The Losers’ Club binged it all weeks ago, and they’ve since recorded two reviews. Join Jenn Adams, Michael Roffman, and returning guest Julianne Clancy, Senior Director of Marketing at Vintage Books as they offer a spoiler-free consensus on the first episode, then stick around with Jenn and Michael as they weigh in on the whole shebang. Among the many takes is the consensus that Samantha Sloyan’s Margaret White is the real prom queen of the show.

Stream the episode below and let us know your thoughts in the comments below. For further adventures, join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.

You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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The post Margaret White Is the MVP of Mike Flanagan’s ‘Carrie’ [The Losers’ Club Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Deadline reports this morning, “The pickup comes two weeks after Carrie‘s eight-episode first season was released on October 7 to strong reviews.” The outlet adds, “Carrie, starring Summer H. Howell, has topped Prime Video’s weekly global TV series rankings, hitting number 1 in over 105 countries worldwide, though the streamer does not release viewership figures.”

“Carrie is connecting with both longtime Stephen King fans and a new generation altogether — including young adults and international audiences, with particular strength among female viewers,” said Peter Friedlander, Head of Global Television, Amazon MGM Studios. “It speaks to the enduring power of this story and signals that Mike Flanagan’s reimagining of the iconic IP has real breadth. We’re excited by where he and Stephen plan to take the story.”

“For 50 years, audiences have known and gravitated to Carrie White’s story. From the beginning, we imagined a story that goes far beyond the prom, and I’m incredibly grateful for Stephen’s trust and support in exploring what comes next,” Flanagan said in his own statement.

“I can’t wait for audiences to get to see what’s down the road for Carrie White,” Stephen King said. “Mike Flanagan and I are excited about what comes next. It’s bound to be thrilling.”

[Related] Go Behind the Scenes of ‘Carrie’ Reboot With Exclusive Photos by Matthew Lillard

In the new horror series, “Misfit high‑schooler Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) has spent her life hidden away inside the walls of her home with her fiercely protective mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). After her father’s sudden, untimely death thrusts her into the unforgiving ecosystem of public high school, Carrie is forced to navigate a viral bullying scandal that tears through her community, the relentless pressure and casual cruelty of the social‑media age, and the awakening of mysterious telekinetic powers that rise alongside her adolescence.”

Also starring in Prime Video’s series are Siena Agudong, Alison Thornton, Joel Oulette, Josie Totah, Arthur Conti, Thalia Dudek, Amber Midthunder, and Matthew Lillard.

Flanagan’s hope? That the story of “Carrie” is spread across three total seasons.

The filmmaker explained in a recent interview, “In my dream scenario … I think it’s three seasons. In my dream scenario, I think Carrie has a wonderful three-step arc. It’s a trilogy, really.”

The post Mike Flanagan’s ‘Carrie’ Renewed for Season 2 at Prime Video appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Standing next to him is Don Mancini, creator of the Child’s Play franchise. While both are lifelong Constant Readers — and Mancini frequently cites Brian De Palma’s Carrie as his favorite horror film — Fuller’s connection to the source material runs a bit deeper than pure fandom. 

By now we all know Carrie’s tragic story. The high school outcast is relentlessly bullied by her popular classmates and religious mother, Margaret. When she gets her first period after gym, Carrie becomes the obsession of mean girl Chris Hargensen and her more empathetic friend Sue Snell, who tries to make amends by asking her boyfriend to take Carrie to prom. But Chris has a more sinister plan in mind.

Arranging for Carrie to be elected Prom Queen, Chris “coronates” her by emptying a bucket of pig’s blood over her head. Only then do her fellow prom-goers learn that Carrie has the power to move objects with her mind. Unleashing her telekinetic rage, the bloody Prom Queen sets fire to the gym and half the town. Upon returning home, she kills her mother in self-defense, then succumbs to the strain of her psychic gifts. 

The 1974 novel was a modest success and launched King’s legendary career. But the name Carrie White became ubiquitous two years later with the release of De Palma’s masterful adaptation. The horrific story has since woven its way through modern culture, familiar to horror fans and normies alike. In 2002, Bryan Fuller penned a remake of King’s source material, attempting to modernize and expand the relatively slim story. 

Bryan Fuller Already Tried to Change Carrie’s Fate

Directed by David Carson, Fuller’s Carrie is a more or less faithful retelling, with Angela Bettis starring as the doomed Prom Queen. Patricia Clarkson co-stars as Margaret White in a subdued performance that sharply contrasts with Piper Laurie’s iconic villainess. Fuller also includes the novel’s semi-epistolary format and frames the story with police interviews, conducted by Detective John Mulcahey (David Keith). However, Fuller’s script concludes with a shocking twist. 

When Carrie returns from the Prom Night disaster, she takes a bath in her ruined gown. Feigning compassion, her vicious mother pushes her head under the water, attempting to murder her child for her “sinful” behavior. With the last bit of her strength, Carrie uses her powers to slowly stop her mother’s heart, leaving Margaret dead on the bathroom floor.

Thankfully, Sue (Kandyse McClure) discovers the dying teen and delivers mouth to mouth resuscitation. She assists Carrie in faking her death and hiding from authorities. The adaptation ends with Sue driving Carrie to Florida, where she will disguise her identity and start a new life.  

The TV Series That Never Happened

Fuller’s teleplay was originally designed to launch a continuing series in the Carrie world. Slated as a two-part television event for NBC, Fuller explained in a 2006 interview with CBR that “the network wanted a movie-of-the-week and the studio needed more money so they said they wouldn’t let them do a movie-of-the-week, but they would let them do a backdoor pilot.” Faced with this “daunting” editorial task, Fuller considered transferring the Prom Queen’s powers to Sue or following another telekinetic girl. He ultimately rejected these ideas in favor of allowing Carrie to survive.

In 2002, the writer explained to Fangoria, “One of the things we all felt really bad about was that you have this woman who is victimized her entire life and then, the moment things start to come through for her, she is victimized again. And then she becomes a murderer, and you kill her. That just seemed really cruel.” 

While Carrie devotees would no doubt agree, a psychic connection with Sue would have been an interesting move, particularly considering Carrie’s literary end. After completing her mission of bloody revenge, Carrie collapses under the cardiac strain. Sue uses her own intuition to track the Prom Queen down and finds her barely clinging to life. As she dies, Carrie telepathically searches Sue’s mind for involvement in the pig’s blood prank, ultimately deciding that she is innocent. Sue then experiences Carrie’s death as the “signal” of her consciousness flickers out. She must now continue on with this horrifying preview of what awaits her in the afterlife. 

Rather than killing Carrie off, Fuller planned to unite the teen survivors. A subsequent series would likely see Sue and Carrie travel the country trying to help other psychic outcasts while Carrie wrestled with the weight of her guilt. We may have gotten a Monster of the Week format similar to the structure of The X-Files. By centering young women, the story could also have mirrored the trajectory and tone of the CW’s Supernatural, which would premiere just three years later. David Keith would no doubt have reprised his role as Detective Mulchaey while Jasmine Guy may have joined the cast as a paranormal investigator. The celebrated actress filmed a handful of scenes for the original mini-series that were ultimately left on the cutting room floor. 

But alas, a Carrie series was not to be. Though the television event boasted strong viewership, critics were ultimately underwhelmed, taking issue with the admittedly cheap special effects. Though Fuller had outlined a second episode, the project eventually fell apart. Fuller explains, “I don’t think the network ever intended to do a series; they were just playing the studio. But we jumped through all the hoops and had all the elements in play for a series with Carrie on the road with Sue and what would happen in the wake of Prom Night.” 

This loss feels like a missed opportunity, especially considering Fuller’s success with another iconic horror text. In 2013, he built on Thomas Harris’ Hannibal trilogy to reimagine horror’s most famous cannibal. The gruesomely gorgeous Hannibal follows FBI agent Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) as he matches wits with Dr. Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen), expanding Harris’ celebrated novels into a successful three-season run. In 2021, he announced a similar project which would adapt Christine, King’s 1983 novel about a killer car. While certainly exciting for Constant Readers, that project also seems to have fallen apart. 

Mike Flanagan’s Carrie Echoes Fuller’s Vision

Now thirteen years later, Flanagan may have revived Fuller’s original idea — and celebrated by inviting the horror icon to prom. The director’s new eight-part series for Amazon Prime also concludes with Carrie (Summer H. Howell) heading into the larger world. In the weeks leading up to the Prom Night disaster, she has befriended a fellow outcast named Emaline (Thalia Dudek) who has her own set of powerful gifts.

She not only helps Carrie hone her TK skills, but takes charge moments after the pig’s blood falls, while the Prom Queen is too stunned to retaliate. Emaline takes Carrie’s powers on a murderous spree, and the girls dance in the flames that consume the town. But Emaline is felled by a mysterious attacker, and Carrie is once again left on her own. 

Returning home, she seeks comfort from her mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan), who helps to clean the blood from her skin. But as mother and daughter pray for forgiveness, Margaret tries to murder her child, hoping to protect the world from a power she does not understand. Mirroring De Palma’s shocking conclusion, Carrie pulls the house down on both of their heads.

But like Fuller’s Sue, Emaline arrives just in time. She pulls Carrie out of the rubble and drives her away. Flanagan’s series also ends with two girls on the road, albeit with an entirely different threat to escape. 

A Bigger Stephen King Universe?

Throughout the series, we’ve caught glimpses of a mysterious woman named Adelaide (Kate Siegel) who leads a group of similarly powerful women, including a woman named Caitlin (Delainey Hayles) who senses Carrie each time she uses her gifts. Adelaide’s psychic soldiers arrive at prom determined to protect Carrie from a maternal assassin.

Fearing Carrie’s telekinesis, Margaret has reached out to a woman named Amanda (Katee Sackhoff) who works with another shadowy group to rid the world of these magical girls. On the road, Emaline refuses to tell Carrie where they are headed, worried that Adelaide and her partners will invade her mind and use this knowledge to track them both down. 

Though we don’t know much about Adelaide’s intentions, there may be a clue hidden in Fuller’s adaptation. Detective Mulchaey, the investigator on Carrie’s trail, is played by none other than David Keith. The veteran actor has starred in a number of genre films, but Constant Readers know him best as Andy McGee.

In Mark L. Lester’s 1984 adaptation of King’s Firestarter, he plays the father of Charlie McGee, a little girl gifted with pyrokinesis. Thanks to a government agency known as The Shop, Andy has developed the power of mental domination. Referred to as “the push,” he can mentally emphasize chosen words and convince his targets to obey his commands. Adelaide demonstrates similar traits as she also interviews survivors of the Prom Night tragedy. 

Ordinarily we could chalk these similarities up to narrative coincidence or claim that great minds often think alike. However, Fuller’s presence — and cinematic demise — at Flanagan’s 2026 Prom bears closer consideration. Is the newest Carrie adaptor tipping his hand and previewing a plan for installments to come?

Will Fuller be involved in Flanagan’s proposed three-season arc? Perhaps we will get to revisit what might have been and finally catch a glimpse of Fuller’s intended vision.

The post Bryan Fuller Returns to Prom: That Unexpected ‘Carrie’ Cameo Explained appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Kane told Deadline that Bill Skarsgård plays “a different kind of Pennywise, Pennywise the way you’ve never seen that character before.“

The brief comments shouldn’t be too surprising considering that it’s set in 1935, during the Great Depression, and tracks the Bradley Gang Massacre from Stephen King‘s IT novel. A gang of outlaws rolls into Derry, and it leads to a bloodbath under Pennywise’s influence.

“It’s a Warner Bros. gangster movie. It’s bank robbers and Hoovervilles and street urchins riding the rails religious fundamentalism,” Kane says of the bigger second season.

The showrunner also gives an update on season two’s status: “We’re writing the scripts. We’re about halfway through the writing of the scripts. We have a production schedule, we’re greenlit for a Season 2, and Andy Muschietti’s out there casting.”

IT wakes up and feeds every 27 years, so the series is tracking those cycles throughout time. The show’s first season took place in 1962, while the first IT (2017) movie was set in 1989 and Muschietti’s IT: Chapter Two (2019) jumped forward 27 years to 2016. Each cycle begins and ends with a horrific act, while Pennywise feasts on children throughout.

Producer and series developer Andy Muschietti previously revealed that Season 3 would be the explosion of the Kitchener Iron Works, which is a big explosion during an Easter egg hunt where a hundred kids lost their lives. This particularly grim catastrophe was briefly seen in photograph form in IT (2017).

Muschietti previously hid his three-season plan in plain sight with IT: Welome to Derry season one’s opening credits, which features Pennywise’s infamous exploits including the Black Spot Massacre, the Bradley Gang Massacre, and the Kitchener Iron Works explosion.

See if you can spot them below (and get the theme song stuck in your head):

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In the new series, Matthew Lillard stars as Principal Henry Grayle, who is tasked with trying to keep the entire school under control. Understandably, he faces a lot of challenges with the arrival of Carrie White (Summer H. Howell), including at the infamous prom scene.

Lillard exclusively shared with us a number of behind-the-scenes images he took on the set of the prom scene, which you can see in the Instagram carousel below.

View this post on Instagram

“On my first film, Serial Mom, Kathleen Turner told me that making a movie is like having a family with a built-in divorce. Those words haunt me to this day. Coming together, loving each other for an extended stretch of time, and then just walking away is a brutal reality,” Lillard shared with Bloody Disgusting. “Never were truer words spoken than with the cast of Carrie. We bonded in rehearsal and built a dynamic, loving ‘Hollywood family’ throughout the process. The ‘Younguns’ and the ‘Olds,’ as we called ourselves, would gather separately and together: dinners, weekend basketball games, movie nights at the Flana-plex North. We were bound.”

He continued, “I love taking photos, but I very rarely share them. As we were living through Carrie White’s prom, though, it felt like we were playing in the shadow of history, and I wanted to remember this brilliant collection of artists. It’s an honor to share some of these with y’all. I hope you like them. Sharing one of my passions with the world leaves me feeling a little naked and exposed.”

Earlier this month, Lillard echoed those sentiments about how fulfilling the entire experience was bringing the new series to life.

“I think that I have been around a long time and I think that one of the things that I found extraordinary is the level, the quality of actors that they brought in blew me away. I think that when you look at Summer Howell at the end of this year, you will have to consider her as one of the most incredible performances of the year,” the actor expressed. “I think that she is effortlessly brilliant the entire time. And not only as an actor, but how she conducted herself as number one on the call sheet is super important. She led with bravery. She was always prepared. She was just an incredible number one.”

