrealistic dreams of optimists everywhere are shattered daily. Thought of that way, it’s actually a minor miracle that we’ve had as many truly good, or at least decent, King adaptations as we have. Following, my list of the ten best. P.S.: I should note here that I set a few ground rules: 1) It had to be a straight horror/thriller (i.e. Shawshank, Dolores Claiborne, etc. don’t qualify); and 2) It had to be a feature film (i.e. no TV miniseries) that was a direct adaptation of one of King’s novels or short stories (i.e. no Sleepwalkers or one of those horrid Children of the Corn sequels). And now, as Stephen himself would say – enjoy the list, Dear Reader. And happy nightmares.
Christine is by no means a John Carpenter classic, or even a particularly good movie (how’s that for a ringing endorsement?), but there’s still some solid stuff here. And in his defense, Carpenter was up against a doozy of an obstacle from the start. Namely: cars aren’t scary. My advice? Don’t go in expecting to be frightened out of your wits, and you’re in for a relatively diverting 110 minutes. Actor Keith Gordon makes Arnie’s nerd-to-stud transformation surprisingly believable, and Carpenter gives the film a visual slickness that suits the material well. Two added bonuses: an excellent soundtrack, and a pre-stardom, pre-Scientology Kelly Preston in a minor role.
This mostly forgotten 1985 adaptation of King’s novella “Cycle of the Werewolf” is surprisingly decent. It features a pre-hot mess Corey Haim as a disabled kid living in a small town plagued by a series of grisly unsolved murders. After he encounters a werewolf on a bridge late one night, Haim enlists his lovable, alcoholic uncle, played by a pre-bat shit insane Gary Busey, to help solve the mystery. Busey has some great lines, and he and Haim share an easy-going chemistry that’s a pleasure to watch. The werewolf effects are okay, if a little rubbery-looking, but overall Silver Bullet has a sense of humor about itself (Stephen King scripted) that helps make it better than you’d expect.
Admittedly Pet Sematary is kind of a cheese-fest, but it still holds up as one of the better King adaptations due to a few genuinely creepy moments. This is mostly due to not only theose uber-disturbing flashback scenes, but the performance of young Miko Hughes, whose sweet, high-pitched voice and cherubic features come to serve as an ironic counterpoint to his murderous acts in the last third of the film (“Now I wan-too pway wiv you!”). Just prepare yourself for a few unintentional chuckles, not to mention one of the most grating performances by a child actor (the young girl who plays Miko’s older sister) ever.
Including this David Cronenberg adaptation of King’s fifth novel (if you don’t count the Bachman titles) comes dangerously close to violating the rules I set forth in the beginning – namely, the one about the films having to be straight horror/thrillers in order to qualify. But at the end of the day, The Dead Zone does possess enough thriller-centric qualities to make the cut. This is a really solid, if rather dry adaptation, with a strong central performance by Christopher Walken (despite that hideous, fit-for-an-80-year-old grandmother hairstyle he seems to sport in every movie). It’s no masterpiece, but it’s deeply felt; and if you haven’t read the book you’re in for a pretty nifty little ending.
Dee Wallace Stone is a perfect example of a really terrific actress who, over the course of her career so far, has never been given the opportunity to fulfill her sizable potential as more than just a terrorized genre-film heroine. This is due in large part to the enormous success of E.T., which pigeonholed her into the “frantic mother” role in seemingly every single film she appeared in thereafter. I just had to say that, because Stone really anchors Cujo, which could have been just another lame King adaptation, and makes every hysterical moment in that demonic-St. Bernard-battered Pinto entirely believable. Kudos also to Jan de Bont, who provided the cinematography that proved so effective during those heart-in-the-throat attack scenes.
Ok, so if Michael Bay directed a King adaptation, it would probably look something like this, except with more super-hot, blouse-busting ghosts, bigger explosions, and minus all the nifty build-up. But if you take it for the market-tested, slot-filling big-studio product that it is, 1408 is a surprisingly decent little horror flick, with some inspired special effects and a truly creepy hotel-room setting. Of course, director Mikael Halfstrom also helmed that Jennifer Aniston snooze-fest Derailed. Given the cringe-inducing enormity of that debacle, he’s still got a long road to hoe before he repays his debt to society.
Funnily enough, Misery occupies the exact same spot as it did on my “Top Ten Claustrophobic Horror Movies” list, and it ranks so high on both simply because it’s such a solid, enjoyable little entertainment. Unlike the previous three entries, Misery doesn’t harbor any grandiose ambitions, which shouldn’t be a surprise given that Rob “Big-Studio Cocksucker” Reiner helmed the thing. But as a slick, modern-era Hollywood thriller, there are few as good as this one. Bates’ alternately hilarious and disturbing performance alone makes this worth a second viewing.
Frank Darabont, the director responsible for the terrific Shawshank Redemption and the overlong, if nearly-as-good Green Mile, delighted Stephen King fans everywhere when it was announced he would be tackling King’s grim, apocalyptic short story “The Mist”. For a horror-fiend like me, it was particularly welcome news that the man behind two of the best King adaptations would be taking on one of his more straight-ahead horror yarns. Needless to say, I wasn’t disappointed. Darabont hews miraculously close to King’s vision (save for that love-it-or-hate-it ending) while also managing the feat of making a truly scary horror film that functions equally well as a queasy, post-9/11 satire of American life.
What misfit teen didn’t wish for telekinetic powers after Carrie, Brian De Palma’s near-perfect adaptation of King’s first novel, was released in 1976? True story: during my freshman year in high school, a Volkswagen Bug caught fire during a “Stuff the Bug” competition in the quad. Everyone inside (all of them associated with the popular crowd) escaped without injury, except one: a cheerleader in the back seat suffered first-degree burns on her ass. The unfortunate incident was blamed on a lit cigarette, but I liked to think that there was a mousy girl nearby, something like Carrie White, who started it all.
Yeah yeah, so I freaking love The Shining, alright? But what true horror fan (at least one who doesn’t hold movie directors to unrealistic standards of literary faithfulness) doesn’t? This was made back in the heady early days of Stephen King adaptations, where arty, top-shelf filmmakers were taking a crack at his work, rather than the hacks that mostly took over later on. For the record, I actually like the Kubrick version of the story better than King’s version, which includes the just-okay ABC miniseries with which he was officially involved. Sorry, but Steven Weber is no Jack Nicholson. So there. – Chris Eggertsen
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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