Editorials
The Stephen King Theme Park Rides That Never Were
Stuffed CUJOs are available in the gift shop.
Between IT, The Dark Tower, The Mist, “Castle Rock,” a new novel and a Creepshow reprint, 2017 is looking like the year of Stephen King. But even in this Redrum renaissance, we still won’t be getting that one experience we’ve so obviously been missing – a state-of-the-art dark ride based on the works of Stephen King at the Central Florida theme park of your choice.
But that’s not to say we didn’t come close. Twice.
On May 1st, 1989, Disney’s MGM-Studios opened in true Hollywood fashion, attended by the likes of Kevin Costner, Ernest and at least two Golden Girls. From day one, the park was designed as a half-day affair, with only six attractions and a sizable chunk of the real estate devoted to working production facilities. Disney never expected it to draw crowds like its other parks.
On opening day, guests lined up two hours in advance and MGM-Studios hit capacity in 45 minutes.
They needed to expand and fast, especially considering the rival combination theme park-movie studio up the road was gearing up to steal crowds in 1990. Plans were hatched quickly to add an extra land to the park with a state-of-the-art thrill ride as an anchor. Revolutionary attractions based on Who Framed Roger Rabbit and the Warren Beatty-starring Dick Tracy never made it past the drawing board. The direction, it was decided, would be horror – namely, a haunted hotel. It didn’t take long for Stephen King’s name to come up.
Very little about the potential ride is known since Disney quickly realized the writer of Pet Sematary might not mingle with the Mickey Mouse crowd. Later concepts focused on Vincent Price and Mel Brooks before settling on a broader inspiration. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror would eventually open in 1994; the haunted hotel is still sending guests to the fifth dimension to this day.
After a notoriously shaky start, that rival down the road did start stealing crowds.
Universal Studios Florida was an experiment for the company – the first scratch-built theme park it had ever attempted. Its almost immediate success got the gears meshing for a second park and the unnamed addition was announced in 1993. By 1997, it had a name – Islands of Adventure – and Universal had a problem – the inevitable attendance hit its original park was about to take. The solution was to add a headlining attraction to the Studios as close as possible to the opening of Islands. Ideas included Universal’s second Ron Howard-based attraction, Apollo 13, a very different Simpsons experience than the one built years later, and, lo and behold, an elaborate dark ride themed to the works of Stephen King. This one came a lot closer to happening.
The only detail known about the attraction is its signature scene, and it’s a doozy.
Part-way through, riders would pull into the unload station and hear the usual instructions on how to exit without extensive bodily injury. But the restraints wouldn’t lift and the ride wasn’t over. A Shining-sized deluge of blood would flood out of the exit doors, Pennywise Itself would spring from the control room and riders would hurtle deeper into the nightmare/toward the gift shop.
The powers that be decided that an attraction requiring a devoted plumbing system for fake blood might not have the wide appeal they wanted, so Men in Black: Alien Attack was finally built in its place.
But in Stephen King novels and theme park design, true evil never dies. The would-be ride’s designer, John Murdy, went on to another project with horror in its blood, Revenge of the Mummy: The Ride; and smack in the middle of it there’s a scene that might seem familiar…
Jump to 4:17:
Rub your eyes until it all looks red, replace the overhead fire with balloons and you’re halfway home.
To date, no Stephen King stories or characters have made it to amusement parks. The author is famously cautious about his creations and has admitted little love for haunted houses. So we may never be menaced by murderous topiaries in the Overlook Hedge Maze of Madness or sit in the splash zone for the five-times-daily Carrie Stunt Show.
But rumors are flying that this year may be the first time a King property comes to Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights. It’s a slim chance, but the hints come from a reliable source – the Hollywood park’s Creative Director and former ride designer, John Murdy.
For now, we wait.
It’s been 75 years since The Thing From Another World first warned us to “watch the skies”, and filmgoers have done just that by showing up to multiple instances of extraterrestrial contact on the big screen. This makes sense, as a recent CBS news poll estimated that 63% of Americans believe in intelligent life on other planets, and the ongoing disclosure movement aims to raise that number with each passing day.
With Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day leaving many genre fans hungry for more alien footage (preferably of the spooky variety), today I’d like to share a list recommending six underrated alien invasion thrillers for your viewing pleasure. After all, regardless of whether or not you believe that we’re alone in the universe, it can be fun to dream about the worst-case scenario if our cosmic neighbors ever decide to visit.
For the purposes of this list, we’ll be focusing on lesser-known invasion stories rather than the popular extraterrestrials of franchises like Alien and Close Encounters of the Third (or even Fourth) Kind. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own alien favorites if you think we missed a particularly thrilling movie.
While it won’t be featured in this article, I’d highly recommend checking out Dean Alioto’s UFO Abduction/The McPherson Tape if you’re up for some ufology-inspired found footage thrills.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
6. The Arrival (1996)
Not to be confused with Denis Villeneuve’s Academy Award-winning Amy Adams vehicle about learning to communicate peacefully with extraterrestrial life, David Twohy’s The Arrival is a much more straightforward (but no less entertaining) genre romp where Charlie Sheen faces a global conspiracy involving hostile alien invaders.
It’s not exactly up there with Close Encounters or even Independence Day, but Twohy’s conspiratorial thriller plays out like an exceptionally fun episode of The X-Files that I’d recommend to sci-fi/horror fans who don’t mind a little bit of wonky CGI and 90s excess alongside their alien thrills.
5. Extraterrestrial (2014)
The Vicious Brothers made a name for themselves with the success of 2011’s Grave Encounters, but that was far from the Canadian duo’s only collaboration. And while it’s not exactly a fan favorite, I always point out 2014’s Extraterrestrial as one of their most underrated projects simply because I agree with the filmmakers’ opinion that there aren’t enough ‘cool alien abduction movies’ out there.
Admittedly, the majority of the picture functions like a run-of-the-mill creature feature with paper-thin characters and familiar horror tropes, but I’d argue that the cosmically-terrifying final act elevates the experience to new and memorable heights. The movie also boasts great performances by both Michael Ironside and Emily Perkins – a combination that more than makes up for the occasionally janky CGI.
4. Alien Raiders (2008)
Director Ben Rock has gone on record lamenting how his John-Carpenter-inspired creature feature was forcefully renamed from Supermarket to the painfully obvious Alien Raiders (a change which likely resulted in many potential viewers skipping out on the experience), but the new title doesn’t change the fact that this single-location thriller is something of a hidden gem.
Taking place entirely within a supermarket, Alien Raiders tells the story of an ensemble of customers and employees who are taken hostage by a group of armed men looking for something far more dangerous than an easy payout. I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoiling the experience, but I’d highly recommend this criminally underseen flick to fans of John Carpenter and the Resident Evil games.
3. Phoenix Forgotten (2017)
You’d think that a Ridley-Scott-produced retelling of one of the most infamous real-life UFO sightings of all time would have a bigger following, but I rarely see Justin Barber’s Found Footage period piece brought up during discussions about extraterrestrial-focused horror movies.
This is a huge shame, as Phoenix Forgotten is just as spooky as it is convincing, with this well-researched dive into the Phoenix Lights incident benefiting from surprisingly believable special effects as well as an appropriately horrific finale.
2. Communion (1989)
I wouldn’t blame you for disregarding Whitley Strieber’s controversial book about his alleged close encounter as sensationalist slop, but I’d argue that Phillipe Mora’s 1989 adaptation of these events is much better than the source material. After all, the movie works as a standalone piece of speculative fiction while also benefiting from an incredible performance by the one and only Christopher Walken!
Mora’s take on Communion may not be particularly scary, but the film is still an unforgettable character study regardless of whether or not the abduction really happened. Not only that, but the flick also paved the way for plenty of future sci-fi stories where the extraterrestrial invaders aren’t as evil as they initially appear.
1. Altered (2006)
Originally envisioned as a Sam Raimi-style horror-comedy titled Probed, Eduardo Sánchez (of The Blair Witch Project fame) eventually realized that it would be much more interesting to turn the film into a serious exploration of the emotional aftermath of a traumatic abduction incident.
That’s how we got Altered, a clever inversion of the standard abduction narrative that follows a group of troubled friends as they capture and experiment on an alien in order to enact revenge for their own abduction years prior.
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