All episodes of Carrie are now streaming on Prime Video.

What did you think of the series? Let us know in the comments below!

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In many ways, King’s debut novel Carrie could be seen as the springboard for this sprawling multiverse. Readers follow the titular misfit teen as she’s relentlessly bullied by her popular classmates and abused by her ultra-religious mother, Margaret.

After a horrific prom night prank, Carrie unleashes the full force of her telekinetic powers, setting fire to the gym and causing her classmates to burn to death. Sparking a path of destruction as she walks home, Carrie then seeks comfort from Margaret, who returns the favor by sticking a knife in her daughter’s back. Carrie gently stops her mother’s heart, then seeks out those responsible for the prank. After completing her revenge, the exhausted queen dies under the exertion of her psychic spree.

King uses a semi-epistolary format to tell the story, alternating intimate scenes of high school life with transcriptions from the government’s White Commission and expert writing on the so-called TK phenomenon. We learn that the telekinetic gene is carried through the female line, only popping up every few generations. Carrie’s own grandmother may have possessed the trait and passed it down to her female descendants. After the carnage in Chamberlain, Maine, a haunting epilogue introduces an infant girl in the US South with the ability to dangle her toys in midair. 

The Psychic Girls Who Connect King’s Horror Stories

While Carrie is the first of King’s metaphysical girls, she certainly would not be the last. In Doctor Sleep, King’s 2013 sequel to The Shining, an adult Danny Torrance uses telepathy to connect with a tween named Abra Stone, who’s “shining” may be even stronger than his own. Constant Readers also suspect that Ellie Creed of Pet Sematary fame may have a small level of precognition due to harrowing predictions of her mother’s fate. 

But over the course of his long career, King’s most powerful little girl is undeniably Firestarter‘s Charlie McGee. The product of two psychically talented parents, whose own powers were engineered by a shadowy agency known as the Shop, Charlie is born with the ability to light fires with her mind. Along with TK abilities and precognition, experts believe that her pyrokinesis may one day be strong enough to split the very planet in two. 

When news first broke that Flanagan’s new Carrie adaptation would build on King’s literary coda and feature a network of similarly powerful girls, Constant Readers began to speculate. Would we reunite with Charlie, Abra, or Ellie Creed? Perhaps the series would dovetail with The Institute, King’s 2019 novel in which a handful of psychic children are kidnapped and forced to serve as telepathic assassins. 

Or maybe Flanagan would introduce the Breakers, another group of “shining” kids. In later novels of King’s Dark Tower series, these Breakers are similarly held hostage and forced to channel their collective energy to tear down the last remaining beams which hold together the multiverse. Considering Flanagan is currently working on an adaptation of The Dark Tower for Amazon, the latter seemed like a distinct possibility. But the constant King collaborator throws a curveball and takes this burgeoning matriarchy in an entirely new direction. 

Mike Flanagan Introduces a Secret Society of Telekinetic Women

We eventually learn that the woman who first sensed Carrie (Summer H. Howell) from afar is named Caitlin (Delainey Hayles). Though details are scant, she appears to live in a lavish house with other similarly magical women. The first episode ends with Caitlin sensing Carrie, then rushing to update a woman sitting at an ornate desk. Credited as Adelaide (Kate Siegel), she appears to be the leader of this mysterious group and is eventually revealed to be the director of interviews filmed in the aftermath of the prom night tragedy.  

Beginning with the second episode, Flanagan drops hints about this extensive world. The cryptic Adelaide details an alternate version of the urban legend in which a mother somehow finds the strength to lift a car by herself to save her son. She posits that this distraught woman located latent telekinesis in the midst of her panic. Each subsequent episode begins with another vignette exploring the history of metaphysical manifestation. While some are positive portraits of remarkable women, others are outright horror stories. We watch girls levitate to escape horrific environments or gouge out their own eyes to stop hellish visions. Joan of Arc may have displayed similar powers as did women who were accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. 

Adelaide reminds us that women have historically been villainized for traits (both supernatural or otherwise) that would make them threatening to powerful men. But it’s not always agents of the patriarchy who target these psychically gifted girls. The penultimate episode introduces a single mother named Amanda (Katee Sackhoff) who fears her daughter’s mysterious gift. Woken up by the crying child in the middle of the night, Amanda chases visions of her daughter all over the house, eventually finding the child asleep in her bed. Amanda clings to her daughter and sobs with relief, simultaneously frightened of a trait she does not understand. 

Margaret (Samantha Sloyan) becomes similarly fearful of Carrie’s telekinetic powers when the teen begins flaunting them all over the house. Searching for answers on internet message boards, she finds a sympathetic ear in Amanda, and the two mothers meet in a local cafe. Though Margaret is simply looking for advice, she quickly realizes that her new friend has more sinister motivations. 

The Rival Group Hunting Psychic Children

Amanda belongs to a different organization of like-minded mothers dedicated to protecting the world from their powerful girls. When Margaret asks her what to do, Amanda offers to take the problem out of her hands. Explaining the need to ambush Carrie, she outlines a plan to kill Margaret’s child. This horrific strategy is presented as a gift to soften the impact of infanticide. Horrified, Margaret flees the coffee shop, but the damage has already been done. Amanda now knows about Carrie’s existence and will likely attempt to end the girl’s life. 

As Carrie first discovers her burgeoning gifts, she meets a fellow outcast named Emaline (Thalia Dudek). The sardonic teen catches Carrie at vulnerable moments and helps her learn to control her mind. But we eventually come to a devastating realization. When secret recordings of their conversation are posted online, Carrie watches herself argue with an empty room. Adelaide will inform us that Emaline is an astral projector, capable of transporting her consciousness across the world while physically remaining far away. 

These three female forces come to a head on the night of Carrie’s ruination. Shortly before the prom queen is crowned, Caitlin arrives at the dance with Sable (Cassandra Naud) and Maeve (Ruth Codd) while Amanda lurks in another corner. When she advances on the oblivious teen, Sable uses her own telekinetic powers to ward her off. We can assume that Amanda is there to take Carrie out while Caitlin and her friends have come to prom to save the girl’s life. 

But it’s Emaline who reaches her first. As Carrie stares in horror at the body of her friend and date, we see Emaline offer to take control. In a detailed interview, Sue (Siena Agudong) describes a shadow that grows behind the stunned prom queen, suddenly exploding in a wave of invisible force. This nods to the title of an in-world academic text called The Shadow Exploded, which provides a critical analysis of the prom night disaster. Seemingly possessing Carrie’s body, Emaline begins destroying the high school, then spreads her revenge to the larger town. 

Without Emaline’s mental buffer, Carrie is devastated by the night’s events. She walks home alone and looks for sympathy from her mother. Margaret is at first compassionate, gently wiping the blood from her daughter’s skin. But moments later, the shaken mother prepares to take Amanda’s advice. Preemptively asking for her daughter’s forgiveness, Margaret jams a knitting needle into Carrie’s ear. Thankfully, the teen’s powers reflexively kick in, and Margaret is thrown across the room. As she approaches Carrie with a knife in her hand, the horrified daughter uses her gifts to bring the house down on both of their heads. 

Could Adelaide Be Charlie McGee or Someone Even More Dangerous?

While this devastating conclusion somewhat mirrors King’s novel and Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation, Flanagan makes several important changes. In the early morning aftermath, we see Emaline pull her out of the rubble. Margaret lies buried under heavy debris, frantically using her own meager telekinesis to hold the wreckage just inches away from her own body. A flashback to Margaret’s childhood shows that she once used this power to sharply move a decorative cross, but interpreted the anomaly as a sign from God. While King suggests that Carrie’s grandmother must have had the TK gene, he gives no such gifts to Margaret herself. 

In the final episode’s denouement, we learn that Margaret has survived the night but has no knowledge of Carrie’s whereabouts. Interviewed by Adelaide, she demands answers and vows to follow her daughter to the ends of the Earth. But Margaret also reluctantly admits that she will not be able to locate and control her own sliver of psychic strength. Satisfied, Adelaide responds by gradually slowing down, then stopping the mother’s heart. This unnerving scene is directly pulled from King’s novel, though the literary killer is Carrie herself. However, Flanagan’s disturbing twist casts a shadow over Adelaide’s organization. 

We’re left to wonder who this powerful woman is and how she would benefit from Margaret’s death. Based on a simple handful of scenes, we assume Adelaide leads a well-funded organization dedicated to protecting magical girls. But she callously kills the distraught mother and instructs her assistants to cover it up. This scene brings to mind the sinister Rose the Hat, also introduced in Doctor Sleep. A psychic vampire, she and her clan roam the country in unremarkable motor homes, locating and feeding on “shining” kids. 

Or maybe this is a grown-up Charlie McGee, evading the Shop with an alias. The girl we meet in King’s 1980 novel is adamantly opposed to using her gifts, wary of hurting anyone else. But perhaps after surviving the story’s fiery conclusion, she’s adopted a more pragmatic attitude. Adelaide also demonstrates skill at mental domination, a power wielded by Charlie’s father.

In the wake of the Shop’s experiment, Andy develops a talent he calls “the push.” By internally emphasizing chosen words, he can persuade his targets to bend to his will, either acting in unusual ways or minutely interrogating their memory. We see Adelaide also emphasizing her commands when she questions a handful of prom night survivors. 

But again, Emaline becomes the story’s wild card. Likely Amanda’s astral-projecting daughter, she drags Carrie from the wreckage of her house, then tends to her wounds and helps her escape. The finale concludes with the two in Emaline’s car driving down an unmarked road. She refuses to tell the shocked prom queen where they are going, worried that someone may be monitoring Carrie’s thoughts. While certainly hiding from Amanda and her band of assassins, Emaline is also probably protecting Carrie from Caitlin’s mental tracking skills. But where is Emaline taking her? Is she headed towards another group of “shining” teens or will the two girls attempt to survive on their own?

Flanagan’s proposed Carrie seasons 2 and 3 will certainly center this nebulous question as Carrie finds her place in this shadowy world. Only time will tell if subsequent chapters will build on King’s connected universe or spin off in an entirely new direction.

The post How Mike Flanagan’s ‘Carrie’ Rewrites And Expands Stephen King’s Shared Universe appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

King posted a video of himself on X as he tuned into Carrie with his dog, Molly, but also gave Constant Readers another incentive to watch: “It was directed by Mike Flanagan, and he is the best adapter of my work. And if you like this and enough people watch it, he might be doing something else that’s really special. But I can’t talk about it. Shhhh. Molly be quiet. Okay?”

Referring to Flanagan as the best adapter of his work is high praise, considering just how prolific the author and adaptations of his work tend to be. To date, Flanagan has adapted Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and The Life of Chuck into feature films.

Naturally, King kept mum on what that special project might be. But it’s worth noting that the eight-episode inaugural season shares a connection to The Dark Tower; Carrie could be laying the foundation for Flanagan’s larger vision even beyond the three-season run he hopes to achieve with his latest series.

The series even features a deep cut Easter egg in the very first scenes of the first episode, which is set at a construction site revealed to be LaMerk Industries. LaMerk is a metalworks company that’s allied with The Crimson King in The Dark Tower series.

Carrie stars Samantha Sloyan and Summer H. Howell have already weighed in on their hopes for joining Flanagan’s Dark Tower.

Considering that Carrie is currently dominating Prime Video’s streaming charts, we may find out what that special project that King is teasing is sooner rather than later. Fingers crossed.

Shhh! Don’t talk about this! https://t.co/MUxoksZBev

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) October 9, 2026

The post Stephen King Calls Mike Flanagan His “Best” Adapter, Teases Secret New Project appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Boys often registered for vocational programs like woodworking or automotive repair while girls were likely to take typing or home economics. Unless you were on the college track, which was not a necessity to land a good job. 

Adult intervention was minimal. Before the heyday of stranger danger or helicopter parents, teenagers enjoyed wide-ranging autonomy. Students walked home from school unsupervised, and hazing was an accepted part of the social hierarchy. Parents and teachers generally adopted a survival-of-the-fittest mentality and assumed teenagers would find their own way through adolescent strife. 

Perhaps this is why the bullying seen in King’s debut novel feels like a relic of its time. We first meet Carrie White as she’s mocked by teachers and students alike and notice graffiti that reads, “Carrie White eats shit.” An outcast practically since birth, the shy girl doesn’t have a single friend and desperately tries to fly under the radar of her more popular classmates. The only daughter of strict fundamentalist Margaret White, she’s been raised in an ultra-religious household and prevented from keeping up with modern trends.  

The Internet Turns Carrie’s Humiliation Into Public Spectacle

Though her ostracization is hardly new, the situation escalates near the end of Carrie’s senior year. When she gets her first period while showering after gym, the sheltered girl genuinely believes she is bleeding to death. Led by the popular Chris Hargensen, Carrie’s classmates begin pelting her with tampons and pads while chanting at her to “plug it up.” As punishment for this despicable prank, Chris faces suspension and refusal of her prom tickets. Along with her greaser boyfriend Billy Nolan, she retaliates by arranging for Carrie to be elected Prom Queen before dumping a bucket of pig’s blood on her head. 

In the five decades since its publication, the Carrie story has become ubiquitous. She’s mentioned in connection with every school dance, and the image of a prom queen drenched in blood might be featured on a Mount Rushmore of horror villains. But it’s admittedly difficult to imagine this story happening today. With anti-bullying practices now a standard part of high school life, a student like King’s Chris would likely have been expelled long ago, and attempts would be made to protect Carrie from her abusive mother.

But writer/director Mike Flanagan has updated the story for 2026, putting a modern spin on its most upsetting elements. Rather than old-school cruelty from Chris (Alison Thornton) and her friends, most of the torment Carrie (Summer H. Howell) endures takes place on social media, thus expanding the scope of her humiliation far beyond those who happen to witness it live.

In the 1974 version of the story, Carie’s shower room shame exists in a fairly closed loop. News of her period panic may circle through the Ewen High halls, but it’s ultimately forgotten in a couple of days. It’s Chris who will not let it go, largely because she faces punishment. But Flanagan’s version spirals out of control. Feigning an attempt to help, his Chris drags Carrie under a running shower, then orders her stunned classmates to “help out” by tossing a handful of tampons and pads.

When Everyone Becomes Part of the Mob

While certainly traumatic, what happens next is arguably worse. As Carrie sobs on the shower stall floor, Chris and her friends pull out their phones and begin recording the girl’s misery. This moment is now documented for all time and could potentially be viewed by the entire world. 

As Chris’s own life begins to crumble, she takes her rage out on the naive girl. She creates an Instagram account called @carriered_ and uses a screenshot of Carrie’s face as the profile picture. Though initially private, “@carriered_” quickly gains hundreds of followers. Chris begins snapping pics of her fellow classmates and uploading them to the anonymous account. She adds horrific captions designed to maximize humiliation, targeting students for their appearance, hygiene, and sexuality. 

Photographed without their consent, students find themselves viciously mocked for existing in public. The ripple effects are instantaneous. Hallway fights become a constant occurrence as secrets are revealed and trust is broken. Some students are pulled from school while others are outed to their conservative parents. When a teacher is accused of dating his students, news quickly spreads throughout the town. After weeks of relentless harassment, Mr. Peist (Rahul Kohli) dies by suicide, leaving notes that reveal a disturbing history of pedophilia and predation.

Now that smartphones have become ubiquitous, Gen Xers and Elder Millennials frequently thank our higher powers that our adolescent mistakes have been lost to time. Younger generations are becoming more savvy about what they post, aware that a damaging internet footprint can follow a person for the rest of their lives. While we are reckoning with the emotional effects of Instagram, particularly considering teenage users, Flanagan highlights a more nebulous fear, one without an easy answer. 

Victims of “@carriered_” are not being teased for their own posts, but for pictures taken without their consent. They have no control over what images are uploaded to the anonymous account or the devastating captions that focus the cruelty. Each time they show their face, they risk becoming the next victim, publicly shamed for eating a large sandwich or wiping their nose in the hallway. Even worse, these candid photos could become a popular meme, infinitely reposted with fresh captions and used as a joke by millions of strangers. 

Though “@carriered_” is anonymous, other students begin sending Chris their own submissions. In a disciplinary meeting, she reports that half the school has been sending her pictures, using her account as a consequence-free platform to express the cruelty they wouldn’t dare say out loud. Perhaps they are hoping to take the heat off of themselves, or, like Chris, are expressing their misplaced rage. It’s a fascinating update of the shower room scene. Again, Chris has become the ringleader, her overt cruelty providing cover for the mob to attack. 

One of the more devastating elements of Flanagan’s series adaptation is the utter helplessness of the adults. Principal Grayle (Matthew Lillard) is well aware of the account, but there’s little he and the faculty can actually do. Though pictures are being taken on school grounds, social media itself is a gray area. He cannot yet prove who is running “@carriered_” and must filter through a barrage of accusations.

It’s only when Chris’s best friend Sue (Siena Agudong) captures her recorded confession that the teen finally faces punishment. But still, she refuses to take the account down, citing her right to free speech. Grayle’s only repercussion is to expel the girl, hoping to kill the snake by removing its head. But while administrators try to control the fallout, another social media villain emerges.

Margaret White Learns to Weaponize Social Media 

When Margaret (Samantha Sloyan) discovers Chris’ account, she vows to fight fire with fire. Frustrated with Grayle’s ineffectiveness, the angry mother begins a smear campaign. She wanders the halls of Ewen High, whispering to everyone she passes that Chris is the creator of “@carriered_”. She again names Chris at a PTO meeting and creates her own rival account essentially dedicated to doxxing the teen. While King’s Margaret and Chris never meet, it’s fascinating to watch these two female villains go head to head, using similar tactics to punish the other, with Carrie helplessly caught in between.  

Flanagan’s Margaret is perhaps the most terrifying element of the show. A conspiracy theorist and extreme conservative, she outright hates the rest of the world and has raised Carrie solely on the White property. It’s not until her husband’s death that the world even knows of her daughter’s existence. Forced to support herself by working at a big box store, Margaret openly shames women for buying vibrators while accusing mothers of poisoning their kids. She invents racist accusations about her young manager and calls her neighbor’s daughter a whore. In an echo of King’s religious fanatic, Flanagan’s Margaret clearly longs for a day when she and Carrie can retreat from the world and go back to their life of extreme isolation. 

But Margaret soon gets a taste for blood when she discovers the power of social media. Determined to take Chris down, she creates a rival account called @realmaggiered — an interesting nod to another destructive Twitter account — and begins publicly shaming the teenager while begging her followers to join her crusade. In the wake of Mr. Peist’s shocking death, “@carriered_” receives national coverage, and Margaret begins sending information to local journalists, gravitating towards those who give her favorable coverage. 

She leaks the time and place of a private mediation in which Grayle hopes to reach a peaceful resolution. A dangerous mob forms outside the school with protestors chanting “Death to Hargensen!” Others defend the teen as a free speech vigilante, citing the fact that she accidentally exposed a pedophile. When Chris seems poised to apologize, Margaret twists the tenterhooks. She deliberately misinterprets an attempt at reconciliation and subtly shames Chris using her mother’s own words. The smirk on Margaret’s face when Chris doubles down tells us exactly who the self-righteous mother truly is. She has stopped caring about her daughter’s pain and has become addicted to the validation social media provides. 

Unfortunately, we all know where this story ends. Chris orchestrates Carrie’s Prom Night victory, then dumps a bucket of blood on her head, intending to create content that will surely go viral. Carrie practically explodes with telekinetic rage and winds up destroying half of the town. Seeking well-deserved revenge, she crushes Chris in her boyfriend’s car after finally receiving an apology. Following a tender moment back at home, Margaret tries to murder her daughter, wary of the girl’s unpredictable powers. But Carrie fights back and destroys the house, leaving her mother on the brink of death. 

While King’s nightmarish story of bullying has become part of American iconography, the themes Flanagan introduces are arguably more frightening. After all, Carrie may have gotten her fiery revenge, but we are still living in a world dominated by people like Margaret and Chris. This nihilistic series presents no hope for a peaceful solution.

Carrie’s prom may be over, but our social media nightmare is still burning out of control.

The post How Mike Flanagan Updates Stephen King’s ‘Carrie’ For The Social Media Age [Spoilers] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Rarely does he mention Chamberlain, Maine, or those touched by the dreaded “Black Prom.” Carrie exists in a fairly closed loop, a singular nightmare of telekinesis gone wrong. 

By now we all know the story of Carrie White. Continuously bullied for most of her life, the quiet teen’s rage finally explodes after a prank sees her elected Prom Queen then “crowned” with a bucket of pig’s blood. Drenched in the disgusting liquid, Carrie responds by using her powers to destroy the school’s gymnasium, killing most of the senior class. Her rage then spreads throughout the small town as she walks home to confront her abusive mother, Margaret. 

Fifty years after Brian De Palma first brought Carrie to the screen, Mike Flanagan has reimagined the harrowing story, updating it for the modern age. In eight episodes, the writer/director substitutes social media for 70s-era bullying while exploring the ecosystem of a 21st-century high school. While much of this modern iteration differs from its source material, Flanagan does follow King’s lead in avoiding major Easter eggs. However, there are a few cheeky references hidden within the teenage angst, some that nod to King himself and others that point to the wider genre. 

Mike Flanagan Regulars Return For Carrie

After eight films and five miniseries, Flanagan has built a crew of faithful collaborators, those adept at capturing his signature blend of empathy and terror. One of these familiar faces is Samantha Sloyan, who stars in Carrie as Margaret White. In 2016, the veteran actress made a brief appearance in Flanagan’s third feature, Hush, as an ill-fated neighbor to the film’s tormented heroine. In the last decade, she has starred in many of Flanagan’s genre projects, including memorable roles in The Haunting of Hill House, The Life of Chuck, and The Fall of the House of Usher.

But perhaps her most powerful performance is as the villainous Bev Keane in the 2021 miniseries Midnight Mass. A devout catholic, Bev dooms her tiny island congregation by blindly following a careless priest. In many ways, Bev could be seen as a precursor to Sloyan’s Margaret White. Both women hide their close-minded cruelty behind a thin veil of good intentions. 

While Carrie’s teen cast are newcomers to the director’s cinematic universe, Michael Trucco, Katee Sackhoff, Rahul Kohli, and Ruth Codd are Flanagan regulars, appearing in a number of projects from Oculus and The Midnight Club to The Fall of the House of Usher and The Haunting of Bly Manor. The show’s most exciting casting is Matthew Lillard as Principal Grayle. The seasoned Scream King first collaborated with Flanagan for a brief but memorable role in his 2024 tearjerker (and King adaptation) The Life of Chuck.

This casting feels particularly exciting considering Lillard’s breakout role as Stu Macher in Wes Craven’s meta-slasher Scream. Remembering that Stu kills his own principal, it’s particularly exciting to see Lillard play Grayle as a compassionate if toothless administrator.  

Careful listeners may also recognize the voice of Flanagan’s most trusted collaborator. Mirroring the novel’s semi-epistolary structure, an unseen narrator can be heard previewing prom night’s destructive arc while detailing historical examples of the TK phenomenon. In episode eight, this voice is revealed to be Kate Siegel, Flanagan’s wife and frequent creative partner. Siegel plays a silent yet terrifying ghost in Flanagan’s sophomore film Oculus before going on to star in Hush. Also credited as a co-writer, the couple mapped out the largely dialogue-free film by blocking scenes in their own home.

Since then, Siegel has been featured in most of Flanagan’s projects with surprising appearances in Gerald’s Game and The Haunting of Bly Manor and an emotional turn in Midnight Mass. Should Carrie continue in future seasons, it’s likely Siegel will lead the adult cast. 

Stephen King Character Referenecs and Adaptation Veterans Hidden Throughout 

Other characters reunite us with alumni from additional King adaptations. Heather Graham adds a bit of rationality to the story’s chaos as the estranged mother of bully Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton). While not particularly known for horror, Graham appeared as troubled survivor Rita Blakemoor in the 2020 adaptation of King’s The Stand. Though desperate to save her flailing daughter, Mrs. Hargensen has recently left her husband John (Trucco) and moved in with another man.

Gil Bellows plays Chris’ would-be stepfather three decades after his shocking appearance in Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption. As Tommy, he arrives at the titular prison with proof that Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is innocent. 

Several other names found throughout the series may be familiar to Constant Readers. The social worker who first helps Carrie register for school is named Ms. Piper, honoring the late Piper Laurie who terrified audiences with her operatic performance as Margaret White in De Palma’s 1976 adaptation.

Flanagan’s Carrie (Summer H. Howell) is also assisted by Officer Irving (Jason Tremblay) and Officer Katt (Camille Atebe), nodding to Amy Irving and William Katt, De Palma’s original Tommy and Sue. We also see that as Carrie is exploring her powers, she unknowingly causes a bunch of mailboxes to open on their own, one of them labeled Robinson. Though they do not appear in the series, perhaps this is the home of Jerome Robinson or his sister Barbara, recurring characters in King’s Hodges Trilogy and subsequent Holly novels. 

Arguably most exciting is a younger Snell sibling named Tabby (Ashley Cartwright). This familiar nickname references King’s own wife, Tabitha, a fellow writer and savior of Carrie herself. King has candidly admitted to throwing out his first draft of the 1974 novel, daunted by the story’s spiraling length and complex female characters. It was Tabitha who found the pages in the wastebasket, dusted them off, and started to read. She became interested in the burgeoning story and urged her husband to continue writing, promising to help him write this heavily female world.

The rest is history! Carrie would spark King’s breakout success and the beginning of an unparalleled career. 

Mike Flanagan’s Hidden Callbacks to His Own Films and De Palma’s Carrie

Other landmarks in Flanagan’s Chamberlain, Maine reference his own cinematic world and additional King collaborators. As Carrie walks down Maine Street, we see her pass the Hush Day Spa, nodding to Flanagan’s 2016 home invasion film. Months later, Carrie dances amidst the flames of her destruction in front of the tiny town’s movie theater. The marquee advertises a film festival honoring De Palma titled Retrospective in 35 MM. The doors are flanked by classic posters from the director’s impressive career, highlighting Blow Out and Dressed to Kill. The blood Chris pours on Carrie’s head comes from Sombra Pig Farm, referencing the sinister Sombra Corporation, a conglomerate headed by the Crimson King.

Alongside the Ewen High seniors, a pair of surprising chaperones can be found in the crowd on prom night. Bryan Fuller may now be known for Hannibal, but before reimagining the iconic cannibal, he rebooted King’s original source material. In 2002, Fuller penned David Carson’s Carrie, a two-part special for NBC starring Angela Bettis and Patricia Clarkson. Flanagan’s own version mirrors the writer/director’s shocking conclusion, which sees Carrie escape the fiery prom and drive off into the wider world.

Known for creating the Child’s Play franchise, Don Mancini has no official ties to the King universe, but is a champion of the author’s work. He frequently names Carrie as his favorite film and took inspiration from King’s catalogue when creating Chucky season 3. 

Well before Carrie destroys the gym, another fun Easter egg can be found lining its walls. As Chris and her friends run endless line drills — punishment for their locker room prank — we notice a trio of banners commemorating Ewen High’s successful basketball run throughout the 1970s. It seems the team won the state championship in 1973, ‘75, and ‘77. Missing are the years 1974 (the year King’s Carrie was first published) and 1976 (the year De Palma’s film premiered). Considering the high school burns down in both versions, a basketball championship would be highly unlikely. 

Stephen King Easter Eggs You Might Have Missed

Other references are deeper cuts and thematic nods to King’s catalogue. Episode one sees Carrie experience her first active shooter drill, an unfortunately common occurrence in modern high schools. However, they were virtually unheard of in 1977 when King — writing as Richard Bachman — published the novel Rage. The story follows a troubled teen named Charlie Decker who uses a firearm to hold his class hostage.

While King’s story in no way glorifies Charlie’s actions, copies of the disturbing novel were found in the possession of several subsequent school shooters. After a Kentucky assailant was found with Rage in his locker, King decided to pull it from publication. He would go on to write about this decision in his 2013 essay “Guns.” However, this plotline feels like Flanagan’s own statement on the heartbreaking topic. Shocked by Carrie’s experience, Margaret rushes into the principal’s office and questions this disturbing practice. Though she will emerge as the story’s central antagonist, in this moment she makes a good point.

Much of Margaret’s story is informed by the death of her husband Ralph White (Tahmoh Penikett). Though deceased before Carrie’s birth in the source material, Flanagan begins the series with his death, which leads to the discovery of his daughter’s existence. While grieving this tremendous loss, Carrie begins seeing visions of her late father, often lurking in the shadows of her darkened room.

These visions resemble another shadowy figure in Flanagan’s filmography. His 2017 adaptation Gerald’s Game sees the story’s heroine tormented by the Moonlight Man (Carel Struycken), a monstrous figure who watches the trapped woman from the corner of her own bedroom. Helplessly handcuffed to the bed, Jessie (Carla Gugino) cannot tell whether he is an actual intruder or a harbinger of her approaching death. Ralph serves a similar function here. Are these visions remnants of a troubled relationship or a warning of the horrors to come? 

In a similar moment of foreshadowing, Chris and her new blended family discuss the second half of her senior year, referring to the spring semester as “back half.” While possibly a casual term, “back half” brings to mind another group of King’s powerful kids. The 2019 novel The Institute, and Jack Bender’s series adaptation, see a group of children with psychic powers kidnapped by a covert government agency. Held in a cruel hybrid of hospital and prison, the kids are eventually taken to the ward known as Back Half, where unthinkable torture truly begins. Chris seems to be entering a similar stage of pain, and the “back half” of her own senior year will conclude with a grisly burst of telekinesis. 

Could These Easter Eggs Set Up ‘Carrie’ Season 2?

Frustrated with her crumbling life, Chris takes her rage out on Carrie and Margaret. Along with her delinquent boyfriend Billy (Arthur Conti), she breaks into the White’s house intending to turn picture frames upside down, break small objects, and spit in their mugs. An expert in this type of misdemeanor, Billy first attacks a knick knack shelf. He redirects an elephant figurine but ignores the tiny bird to its right.

This tense moment will likely remind King devotees of a terrifying sequence in Rob Reiner’s Misery. Having escaped his guest room prison, writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan) wheels himself around the deserted parlor of his captor Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), inadvertently knocking over a ceramic penguin. It’s this telltale bird that alerts Annie to Paul’s subterfuge, leading to the film’s notorious Hobbling scene. 

In addition to Carrie’s supernatural gifts, Flanagan introduces us to a wider network of telekinetic girls. In her aforementioned narration, Siegel mentions a young woman gifted with pyrokinesis, the ability to start fires with her mind. Constant Readers will no doubt be reminded of Charlie McGee, the protagonist of King’s 1980 novel Firestarter.

Clearly the leader of this shadowy collective, Seigel’s character demonstrates powers of mental domination previously wielded by Charlie’s father. Could Siegel be playing another survivor of The Shop, the government agency responsible for Charlie’s gifts? Should Carrie return for season two, this strange coda promises additional connections to King’s larger world and most memorable characters. 

The post Every Stephen King, Mike Flanagan, and Horror Easter Egg Hidden in Prime Video’s ‘Carrie’ Series, Explained [Spoilers] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

At the center of it is Samantha Sloyan, the longtime Flanagan collaborator behind unforgettable performances in Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House, The Fall of the House of Usher and Hush.

Ahead of the series’ premiere, Sloyan joined Bloody Disgusting’s The Boo Crew to talk about stepping into the role of Margaret White, working opposite Summer H. Howell’s Carrie, and continuing a creative relationship with Flanagan that has produced some of her most memorable work.

When Flanagan first approached Sloyan about playing Margaret, however, she had one immediate concern: Midnight Mass’ Bev Keane.

“I was really lucky. For some reason, Mike was hearing my voice as Margaret from the beginning,” Sloyan recalls. “When he talked about Margaret, to be honest, my first concern, the first thing I thought was, ‘But I did Beverly.’ I don’t want people to feel like I’m just always going to be in Beverly.”

Flanagan quickly made it clear that this Margaret would be something very different.

“He was like, ‘Oh, no, no, no. That’s not my Carrie. That’s not what we’re doing.’ And when he explained that in this piece, Margaret loves Carrie, it’s a loving relationship between a mother and a daughter, then I was like, ‘Oh, well, absolutely.’”

That single distinction fundamentally reshapes Margaret White.

Samantha Sloyan isn’t playing a mother devoid of love. In fact, it’s Margaret’s love for Carrie that makes their relationship so complicated and, eventually, so devastating.

Sloyan found her way into that contradiction by thinking less about Margaret as an iconic horror character and more about the complicated ways people within families can hurt one another.

“I don’t have kids, so I couldn’t come at it from that angle,” Sloyan explains. “The only memories that I had to inform Margaret were memories of being a daughter and a child with parents.

“In the best-case scenarios, we love each other, and yet we can hurt each other so terribly. Sometimes it can feel that the other person is incapable of showing up for you in the way that you need in that moment.”

For Sloyan, Margaret’s tragedy lies in her inability to separate what Carrie needs from what Margaret needs herself.

“Margaret was doing what was best for Margaret,” she says. “I think her failure is she’s unable to let her kid grow. She’s unable to let go that necessary amount to let them be their own person.

“She just couldn’t ever let Carrie be her own person. But it was because she loved her. It was never that she wanted to hurt her.”

That doesn’t mean this version of Margaret has lost her teeth.

Sloyan revisited previous adaptations of Carrie, particularly Piper Laurie’s legendary performance in Brian De Palma’s 1976 film, while developing her own take on the character.

“There’s something that Piper did that’s so incredible, which is she’s terrifying and unpredictable and dangerous as hell,” Sloyan says. “And I didn’t want to lose that in this loving relationship.”

The challenge became preserving that danger while making Margaret’s love for Carrie feel equally truthful.

“I needed her to have nowhere to go,” Sloyan says of Carrie. “She’s stuck between this school experience, which is horrific, and then her home life, which is not much better. I just wanted to make sure that my Margaret, in her moments of terrorizing Carrie, could be just as unnerving, even though different.”

Much of Sloyan’s ability to find this version of Margaret came from Howell herself.

Flanagan gave the cast something relatively unusual in television: rehearsal time before filming began. It was there that Sloyan first saw Howell’s Carrie come to life.

“With Summer, it was so instantaneous,” Sloyan recalls. “This is so in her bones in a way that you never catch her acting. None of it feels performative. It really feels like it originated from inside her.”

Seeing Howell’s interpretation also solved pieces of Margaret that Sloyan hadn’t yet been able to access on her own.

“Once I saw who her Carrie was, it made sense of things that I hadn’t quite figured out for Margaret,” she says. “It was like having the key to an encryption or something. ‘Oh, okay. Now I understand what that says.’”

Sloyan adds, “Her performance is so complete. The character she built is so complete. More so than really anybody I can think of that I’ve worked with. It was really remarkable.”

That intimacy between the two actors is especially important in a series that often slows down enough to simply let its characters talk, listen and exist together.

Sloyan’s extensive background in theater proved particularly useful.

“Mike works a lot like that in a lot of ways,” she says. “You really do feel like you’re a part of something that, personally, I feel when I do theater.”

One of the biggest lessons Sloyan carried from the stage is deceptively simple: listening.

“There’s never a point on stage where you’re off camera,” she explains. “You have to be involved in everything that’s happening all the time. I think just listening, you’re always paying attention, you’re always in, is really what I valued most from what I learned from stage.”

That same sense of attention is present in Sloyan’s distinctive delivery as Margaret. There’s a tension between what the character says and everything she is fighting to keep beneath the surface.

“I think so much of it has to do with there’s so much they’re not saying,” Sloyan says of characters like Margaret and Bev.

With Margaret in particular, she imagined an enormous amount happening beneath the character’s controlled exterior.

“I kind of imagine Margaret is always screaming in a way,” she explains. “But then what comes out, it’s so measured and thought through. And then that pops through. Where does she lose control of it? Where does the volume get turned up?”

After so many projects together, Samantha Sloyan and Mike Flanagan have also developed the kind of shorthand that allows them to explore those moments without overexplaining them.

“As a director, Mike truly loves actors. He loves us, and it’s fabulous,” Sloyan says.

“He is exacting, don’t get me wrong. He knows exactly what he wants. But there’s something about knowing exactly what he wants that gives him the freedom to allow new ideas to play around.”

Sloyan says Flanagan also understands that every performer requires something different from a director.

“He really is so great at reading what each individual person might need. For me, he knows when to give me a note and when to give me a second.”

Their history together has also created a deep level of trust.

When Flanagan first gave Sloyan the role of Bev Keane in Midnight Mass, she says there was little in their previous work together that would have suggested she could play the character audiences would eventually love to hate.

“There was nothing I had done with him or that he would have seen that would have given him the idea that I was capable of doing that,” she recalls. “But he just kind of knew that I was.

“That faith, you’re like, ‘Well, I guess I do know how to do it. Let’s go.’”

Sloyan believes Flanagan now knows when she has more to give in a scene and, just as importantly, when she’s revealing something too soon.

“He might be like, ‘Don’t give this to us now. That’s going to be later. So now have that emotion, but let’s not see it.’ Just that understanding of the full story and the patience to tell it.”

That patience is essential to Carrie, which has eight episodes to explore characters and relationships that previous adaptations had only a couple of hours to unpack.

The series also surrounds Sloyan and Howell with a sprawling ensemble that includes Matthew Lillard, whose performance particularly impressed Sloyan.

“Working with him is a dream,” she says. “I grew up with Scream.”

After recently revisiting Lillard’s work in Twin Peaks: The Return and The Descendants, Sloyan remembers wondering, “Why are we not watching Matthew Lillard all the time on everything?”

“But he’s just so great,” she adds. “His love of acting and theater… he’s just such a force for good in the world.”

For all of Carrie’s cruelty, rage and horror, Sloyan ultimately sees something else running through Flanagan’s work. Hope.

Asked what Flanagan understands about being human that keeps making her willing to “walk into the dark with him again,” Sloyan’s answer is beautifully simple.

“I think that he has hope. He just has hope for the world,” she says. “For me, I think that’s something that we need so desperately.

“I think he is always showing us, through how difficult things are, that there are people who want to be kind and there are people who want to make things better and who care about each other.”

And as for whether she’ll continue taking that journey with Flanagan?

“He’s got me for the rest of my life if that’s what he’s doing.”

Listen to Samantha Sloyan’s full conversation with Lauren and Trevor Shand on The Boo Crew Podcast Episode 482 for more on becoming Margaret White, working with Summer H. Howell and Matthew Lillard, her creative relationship with Mike Flanagan, and bringing this new interpretation of Stephen King’s Carrie to life.

All eight episodes of Mike Flanagan’s Carrie are streaming exclusively on Prime Video now.

The post ‘Carrie’ – How Samantha Sloyan Found Love and Terror Inside Margaret White in Mike Flanagan’s Series [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

One undeniably exciting component of all of his books, though, is the ways in which he manages to find ways to connect them through references and Easter eggs. In this regard, there’s arguably no more important narrative in his catalogue than The Dark Tower. A compelling journey in its own right, courtesy of King weaving together themes of fantasy, Western, and the supernatural, it features in-world connections to dozens of King stories, with the titular tower both literally and figuratively connecting the author’s disparate characters.

In Mike Flanagan‘s new reboot of Carrie for Prime Video, he found ways to honor The Dark Tower. In a new interview with TV Insider, the showrunner offered more insight into those connections.

“The beautiful thing about Stephen King is that the connections between the universe that he’s built are some of the most fun, as lovers of Stephen King, that you get to make those connections,” the filmmaker revealed. “I do think this all exists on a certain level of the Tower, and Carrie’s place in that bigger world is something he hints at very much in the book. It was really exciting for us to be able to do that in practice and to really go into that.”

What’s worth noting, however, is that King’s original Carrie novel predates any installments of his Dark Tower series, meaning his debut novel is devoid of overt connections to the fantasy realm. Still, Flanagan’s creative take on the source material, specifically in how Carrie White has telekinetic abilities that resemble those found in other corners of King’s lore, leans heavily into the shared universe aspect of the author’s stories.

It’s also worth pointing out that, while Flanagan is quite busy, he is also attached to an adaptation of The Dark Tower, which means he can use his Carrie as an entry point to that sprawling narrative. Funny enough, Carrie stars Samantha Sloyan and Summer H. Howell have already weighed in on their hopes for joining Flanagan’s Dark Tower.

“Maybe some of the stuff in the plate throwers, maybe there’s some more in that [for me],” Sloyan shared with Bloody Disgusting. “That’s one of the fun things about Mike, is sometimes he hears your voice in a character that you would have never expected for yourself. So I’d be really interested to know what he heard me as.”

Howell, meanwhile, already feels honored to get to play Carrie White, as she admitted, “I am about to finish the first book of the whole Dark Tower series, so I don’t know yet. I feel greedy trying to pick another character. I’m already Carrie and I’m very happy with that, so I don’t know. I just want to be along for the ride, even if I’m watching you all do it.”

Carrie is now streaming on Prime Video.

The post Mike Flanagan Explains How His ‘Carrie’ Reboot Connects to Stephen King’s ‘Dark Tower’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Mike Flanagan has developed a new take on Carrie, which premieres on Prime Video this week. Having previously adapted King stories like Doctor Sleep and Gerald’s Game, the filmmaker has already tackled a variety of seminal King sequences, though the prom sequence proved to be the most challenging of his career.

“I knew I was directing the first two episodes of the show, and, for a minute, it looked like that was all I would do. I couldn’t give up the prom. I had to [direct it]. If you’re going to do Carrie, you’ve got to do the prom,” Flanagan shared with Bloody Disgusting. “It’s the most complicated sequence of my career, logistically, by a lot. It’s one of the most difficult sequences in my career to execute, but it was one of the most exciting and rewarding.”

He continued, “And to be able to go into something that is so iconic and say, ‘I want to do a different version of it. I want to see it from angles we’ve never seen. I don’t want to repeat what De Palma did. I don’t want to repeat what they did in the Angela Bettis version, or the Chloë Grace Moretz [version]. I want to try to do our prom,’ that was such a great challenge. And it’s one of those sequences that I’ll be proud of my whole career. I had so much fun doing that.”

Similarly, Samantha Sloyan is taking on the role of Margaret White, who has been brought to life previously by acclaimed actors. Sloyan broke down how this new adaptation was able to highlight unseen elements of the character’s relationship with daughter Carrie.

“So much of it was baked into the script. It was such a fundamental reason of why Mike, his new take on this, was that if we start with Carrie and Margaret as a loving mother-daughter, it really — even though we’re going on the same journey, it gets us there in an entirely different way,” the actor expressed. “And so I just really wanted to focus on making sure that I maintained those wonderful, iconic performances of her still being terrifying and her still being a threat, but doing that through the lens of a loving relationship.”

Given King’s prolific career, there are still elements about his original Carrie novel that stand apart from subsequent stories. From Flanagan’s perspective, “Carrie‘s his first published novel. It’s from a [much] younger Stephen King, although you can see the seeds of everything he’s going to become all in those pages. There’s a remarkable simplicity to it. It’s almost like Greek myth. It is a tragedy where the trajectory of it is so clear.”

He added, “You look at the bookshelf of Stephen King books, these huge tomes, and then you see Carrie. This is this narrow, efficient, straight-like-an-arrow book, but his central theme about how the choice between kindness and cruelty can accumulate into tragedy is a universally true theme that will always be true. While the details change, and while you can approach that story from so many different angles — and we tried very hard to approach it from a very different angle than had ever been done before — I think this is a story that is likely going to remain ripe for reinterpretation and examination probably for another couple decades, if not hundreds of years. It’s that timeless.”

Arguably one of the elements of Carrie is often overlooked is how vulnerable Carrie White is as a character, and so much focus is on the telekinetic powerhouse she becomes by the narrative’s ending. In this Prime Video adaptation, Summer H. Howell embodies the teen.

“I related a lot to her from the start. As soon as I read those scripts and the scenes Mike put her in, and the kind of person she is is the kind of person I want to be,” Howell recalled of what connected her most to Carrie. “It took me time. After high school, I really started figuring out who I want to be, how I want to show up in the world, the people I want to surround myself with. Carrie goes into it all very excited and optimistic, which I admire a lot, and grateful and curious, and so that’s what I really was excited to bring to her.”

She pointed out, “The hardest part … she’s full of emotion and rage, and so am I, but [performing] that for people can be a little intimidating, but I like to use that for my work. It almost feels therapeutic when I can, and channeling that on the day is the hard part.”

Carrie premieres on Prime Video on October 7.

Are you looking forward to the new series? Let us know in the comments below!

The post ‘Carrie’ Reboot’s Prom Scene Was “Most Difficult Sequence” of Mike Flanagan’s Career [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The staging was abstract, the choreography overwrought, the songs were sometimes brilliant, sometimes deeply lacking. It was confusing for anyone unfamiliar with Stephen King’s novel or the Brian DePalma film, unrelatable to most people who had ever experienced high school, and the material was a confounding candidate to musicalize. To its fans, it was campy (in the positive sense) and undeniably entertaining in the way Ed Wood movies and midnight showings of Reefer Madness are.

For those on both ends of the love/hate spectrum, it was without a doubt a show that was simply unbelievable.

The staging, inspired by Greek tragedy, began with a Physical Education class with students in white leotards and togas, followed by a locker room scene with suspended panels apparently standing in for showers. At the end of the first act, the first hint of Carrie’s telekinetic powers appears out of nowhere as she, hands apparently aflame, pins her mother behind a wall of fire. The prom sequence culminates with Billy pouring a small bucket of red liquid over Carrie’s head. She is then lifted into the air on a white hydraulic platform and “laser beams shoot out over the audience,” according to writer Ken Mandelbaum, before the roof descends, apparently crushing all but Carrie.

The show ends with a massive white staircase that Margaret White descends—in a cocktail dress. She then pulls out a knife and stabs Carrie, who touches her mother, causing her to suddenly drop dead.

The producers hoped for good reviews. They did not get them. They hoped a young, MTV-oriented audience would find the show. They didn’t. Carrie was a fiasco, and there was no saving it. “It was the most expensive flop in Broadway history,” Mandelbaum wrote, “losing the $8 million which had been contributed by British and West German investors.” The history of Carrie involves several major players, almost all of them with a great deal of success and experience going for them. So, the question is, how did it all go so wrong?

Why Carrie Seemed Like the Perfect Musical

The long road of Carrie: The Musical began with writer Lawrence D. Cohen, who had written the screenplay for the very successful film adaptation directed by Brian DePalma, and his partner Michael Gore, best known for his work on the music for the film Fame (1980). Soon after the success of Fame, the two were looking for a project to make into a stage musical. The two attended a performance of Lulu, an opera that originally premiered in 1937 shortly after the death of its composer, Alban Berg. The unusual and complicated story involves a woman who is ultimately murdered by Jack the Ripper and is scored with the atonal music that Berg was known for.

Upon leaving the theater, Gore said, “If Alban Berg were alive, he’d probably do Carrie as a musical.” At first the two laughed at the thought, but the idea stuck with them. Cohen began to realize that the relationship between Carrie and her mother Margaret White was quite theatrical, even operatic. The other element, the high school setting, was a natural fit and had been wildly successful in stage and film musicals including West Side Story, Grease, and of course Fame.

Also, horror musicals were not unprecedented. The Rocky Horror Picture Show had been a massive underground stage hit in London, and the movie was becoming a phenomenon by the early 80s. Little Shop of Horrors was about to open off-Broadway to great success. Just a couple of years earlier, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street had not only been a huge hit but had won the Tony for Best Musical.

So, Cohen and Gore contacted Stephen King, who responded, “If they can make a musical out of the dictator of Argentina [Evita], why not?” The two set to work right away, Cohen on the book and Gore on the songs. They soon added a third collaborator, Dean Pitchford, who had also worked on some of the music for Fame and had written the screenplay for the film Footloose (1984).

In August of 1984, they mounted a workshop production of the first act to drum up interest in the project. In this version, the show stuck to the grounded nature of both King’s novel and the DePalma film. It was a story of teenagers, a mother and daughter, and high school rivalries in a real-world setting with a supernatural element added to stir the pot and raise the stakes. This version maintained much of the dialogue that Cohen had included in his screenplay, with the songs forwarding the story and underlining the themes.

The workshop was well received, and it was soon announced that Carrie: The Musical would open on Broadway in the fall of 1986 and be produced by Barry and Fran Weissler and Fred Zollo. Cohen spoke highly of these creatively invigorating early years, saying, “We all had a lot of fun writing it and bringing it to life.” Unfortunately, this version of Carrie was not to be, as the finances could not be raised for it.

When Carrie Lost Its Way

A few years after this version of the project fell through, West German producer Friedrich Kurz took up Carrie and arranged for it to be produced with the Royal Shakespeare Company, which had been looking for another musical property after its success with Les Misérables. The artistic director of the RSC, Terry Hands, expressed great interest in the project and was attached as director. Cohen later expressed that this moment ended up sealing the fate of Carrie. Years before, the attachment of Brian DePalma did something similar for the movie, leading to its success. Unfortunately, the attachment of Hands turned out to be “far less felicitous,” to use Cohen’s rather diplomatic phrasing.

Hands’ attachment to the project was not without warrant. He had directed a complicated musical, Poppy, for the RSC to some success, including winning Best Musical from the Society of West End Theaters. Cohen believes that the problem had more to do with Carrie being a uniquely American piece. Being British, the high school politics and the prom setting were aspects that Hands did not seem to fully grasp, and he opted for a sparse, abstract reworking of the material. He also cut much of the dialogue, transforming Carrie from a musical play to a through-sung, borderline operetta, more like Les Misérables.

Carrie: The Musical played for a three-week engagement in Stratford upon Avon in the winter of 1988, and the reviews were dreadful. Many of the British critics were incensed that government funds were being used by the RSC for “a Broadway tryout.” Barbara Cook, who played Margaret White in this production, thought the whole idea of musicalizing Carrie was bizarre, but took the role after hearing some of the music. “I was still wary of it because of the subject matter. But Terry’s vision of the material intrigued me.”

Unfortunately, she also found much of the production inept and expressed that no one seemed to know how to fix it. Because of all this and a mishap with the set on opening night that nearly decapitated her, Cook left the production after the Stratford run.

The Broadway Run That Became Legend

The show then moved to Broadway for the fateful final nail in its coffin, with a score reorchestrated by Harold Wheeler, who had also worked on Dreamgirls. In a twist of fate, Betty Buckley, who had starred as the gym teacher Miss Collins in the 1976 film, was cast as Margaret White. The production ran for 21 previews and 5 performances, ironically to mostly sold-out crowds, at the Virginia Theater. The reviews were even worse than they had been in England. The New York Times eviscerated the show, as did most critics, with the exception of Clive Barnes of the New York Post, who gave it a full-throated rave.

Audience reactions were varied to the point of schizophrenia. Buckley described the reception at their first preview on April 28, 1988. At the end of the performance, “it’s a blackout, and the whole audience in the whole place starts to boo.” It was an experience she had never had before, but she urged her costar, the young Linzie Hateley, to continue as planned to the bows. When the lights came up, the entire audience turned on a dime from boos to a house-wide standing ovation. This seems to have been the reception throughout the run. Tickets for the previews became the hottest ticket in town as Carrie: The Musical had to be seen to be believed.

The ultimate demise of the show came down to one thing. According to Cohen, “bottom line…there was no money. The producer had run through it all and fled in the middle of the night, and we were done.” Carrie would soon enter the annals of the most legendary of all Broadway flops and become a cautionary tale for all who sought to bring unconventional subject matter to the musical stage. It even provided the title for Ken Mandelbaum’s chronicle of the most notorious failures in Broadway history: Not Since Carrie: 40 Years of Broadway Musical Flops.

So, imagine my surprise when, thirty years after this monumental failure, I got a call from the musical director for the theater department at a large local college asking if I would like to play guitar for their production of Carrie: The Musical. As I remember it, I audibly guffawed. But as it turns out, a lot had happened with Carrie in the last thirty years.

The Musical’s Unexpected Resurrection

After the demise of Carrie on Broadway, Cohen, Gore, and Pitchford went on to other things. Still, they all felt there was a good show somewhere in the rubble. They received multiple requests over the years to restage the show but did not take up any of the offers because they felt the writing itself, both book and music, could be better. According to Cohen:

“So, it took about two decades, and the three of us went back to work on it thinking that there were a lot of high schools, colleges, and regional theaters that would probably want to do Carrie…we pulled it apart from top to bottom and rewrote 60-70 percent of the show.”

From my experience with this reworked version, it also appears that they very much returned to the spirit of the workshop version. It is once again a musical play rather than an operetta-like show. The sets are grounded in reality, the situations reflect the struggles of relatable teenagers, and the interaction between Carrie and Margaret is complex and moving. In addition, the supernatural element is organic and believable to the world of the story and introduced slowly throughout the first act, as in the novel and film.

After the revision, Carrie went on to an off-Broadway production, which ran significantly longer than its Broadway counterpart, and spawned a very successful cast album. Since this run, it has been revised further, honing it into one of the most popular shows for high school, college, and regional theater productions of recent memory. Eventually, award-winning stagings were mounted in Los Angeles and London, where it won Best Off-West End Production, on top of selling out night after night.

The show as it now exists is beautifully written both in script and songs, funny, relatable, and even quite moving. During my own experience with Carrie, the ending never failed to bring tears to my eyes. Reflecting on the whole experience, Cohen referred to the iconic ending of the DePalma film. “Sort of like Carrie’s hand from the grave, it’s had a real happy ending. A real resurrection which is great.”

Few musicals have ever received such a second life. Its ultimate success is a testament to the power of the story and the vision of its creators, who pressed on against all odds to make their version of Carrie the best it could possibly be. That tenacity is not unlike the character of Carrie herself, who continues to return again and again, shocking us with a bloody hand reaching up out of the rubble.

The post They’re All Going to Laugh At You: The Death and Surprising Resurrection of ‘Carrie: The Musical’ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Fortunately, horror publishers big and small have come prepared for this moment, with dozens of new releases hitting throughout the month. 

So, to get you in that Halloween mood, here are 20 horror books we can’t wait to read this month, from long-awaited sequels to novellas, debuts, and more.

Find Me Where It Ends by Cassandra Khaw (October 6)

Cassandra Khaw is one of the finest prose stylists in all of genre fiction, capable of casting complete spells with single sentences. In Find Me Where It Ends, Khaw explores what happens when a woman whose ancestors were stalked by spectral black dogs leading up to their death wakes up one day to find a black dog of her own waiting by the door. This is a haunting, must-read novella from one of the best in the game right now. 

Other Worlds Than These by Stephen King and Peter Straub (October 6)

The much-anticipated, long-promised third novel in the series that began with The Talisman and continued with Black House is finally here. Peter Straub is sadly no longer with us, so Stephen King is taking the lead on this one, and based on the title alone, we can expect close ties to his personal fictional cosmology. What awaits in this one? I can’t wait to find out. 

Quaint Folk by Bitter Karella (October 6)

Bitter Karella‘s Moonflow remains one of my favorite horror novels of the last couple of years, and now she’s back with a satirical folk horror journey that you shouldn’t miss. Quaint Folk follows Jessica, a woman with a past who’s just trying to have a quiet family life, and thinks she may have found it on a remote island called Hasenhurst. But the more Jessica tries to settle into her new life, the more she finds that the islanders’ folk tales hint at a shocking reality. Karella’s fiction is simultaneously horrifying and hilarious, truly bonkers stuff in the best way, so this is a must-read for me.

Look What the Cat Dragged In by Jason Rekulak (October 13)

Jason Rekulak is best-known for his complex thrillers and horror novels like Hidden Pictures. With Look What the Cat Dragged In, he takes another horror turn with a high-concept that sounds like his most daring yet. The hook is simple: Penny, a cartoonist from Philly, takes on cat sitting duties for a feline named Godfrey. Easy enough, except that things seem to happen when Godfrey is around, and suddenly Penny’s art takes on a much, much darker tone. What’s going on, and what does the cat have to do with it? I’m excited to find out.

Monstera by Delilah S. Dawson (October 13)

A young woman moves into a Savannah apartment, eager to finally be free after years of oppressive family life, and realizes her downstairs neighbor has cultivated a garden of immense proportions. Saskia, the neighbor, is everything Lucy is not, but a bond quickly forms over their shared love of plants and the many ways that Saskia could introduce Lucy to the wider world. But Saskia has a secret, and Lucy’s about to find that she and her new friend have become more than just neighbors. A blend of romance and horror at a very single-sitting-friendly novella length, this one feels like a must-have for fans of sapphic horror and botanical horror alike.

Mystery Play by Elizabeth Kostova (October 13)

It’s been 20 years since Elizabeth Kostova’s breakthrough Dracula novel The Historian, and now she’s back with a sequel. Following the son of the historian from the first book, Mystery Play is another globe-hopping, mystery-laden journey through old libraries, stately homes, and secrets, this time focused on Gilded Age actors with a tie to a business manager and writer named Bram Stoker. I got a very early look at this one, and if you loved The Historian, you absolutely won’t want to miss this.

Off the Reservation by Stephen Graham Jones (October 13)

Modern horror master Stephen Graham Jones returns to the world of one of his most enduring novels with this sequel to The Only Good Indians. It’s been five years, and survivor Nathan “Nate” Yellow Tail is once again in a tight spot. In an effort to save his best friend, he takes on a road trip into the heart of darkness as a means of restoring balance to his world, unaware of what awaits him on the road. I was lucky enough to read this one early, and it’s as good as you’d hope it is, and then some. Read an excerpt here.

Phantom Limb by Brian Evenson (October 13)

Brian Evenson is a true original, a storyteller of astonishing clarity capable of conjuring some of the most frightening images you’ll ever find in a book. Though he’s best known for his short stories, Evenson has ventured into novel-length territory with books like Last Days, and now he’s back with a sequel to that tale of a detective infiltrating an amputation cult. This time, having survived the events of the last book, Evenson’s detective must face offshoots of the same cult he just escaped, and risk being seduced into their number once again. I’m so excited to see how Evenson continues to unspool this narrative.

Unspeakable Things by Elizabeth Hand (October 13)

Few modern horror authors have a grasp of the Gothic like Elizabeth Hand‘s, and this fall she’ll prove it with her latest book. Set in England in the 1920s, Unspeakable Things follows an unlikely sapphic romance between Tamsin and her tutor, Olivia, as the couple is drawn into the world of a wealthy eccentric whose home is a haven for the more free-spirited outcasts of English society. But in ducking the darkness they fled to this house to escape, Tamsin and Olivia have simply opened a door to something darker. Sounds like a must-read to me! 

Penitents by Madeline Blondeau (October 13)

Set in the Pacific Northwest, Penitents follows Ginger, a queer woman escaping the drama of her relationship for a little while, who gets into a one-night stand gone horribly wrong. Hunted by a former sheriff who dabbles in both human trafficking and snuff filmmaking, Ginger and her girlfriends are caught up in a life-or-death struggle across one horrifying weekend. This book is described as a “trans tribute to New French Extremity cinema and ’70s grindhouse horror,” which is an instant lure for me.

The Exodontists by Drew Huff (October 13)

Drew Huff is a rising star horror author you need to know about, and this fall he’s got a book that sounds too bonkers to pass up. Set in a previously abandoned retail space, The Exodontists follows the title creatures, immortal monsters who run a black market dental practice and have an obsession with teeth, as they find their den taken over by a Spirit Halloween. Yes, a Spirit Halloween store has encroached on the monsters’ territory, and if they’re going to survive, they have to contend with an employee they accidentally converted first. I cannot wait to see how this one unfolds.

Happy Hour by Gemma Amor (October 20)

The Killer VHS series of books overseen by Shortwave Publishing is an endlessly entertaining string of quick reads, all packing found footage and nostalgia elements to catapult readers back to the VHS era. For the ninth book in the series, Shortwave has enlisted Gemma Amor to tell the story of a mysterious bar in 1990s London, where the owner keeps tab on everyone and makes anyone who can’t follow the rules vanish. These books are fun, ferocious, lightning-fast reads, so if you’re looking for a rad way to spend a Saturday night in October, pick this one up.

Tatratea by Alex Woodroe (October 20)

Though she’s perhaps best-known as an editor at the always-excellent Tenebrous Press, Alex Woodroe is also a wonderful novelist in her own right. Now, her third book is here, and it sounds like her most ambitious yet. Set in and around the title home, an abandoned manor in Romania, the book follows Errata, a researcher sent to Tatratea to uncover what crashed there, what signals it’s sending to drive the whole world mad, and why the local flora has reacted in such a startling way to this intrusion. Trapped on the manor’s grounds with only a few pieces of equipment, Errata has to solve the mystery, or give in to madness. If you haven’t read Woodroe’s previous novels and you want some gripping eco-horror, this is a great place to start.

The Turning of Sally-Mae by Nuzo Onoh (October 20)

Nuzo Onoh is one of the most exciting voices in modern genre fiction, and this fall she’s dropping a book which promises a heady blend of Western and African horror. The Turning of Sally-Mae follows the title character who, after an assault from a pair of Texas ranchers leaves her pregnant, joins a missionary voyage to Africa. There, she finds the babies inside her at the center of an occult battle, as a pair of African gods battle it out for their fate. The blend of cultures alone is enough to get me interested, and I’m excited to see where this battle goes.

Needlemouth by K-Ming Chang (October 20)

Hell of a title, right? But what really got me interested in Needlemouth, aside from K-Ming Chang‘s success with books like Bestiary, was this: The title refers not to a creature with a mouth full of needles, but a creature with “a mouth the size of a needle-tip.” This creature, a starving demon/ghost, sets itself on three cousins as they spend a lazy summer at their grandmother’s house, jolting them out of their complacency and into an impossible, horrifying realm where they must reckon with their family’s past and feed a creature who’s lost all sources of sustenance. I’m hooked.

When The Night Comes Knocking by Katherine Daniel (October 20)

Sometimes you come across a premise so elegantly simple that you just have to read the book and see how the author finds their way through it, and When the Night Comes Knocking is that kind of book for me. The setup is simple: Semi-estranged siblings take a drive through Appalachia together, stop at a convenience store, and find themselves trapped by a monster lurking outside. But what does the monster want, and which of the store’s customers has it? Jane and Thomas have to find out, and they have to find a way to come together again if they want to survive. I’m so excited to check out this debut.

From The Library of Jurgen Leitner by Premee Mohamed and Jonathan Sims (October 27)

Jonathan Sims, creator of the celebrated horror podcast The Magnus Archives, joins forces with genre novelist extraordinaire Premee Mohamed for this prequel journey into the heart of The Magnus Archives. As the title suggests, the book follows a pair of researchers installed at the titular library as they work to uncover strange secrets. Fans of the podcast will know that Leitner’s library long ago met a mysterious fate, and this book drills down into exactly what happened, making it a must-read for fans of the show and perhaps a new jumping-on point for fans-in-training.

Public Access Afterworld by Jane Schoenbrun (October 27)

One night in 2009, two teenagers record the end of the analog era, documenting the moment digital TV becomes the new normal. Believing they’ll simply capture a moment in media history, what they find instead is a vast conspiracy pointing to some kind of other realm lurking in the TV static, a journey that will tie them to decades of strange occurrences and visions of another world. I was lucky enough to read Public Access Afterworld early, and if you love the way Jane Schoenbrun‘s films probe nostalgia and pop culture obsessions, you absolutely won’t want to miss this epic, beautifully strange novel. 

Savage Lake by Nick Medina (October 27)

Here’s another classic horror scenario for you: A mother and son, Nell and Oscar, head out to the old family cabin to fix it up and sell it, only to find an old evil waiting for them. Sounds great already, right? That’s only the beginning of Savage Lake, the latest novel from rising horror star Nick Medina. The lake in question holds plenty of dark secrets, so when Nell and Oscar arrive, they soon find things happening that they can’t really explain. As a horror fan, Oscar dives into the mysteries, but soon finds that his mother’s behavior is more than a withdrawal, and if he’s not careful, he’ll get pulled into whatever’s transforming her, too. Medina novels are always a treat, so make sure this one’s on your list.

She Isn’t Herself Tonight by Hailey Piper (October 27)

Hailey Piper’s already released one must-read new horror novel this year with This Movie Doesn’t End The Way We Want, and now she’s back with another, very different journey into fear. She Isn’t Herself Tonight follows Rabbit, a woman recently dumped by her boyfriend at a very precarious point in her life, triggering paranoia, transformation, and more. The twist? Rabbit is expecting the aliens who abducted her when she was younger to return for her 30th birthday, and she hasn’t heard from them yet. It’s such a specific mix of horror and sci-fi elements, and I’m excited to see what Piper does with it.

The post Sequels, Monsters, and More: The 20 Most Anticipated Horror Books of October 2026 appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The new season premieres on November 8, 2026.

In Season 1, “Teen genius Luke Ellis is kidnapped and awakens at The Institute, a facility full of children who all got there the same way he did and who are all possessed of unusual abilities. In a nearby town, haunted former police officer Tim Jamieson has come looking to start a new life, but the peace and quiet won’t last, as his story and Luke’s are destined to collide.”

By season’s end, the surviving teens escaped with The Institute hunting them down.

Season two picks up following Luke and friends’ escape from Dennison as they search for a way to end the Institute for good. Meanwhile, The Director enlists a new ally, tech billionaire Nolan Reeves, to help him rebuild, and Sigsby’s life as a fugitive pushes her to seek a way back “in”.

Returning cast includes Joe Freeman as Luke Ellis, Ben Barnes as Tim Jamieson, Mary-Louise Parker as Ms. Sigsby, Simone Miller as Kalisha, Fionn Laird as Nicky, Arlen So as George, Robert Joy as Dr. Hendricks and Hannah Galway as Wendy.

The trailer below also gives the first extended look at newcomer Alfie Allen, who joins season two as Nolan Reeves, an eccentric European tech billionaire and one of the Institute’s financial backers. It’s safe to assume he may have an agenda of his own.

The series hails from director/executive producer Jack Bender (From, Mr. Mercedes), writer/executive producer Benjamin Cavell (Justified, The Stand), and MGM+ Studios. Both filmmakers are no strangers to the world of Stephen King.

“The Institute” season two arrives almost exactly one month after the debut of Prime Video’s “Carrie”, marking the second King series centered around preternaturally gifted teens premiering this fall.

The post ‘The Institute’ Season 2 Trailer: Stephen King’s Gifted Teens Fight Back This November appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The classic Carrie has led to a number of similar yet unrelated movies. Sometimes that resemblance is obvious; sometimes it’s overtaken by other elements in the story.

The following ten movies are just a sample of the many Carrie “copycats” out there, none of which include the official remake, sequel, and TV adaptations.

The Spell (1977)

There’s no doubt that Lee Philips‘ NBC TV movie The Spell was made to capitalize on Carrie. That said, it’s actually a rather solid knockoff, albeit one with fewer special effects and more melodrama. In this story, a teen (Susan Myers) with supernatural powers attacks her tormentors and family, including that frustrated matriarch played by Lee Grant. The Spell has no explosive set-pieces, but the ending is certainly not lacking in intensity.

The Fury (1978)

It being the ’70s, there was a great deal of interest in ESP and the unknown. Even so, having De Palma and Amy Irving in a movie like The Fury is bound to make people think it’s a blatant Carrie clone. Apart from the fact that the young characters have psychokinetic abilities, though, these two De Palma flicks have little in common. Here, Irving uses her burgeoning powers to help Kirk Douglas locate his missing son (Andrew Stevens), another gifted person. Unfortunately, the latter has been manipulated by bad people, and there may be no helping him. The Fury, an adaptation of John Farris‘ novel of the same name, is wild and well deserving of its numerous fans.

The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

A month before The Fury hit theaters, the ABC network aired a TV-movie called The Initiation of Sarah. Directed by Robert Day, this college-set story centers on two siblings (Kay Lenz, Morgan Brittany) who become separated after they join different sororities. One of the sisters, however, has supernatural powers. And soon she must use them to stop her evil house mother (Shelley Winters) and all of her followers. Co-star Morgan Fairchild would later have a less sinister role in the 2006 remake.

Jennifer (1978)

As you can see, 1978 was a big year for these kinds of stories. In Jennifer‘s defense, though, the protagonist possesses a more unique ability than telekinesis. In Brice Mack‘s movie, the namesake (Lisa Pelikan) is a scholarship kid from Appalachia, so of course that makes her a target for the snooty and cruel queen bee on campus. Unfortunately for that mean girl and others, Jennifer has power over snakes. Tread carefully, ophiophobes, for this movie uses real serpents.

Laserblast (1978)

It wasn’t just the men who got to have superpowered vengeance in ’78. Michael Rae‘s cult movie Laserblast trades innate psychokinetic abilities for an external weapon. In this instance, a dejected young man (Kim Milford) discovers an alien laser cannon in the desert. The main character starts using said device, and it changes his mind and body. Oh, and hot on his trail are some stop motion-animated extraterrestrials hoping to recover the gun.

Evilspeak (1981)

In Evilspeak, the formula is, once again, tweaked enough that accusations of copying aren’t immediate. Nonetheless, Eric Weston‘s movie is along the same lines, despite the character channeling Satan via a computer, as opposed to having a supernatural gift himself. A young Clint Howard is that victimized cadet whose screen time and conjuring lead to his bullies’ demises. You wouldn’t be wrong to smell some Satanic Panic in this movie, too.

Firestarter (1984)

Before Stranger Things, there was Firestarter. The original novel was King exploring psychic phenomena again, except this time there was more emphasis on the whys and hows of one child’s pyrokinesis. Mark L. Lester‘s film adaptation also taps into the political paranoia of the era, and uses shady government in place of adolescent harassers. Here, Drew Barrymore‘s character is pushed into a burning rage by those feds who have hounded her and caused her family pain. If you can’t get enough Firestarter, you can always watch the sequel miniseries, Firestarter: Rekindled, or the not-so-hot 2022 remake starring Zac Efron.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

John Carl Buechler‘s Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood is often dubbed “Carrie versus Jason” by fans. It’s also quite unusual, even by Friday standards. However, rather than having Lar Park Lincoln‘s proxy for Carrie White go ballistic on her human abusers, she turns the table on that hockey-masked killer we all know and love. In this fresh spin on the Final Girl, a telekinetic gives Jason Voorhees a good lashing before he’s finally sentenced to the bottom of Crystal Lake.

Crossfire (2000)

While you would think Shūsuke Kaneko‘s ’90s Gamera trilogy was enough to make Toho realize he’s a good fit for their Godzilla franchise, it was apparently this movie that caught the studio’s attention. Crossfire (or Pyrokinesis), also from Toho, didn’t do well at the box office, but its positive reception was all it took for Kaneko to land Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. In this movie, one based on two novels by Miyuki Miyabe, a pyro (Akiko Yada) unleashes her fiery anger after someone close to her is murdered, and the authorities do next to nothing about the guilty party.

Chronicle (2012)

Last up is Josh Trank‘s Chronicle, a found-footage sci-fi movie that definitely has its fans. It’s been compared more to Akira than Carrie, but the fact that Dane DeHaan‘s character lets his newly gained telekinetic powers go to his head and he hurts those around him makes it seem all right to call this a blend of the two aforementioned movies. Now, whether or not we ever get that sequel remains unknown.

The post 10 ‘Carrie’ Copycats Every Horror Fan Should See appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

If you recall, the Losers are counting down Stephen King’s published novels — specifically, novels (no collections) — from worst to best in 2026. For this past September’s installment, the Losers turned the key on killer cars, returned to Mid-World for the third time this list (maybe fourth), rode the lightning, and got all tied up. Spoilers? Mayhap, mayhap not.

Stream the episode below and let us know your thoughts in the comments below. For further adventures, join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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Below, you can catch up with the entire run…

The post The Definitive Stephen King Book Ranking: #22-17 [The Losers’ Club Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Flanagan’s Carrie adheres to the basic brushstrokes of King’s classic, but only barely. This vision of Carrie White, played endearingly by Summer H. Howell, is a doe-eyed sweetheart more outgoing than her previous counterparts. Her devoutly religious and misanthropic mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan), isn’t a monster but a victim herself. Here, it’s her overly protective, motherly instincts while navigating a modern world that lead to missteps. A tragic construction site suddenly thrusts the sheltered Whites into society, where Carrie finds herself navigating the hierarchy of high school. 

It’s here that Flanagan dedicates his focus; Carrie spends a lot of time with not just Carrie’s peers but the Ewen High School faculty as well. Flanagan explores the nuances of teaching during a volatile time, where social media wreaks devastating havoc upon the lives of students and teachers alike. Rita Desjardin (Amber Midthunder) isn’t just the supportive teacher attempting to protect the vulnerable Carrie from her callous peers. She’s also a young woman trying to find her footing in a new career and new town. Matthew Lillard endears as the earnest principal trying his best while dealing with unruly parents, though it’s Tim Bagley who shines as a beacon of warmth as Ewen’s unwaveringly kind guidance counselor.

While Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) becomes a more fully realized, morally complex protagonist more adjacent to Carrie’s story, it’s popular mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton) who receives the biggest narrative transformation. Thornton is incredible at humanizing one of King’s most vicious bullies, helped by a troubled home life. Though Flanagan affords sympathy for this villain, it’s also one of the series’ biggest missteps. It’s a tall ask of viewers to witness prolonged torment inflicted over eight episodes, and Chris is suitably nasty. It’s understandable why the catty mean girl is lashing out, but it didn’t soften this viewer to her cruelty in any way. Not helping is just how effective Howell is as the unwaveringly pure and disarming is as Carrie; the iconic shower scene becomes even more barbarous in the age of social media.

As a Constant Reader and constant King adaptor, Flanagan also expands on the telekinesis thread teased by the novel’s ending. Likely banking on subsequent seasons, though, this important subplot is relegated mostly to the background as a mystery driver that only fully roars to life in the season’s rushed final two episodes. So much time is spent with these characters that Carrie nearly forgets to wrap up, rushing through the prom to deliver important developments for the series’ future. 

Carrie is at its best and most compelling when focused on exploring the very human failures of adults and institutions. Carrie is put through the wringer, ensuring no shortage of heartbreak and drama, but Carrie paints a persuasive picture of a bustling town full of people so caught up in their own baggage that kids easily slip through the cracks. But in doing so, Carrie White winds up losing even more agency than before, making her calamitous story all the more painful to see unfold.

Telekinetic subplots involving mystery players and the fervent desire to explain her bully’s motives dangle Flanagan’s overarching vision, but by season’s end Carrie feels more passive puppet than tragically empowered. The cast is incredible, but Carrie‘s parts are stronger than its not quite cohesive whole.

This new adaptation saves its most radical departures for last, setting up a bizarre continuation not earned by the eight-ep first season. Flanagan’s trademark earnestness and empathy, combined with his talented cast and crew, ensure deep rooting interest in Ewen’s residents despite an inevitable outcome, but it’s not (yet) as radical a departure as expected. It’s way more effective as a teen drama than a horror show, though, and there’s no tangible sense of peace or closure after enduring an entire season of Carrie’s torture.

Carrie begins streaming on Prime Video on October 7.

The post ‘Carrie’ Review: Mike Flanagan’s Series Modernizes Stephen King’s Classic With Mixed Results appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The streaming platform is kicking off spooky season October 1 with the return of Halloween Hits, featuring a deep lineup of horror favorites available to stream free on demand throughout the month, alongside dedicated channels and special programming across the platform.

Double Feature Fridays premieres Fridays at 8 p.m. ET on Pluto TV Spotlight, with titles subsequently available on demand. The horror double features begin on October 9, but there’s no shortage of horror to watch all month long, streaming 24/7.

This year’s collection spans major franchises, box-office hits, cult classics and horror favorites. Highlights include:

October 1
#211
10 Cloverfield Lane
2001 Maniacs
247 Degrees Fahrenheit
The ABCs Of Death
The ABCs Of Death 2
After Midnight (1989)
After.Life
Alone (2020)
Alone In The Dark
Ambulance, The
Amityville 3-D (1983)
Amityville II: The Possession
Amityville: The Awakening
Amityville: Where The Echo Lives
Among The Shadows
Amulet
And Soon The Darkness (2010)
Angel Heart
Anna And The Apocalypse
April Fool’s Day
Audrey Rose
Barrens
The Bay
The Believers
The Belko Experiment
Below
Beyond Reanimator
Black Christmas (2006)
Black Sabbath
Blacula
Bless The Child
The Blood On Satan’s Claw
Body Cam
Bones And All
The Boogeyma (2005)
Boogeyman 2 (2008)
The Boogeyman 3 (2009)
Breach
A Bucket Of Blood
Bug
The Burning
Burnt Offerings
Cabin Fever
Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever  (2007)
Candyman III
Candyman: Day Of The Dead
Carrie (2002)
Cellar Dweller
Chained
Children Of The Corn 666: Isaac’s Return
Children Of The Corn II: The Final Sacrifice
Children Of The Corn III: Urban Harvest
Children Of The Corn V: Fields Of Terror
Children Of The Corn: Genesis
Children Of The Corn: Revelation
Children Of The Corn: The Gathering
Clive Barker’s Lord Of Illusions
Cloverfield
Come To Daddy
Cooties
The Cottage
Crawl
Crawlspace
Cube
Cube 2
Cube Zero
Cujo
Cursed
Dark Circles
The Dark Half
Darkness
Day Of The Dead: Bloodline
Dead Bodies
Dead End (2003)
The Dead Zone
Death Of Me
Deepstar Six
Dentist 2, The
Dentist, The
Devon
Diabolic
Disturbing Behavior
Dolls
Don’t Look Now
Down A Dark Hall
Dracula 3000
Dreamkatcher
The Dunwich Horror
Eden Lake
Escape Room
Evil Dead (2013)
The Evil Next Door
The Eye (2008)
The Faculty
The Fall Of The House Of Usher (1960)
Fangoria: Blood Drive
Fangoria: Blood Drive II
Fear Clinic
Feast
Feast II: Sloppy Seconds
Feast III: Happy Finish
Fertile Ground
Flatliners (1990)
Flesh And Bone
Flight 7500
The Fog (1980)
Frankenstein  (2004)
Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell
Friday The 13th (1980)
Friday The 13th – Part II
Friday The 13th – Part III
Friday The 13th Part – IV:The Final Chapter
Friday The 13th Part V: A New Beginning
Friday The 13th Part VI : Jason Lives
Friday The 13th Part VII:The New Blood
Friday The 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan
Frogs
From Beyond
From Dusk Till Dawn
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money
From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman’s Daughter
The Front Room
Gallowwalkers
The Gate
The Gathering (2002)
George A. Romero’s Diary Of The Dead
Ghoulies
Ghoulies IU
The Gift (2000)
Ginger Snaps
Ginger Snaps 2
Ginger Snaps 3
Godsend
Goodnight Mommy
Gothic
Gretel & Hansel
The Grudge 3  (2008)
Hannibal Rising
Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters
Hatchet
Hell Fest
Hellbenders 3D
Hellraiser
Hellbound: Hellraiser 2
Hellraiser: Judgment (2018)
Hellraiser: Revelations
Hereditary
Heretic
Hex (2022)
High Tension
His Name Was Jason
Hollow Man
Horns
The Hound Of The Baskervilles (1959)
House Of 1000 Corpses
House Of The Dead  (2003)
House Of The Long Shadows
How It Ends (2018)
Howling Ii: Your Sister Is A Werewolf
I Still See You
I, Frankenstein
Idle Hands
In Fear
It Follows
Jack Brooks Monster Slayer
Jessabelle
John Dies At The End
Johnny Frank Garrett’s Last Word
Joy Ride
The Keep
Kill Theory
Kristy
The Lair Of The White Worm
The Last House On The Left (1972)
The Last Rite
Leprechaun
Leprechaun 4: Lost In Space
Leprechaun II
Leprechaun III
Leprechaun Origins (2014)
Leprechaun V: In The Hood
Let Me In (2010)
Let’s Scare Jessica To Death
Leviathan
Lifeforce
Like Minds
The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane
The Little Mermaid
Lords Of Salem
The Loved Ones
Man-Thing
Mara (2017)
Martyrs (2015)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
The Masque Of The Red Death (1964)
Maximum Overdrive (1986)
Maxxxine
May
The Messengers 2 (2008)
The Messengers (2007)
Mid-Century
Midsommar
Mimic
Mimic 2
Mimic 3: Sentinel
Monkey Shines: An Experiment In Fear
Monster Squad, The
Most Beautiful Island
Mother’s Day (2012)
My Bloody Valentine (1981)
My Bloody Valentine (2009)
New Year’s Evil
The Night Listener
Night Of The Comet
Night Of The Demons
Night Of The Living Dead 3D  (2006)
Night Of The Living Dead: Resurrection
Night Train (2009)
No One Lives
Only Lovers Left Alive
Open Water 2: Adrift (2006)
Open Water 3: Cage Dive (2017)
Overlord
P2
Pandorum
Paranormal Activity
Paranormal Activity 2
Paranormal Activity 3
Paranormal Activity 4
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
Parents
Patrick: Evil Awakens
Pearl: An X-Traordinary Origin Story
Pet Sematary (1989)
Pet Sematary (2019)
Phase IV
Piranha 3dd
Pit And The Pendulum
Poltergeist II: The Other Side
Poltergeist III
The Possession Of Hannah Grace
The Poughkeepsie Tapes
Pretty Boy
Prey (2007)
Pulse (2006)
Pulse II: Afterlife
Pulse III: Invasion
Quarantine
Quarantine 2: Terminal
A Quiet Place Part II
The Rage: Carrie 2
The Reading
Repentance
Repo: The Genetic Opera
Resident Evil
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Return Of The Living Dead III
Return Of The Living Dead: Necropolis
Return Of The Living Dead: Rave To The Grave
The Ring
The Ring Two
Rise (2007)
Rogue (2007)
The Ruins
Scared Stiff (1953)
Scissors
Scouts Guide To The Zombie Apocalypse
Scream (1996)
Scream (2022)
Scream 2
Scream 3
Scream 4
Scream, Blacula, Scream!
Seance: The Summoning
Secret Window
Shivers
Silent Hill
Silent Hill: Revelation 3d
Silent Night (2012)
Sinister
Sleepaway Camp
Sleepaway Camp 2: Unhappy Campers
Sleepaway Camp 3: Teenage Wasteland
Sleepwalker
Sleepy Hollow
Smile
Solstice
Sorority Row
Species
Species II
Species III
Species: The Awakening
Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift
Stephen King’s Silver Bullet
Stephen King’s Sometimes They Come Back
Stephen King’s Thinner
Stigmata
Strangeland
Student Bodies
Succubus
Supernova
Suspect Zero
Talk To Me
Tamara
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
The Thirst (2006)
Toolbox Murders
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1977)
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)
Troll
Troll 2
Urban Legends: Bloody Mary
Vacancy (2007)
Vampire In Brooklyn
Vampire’s Kiss
Vampires Of The Velvet Lounge
The Vanished
The Vatican Tapes
Warhunt
Warm Bodies
Waxwork
Waxwork II: Lost In Time
We Are What We Are (2013)
We Summon The Darkness
What Lies Beneath
When A Stranger Calls (2006)
While She Was Out
Wicker Man (1973)
Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey
Wishmaster
Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies
Wishmaster 3: Sword Of Justice
Wishmaster 4 The Prophecy Fulfilled
Wolf Creek
Wolf Of Snow Hollow, The
The Woman In Black
The Woods (2006)
World War Z
The Wraith (1986)
Wrong Turn (2021)
X (2022)
You’re Next

Pluto TV is also breaking down their massive horror catalog into easy-to-find categories that include:

LIGHTER HAUNTS
Horror-comedies and lighter scares include:

• Scary Movie
• Scary Movie 2
• Scary Movie 3
• Scary Movie 4
• Scary Movie 5
• A Haunted House
• A Haunted House 2
• Shaun of the Dead
• Warm Bodies
• Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse
• Cooties
• Vampire in Brooklyn
• The Monster Squad
• Idle Hands
• Anna and the Apocalypse

$100M BOX OFFICE HITS
Some of horror’s biggest theatrical successes streaming this October include:

• World War Z
• A Quiet Place Part II – Available October 11
• The Ring
• Smile
• Sleepy Hollow
• Paranormal Activity
• Scream (1996)
• Escape Room
• The Woman in Black
• Pet Sematary (2019)
• 10 Cloverfield Lane
• Resident Evil
• And more…

The post Pluto TV Unleashes Massive Halloween Hits Catalog Packed With Horror Movies This October appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Flanagan’s project, though, is heading in a different direction, as he’s adapting King’s first published novel, Carrie. The story was brought to life as a movie in 1976, which earned the sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 in 1999, as well as a TV adaptation in 2002, and then a big-screen remake in 2013. The Prime Video series marks the longest adaptation yet, as the events of the story will unfold over eight episodes. And that’s just for starters; Flanagan claims he has an even bigger plan in mind for the narrative.

The first season of the series will seemingly only be the start of a longer narrative, as Flanagan confirmed to Collider that he envisions his series running for three seasons. The filmmaker explained, “In my dream scenario … I think it’s three seasons. In my dream scenario, I think Carrie has a wonderful three-step arc. It’s a trilogy, really.”

These remarks raise a lot of questions about the potential of the concept. The original novel and multiple adaptations have quite definitive conclusions, despite the fact that The Rage was ultimately released. This could mean that things don’t wrap up quite as cleanly as other versions of the narrative, or significant new elements are introduced.

One thing we do know, however, is that Flanagan aims to put more emphasis on other characters who have similar telekinetic abilities, which is a realm other adaptations have ignored.

“The story of Carrie alone has been told now several times,” the filmmaker shared with Entertainment Weekly earlier this month. “The thing that’s never been delved into is Carrie’s a part of this larger community of women and she never gets to know that. We have a book that fits perfectly into a 90-minute format. We’re talking about a series. Expansion’s essential. So if that’s the mission, how can we earn it? And that was the crux of it. Let’s understand that this is the story about gifted women. Let’s understand that this is a story about young women, in particular, learning their place in the world and coming into their power — and all the pitfalls that come with that.”

The new Carrie series premieres on Prime Video on October 7. There’s no official word on whether Prime Video will renew the series.

Would you like to see the series expand into a trilogy? Let us know in the comments below!

The post ‘Carrie’: Mike Flanagan Hopes His Stephen King Reboot Runs for Three Seasons appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Stephen King tweets, “The Institute Season 2 premieres on MGM Plus November 8th. The kids are done running. Mark your calendars.” Check out two brand new first-look images below.

In Season 1, “Teen genius Luke Ellis is kidnapped and awakens at The Institute, a facility full of children who all got there the same way he did and who are all possessed of unusual abilities. In a nearby town, haunted former police officer Tim Jamieson has come looking to start a new life, but the peace and quiet won’t last, as his story and Luke’s are destined to collide.”

Season 2 will pick up after the Season 1 finale, in which the survivors discovered similar facilities all over the world. 

Set free but hunted, new dangers await the escapees from the Institute…

The MGM+ series hails from director/executive producer Jack Bender (From, Mr. Mercedes), writer/executive producer Benjamin Cavell (Justified, The Stand), and MGM+ Studios. Both filmmakers are no strangers to the world of Stephen King.

Mary-Louise Parker (Ms. Sigsby), Ben Barnes (Tim Jamieson), Joe Freeman (Luke Ellis), Simone Miller (Kalisha), Fionn Laird (Nick), Hannah Galway (Wendy), Julian Richings (Stackhouse), Robert Joy (Dr. Hendricks), and Martin Roach (Chief Ashworth) star, with Alfie Allen (“Game of Thrones,” The Predator) joining the second season.

The post Stephen King’s ‘The Institute’ Season 2 Sets November Premiere Date on MGM+ appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

With Flanagan’s previous King adaptations Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep, and The Life of Chuck, he proved how faithful he could be to the source material, no matter how challenging it was to realize in live-action. Even though the original novel and multiple adaptations took place in the ’70s, Flanagan opted not to pursue that perspective and instead set the show in contemporary times. Despite his track record of faithfully honoring source material, there were very specific reasons why he shifted the series’ timeline.

Speaking with Radio Times, Flanagan explained, “The themes we are exploring are relevant to today’s teenagers in such a profound way that wasn’t true when I was that age, much less when Stephen was, and just doing a period piece adaptation would have felt like re-reading.”

He added, “This wasn’t about nostalgia and doing something again, it was about telling a story that was vital to today; speaking to the unique experience of teens today, told through a new version of Stephen’s characters.”

Arguably one of Flanagan’s biggest challenges as a filmmaker was Doctor Sleep, the sequel to The Shining. The major issue is that, in The Shining novel, the Overlook Hotel exploded, while the big-screen adaptation avoided that element. This meant Flanagan was tasked with somehow honoring both the original narrative while also embracing the legacy of Stanley Kubrick‘s 1980 movie.

With Carrie, shifting the timeline to present day wasn’t just out of logistical concerns, but also of thematic opportunities.

“Today, kids deal with a level of anxiety at school that I couldn’t have contemplated when I was growing up and the horror of being a teen today is so different from 1976, and this was a wonderful opportunity to explore that,” Flanagan confessed.

Carrie is set to premiere on Prime Video on October 7.

Are you looking forward to the new adaptation? Let us know in the comments below!

The post ‘Carrie’s Mike Flanagan Explains Why He Changed the Timeline From Stephen King’s Book appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

But rarely do we get to see these children into adulthood. Though King’s 1986 masterpiece It sees our beloved Losers all grown up and Doctor Sleep features Danny Torrance as an older man, King leaves most of his young heroes in their adolescence. However, Constant Readers know that the author has been following one fictional child for the majority of his career. Other Worlds Than These gives us the final chapter in the story of Jack Sawyer, a singularly powerful child often tasked with saving the world.

In 1984, King collaborated with famed horror author Peter Straub on The Talisman, a fantasy adventure that sees twelve-year-old Jack traverse an alternate reality known as the Territories on a quest to save his dying mother. Without a twinner, or counterpart in the other realm, Jack has the unique ability to flip between worlds.

Seventeen years later, King and Straub would reunite to write Black House, a sequel story which sees an adult Jack as he struggles to make sense of his unbelievable past while solving a grisly string of child murders. Now twenty-five years later, King provides a conclusion to Jack’s story as he must defend the world against encroaching evil. Other Worlds Than These presents Jack with his greatest adventure yet while connecting multiple entries in King’s universe.

At first glance, readers might be confused to see Straub’s name gracing the cover of this new novel, particularly considering the accomplished author died in 2022. While The Talisman and Black House were equally written by both genre titans, Other Worlds Than These is a different sort of collaboration.

King remembers discussing this conclusion with Straub in the later years of his life, informally mapping out the final chapter of Jack’s strange journey. Though King fully authored this new novel, he recreates the previous chapters’ elaborate prose mixed with dynamic set pieces, extensive destruction, and occasional dips into outright terror. Straub can be felt on every page as King writes to honor his long-time friend. 

Fans of Black House know that we leave our heroic Coppiceman on a deadly cliffhanger. Years after this devastating injury, we reunite with an aging Jack who must spend most of his time in the Territories. Just a few days spent “America-side” and Jack’s body will begin to decompose, the precursor to a gruesome death.

He supports himself by running errands to our reality for the amusement of a childish warlord. But on his latest jaunt to Hemingford County, Nebraska (a fun Easter Egg for dedicated Constant Readers), Jack learns about a pair of delinquent runaways terrorizing the area who may have murdered his dear friend Dale Gilbertson. These teenage killers seem to have found a passageway between worlds and are laying waste to both realities. 

Though their crimes bring to mind Bonnie and Clyde, King names a different reference. The fictional Roy Kinneston and Tara Lynne Speckhoffer are directly inspired by Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, who went on a similar killing spree in 1957-58. King has long been fascinated with this teenage serial killer, and the duo’s murderous spree has inspired much of the author’s work, most notably the grim novella 1922 and Rage, the only novel King has pulled from publication. But this threat transitions from a pair of delinquent murderers to something else altogether.

Kinneston and Speckhoffer not only seem to be possessed by the spirits of Starkweather and Fugate, but their particular brand of corruption rapidly spreads through the Territories, with teenagers roughly dying their hair and massacring anyone who crosses their path. This coincides with the expansion of a black hole-like force which threatens to consume the very fabric of reality. 

Rather than the central nature of Black House, which takes place mostly in western Wisconsin, Other Worlds Than These mirrors the structure of The Talisman. Tasked with defending both worlds, Jack embarks on another epic journey as he follows a wide path of destruction carved by the killer couple and their acolytes.

We revisit the Blasted Lands with its infamous Slow Mutants and remember beloved friends lost on Jack’s first epic journey. But these are not the adventures of a wide-eyed boy on a thrilling trip. This Jack is a hardened and lonely traveler, remembering his glory days while finding the courage for one last battle. King punctuates the story with journal entries that fill in the gaps of this sprawling story, making it accessible for newer readers. 

In addition to this treacherous trip down memory lane, King makes frequent connections to more famous fantasy series. Considering its title — pulled from the shocking conclusion of The Gunslinger, the first book in The Dark Tower series — readers expected Other Worlds Than These to merge both epic sagas. While Black House lays out this connection with its talk of Breakers and the Crimson King, the newest installment becomes the lynchpin for holding King’s massive universe together.

Parallels and connections are fully fleshed out, and we revisit beloved characters from both literary worlds. It’s the closest King has ever come to confirming what Constant Readers have long suspected — the Master of Horror truly is writing one interconnected story. 

When describing his own inspiration, King admits, “I wanted to go back to Mid-World, which was always the Territories by another name.” We can feel this longing as King relaxes back into familiar ground. We’re treated to sweeping descriptions of the countryside on both sides of the reality divide and luxuriant stretches of warm conversation as Jack connects with new friends. True to form, King peppers the story with moments of dark humor and gruesomeness.

The Speckhoffer gang may be some of the author’s most sadistic villains, and he doesn’t hold back when describing their horrific kills. Other moments highlight the terror of this unpredictable world as new monsters rear their ugly heads. 

As Jack builds a second ka-tet to save the world, we’re reminded of another gunslinger’s epic journey. What begins as an older man hellbent on stopping a pair of teen murderers transforms into a poignant examination of the nature of chaotic evil. Some readers will be frustrated with a nebulous conclusion while others will find joy in the winding journey. Once again, King is less concerned with delivering a definitive ending than with pondering the cyclical nature of life itself.

Echoing some of his earlier work, like The Stand, Needful Things, and The Dark Tower, King reminds us that the true shape of evil never dies and the world can’t be saved by a singular battle. We must constantly be on our guard against new iterations of malevolence. 

While Other Worlds Than These won’t be for everyone — Dark Tower haters need not apply — King’s latest novel provides a satisfying final chapter for one of his most relatable characters, pulling Jack Sawyer out of the shadows and into the spotlight once again. It’s a mature novel from a creator who is entering the final stages of a long and storied career. Intensely reflective and meta-textual, we feel King saying goodbye to Straub while revisiting his own literary life.

Disguised as a road trip adventure story, Other Worlds Than These is a gorgeous meditation on the beauty of life and the friends we love and lose along the way.

Other Worlds Than These by Stephen King and Peter Straub publishes on October 6.

The post ‘Other Worlds Than These’ Book Review: Stephen King Finds Joy and Terror In Mid-World’s Final Journey appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

You can see the new poster for Carrie below.

Prime Video describes the new series, “Misfit high‑schooler Carrie White (Summer H. Howell) has spent her life hidden away inside the walls of her home with her fiercely protective mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). After her father’s sudden, untimely death thrusts her into the unforgiving ecosystem of public high school, Carrie is forced to navigate a viral bullying scandal that tears through her community, the relentless pressure and casual cruelty of the social‑media age, and the awakening of mysterious telekinetic powers that rise alongside her adolescence.”

Also starring in Carrie are Siena Agudong, Alison Thornton, Joel Oulette, Josie Totah, Arthur Conti, Thalia Dudek, Amber Midthunder, and Matthew Lillard.

With any new reboot or remake, there’s going to be questions about how faithful the adaptation will be and what new perspectives a filmmaker will lean into, but for anyone concerned about whether Mike Flanagan will fully unleash Carrie’s wrath, this poster confirms just how powerful Carrie will become. Still, Flanagan confirmed that the new series will explore things that the previous adaptations of the material have failed to fully dive into.

“The story of Carrie alone has been told now several times,” the filmmaker shared with Entertainment Weekly earlier this month. “The thing that’s never been delved into is Carrie’s a part of this larger community of women and she never gets to know that. We have a book that fits perfectly into a 90-minute format. We’re talking about a series. Expansion’s essential. So if that’s the mission, how can we earn it? And that was the crux of it. Let’s understand that this is the story about gifted women. Let’s understand that this is a story about young women, in particular, learning their place in the world and coming into their power — and all the pitfalls that come with that.”

Carrie premieres on Prime Video on October 7.

Are you looking forward to the new remake? Let us know in the comments below!

The post ‘Carrie’ Lifts Off in All-New Poster for Prime Video’s Stephen King Reboot appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Some have given us genuine camp classics like Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man (1987) while others, like Rob Reiner and Frank Darabont, have created some of history’s most beloved films. But since the turn of the 21st century, one director has taken the reins as the preeminent director of Stephen King’s work. Cut from similar creative cloth, Mike Flanagan has a knack for capturing the author’s powerful blend of emotion and fear. From Gerald’s Game (2017) to the upcoming Carrie (2026) miniseries, the earnest director has found a way to translate some of King’s trickiest texts for the big and small screen. 

King’s influence can be felt throughout the span of Flanagan’s career. A lifelong Constant Reader — the moniker King has bestowed upon his dedicated fans — Flanagan does not just set out to scare us to death, but to make us feel along the way. This talent for character-driven horror reflects King’s own narrative strategy. In Danse Macabre, his 1980 treatise on the genre, King notes, “I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose.”  

Flanagan’s debut feature, Absentia, may center an insectile creature from another dimension who snatches runners off the street. But this tender story could also be read as a metaphor for the pain of addiction and the toll it takes on those we love. Later films like Before I Wake and the 2016 sequel Ouija: Origin of Evil— which is much better than it has any right to be — use horror as the framework for a larger exploration of grief in the wake of a loved one’s death.

Both creators understand that a story must have emotional stakes if we are to be frightened at all. 

Oculus

Flanagan’s second film, Oculus (2013), is a harrowing story of a family torn apart by a malevolent antique mirror. As children, siblings Kylie (Annalise Basso, Karen Gillan) and Tim (Garrett Ryan, Brenton Thwaites) watch this mirror, the Lasser Glass, slowly poison their suburban home. As adults, they reunite for an elaborate plot to prove its supernatural capabilities before destroying the object once and for all. An expanded version of Flanagan’s 2006 short Oculus: Chapter 3 – The Man with the Plan, Oculus (2013) parallels one of King’s most haunting stories.

Featured in the 1985 collection Skeleton Crew, “The Reaper’s Image” introduces the Delver Glass, an antique mirror with a sinister past. While most simply see their own vaguely distorted reflection, a fraction of those who look in this mirror see a cloaked figure standing behind them and invariably go missing shortly after. 

While these stories bear no outright connection, their similarities are unmistakable. Both “The Reaper’s Image” and Oculus include grisly histories of the mirrors and their many victims. But Flanagan’s Lasser Glass does not cause its prey to disappear. Extended time in the mirror’s presence sparks wildly distorted perceptions, eventually leading to extreme acts of violence. Caught in the mirror’s sinister deception, their father Alan (Rory Cochrane) begins neglecting his kids while torturing his wife in the upstairs bedroom. His transformation from a flawed, yet loving father into a callous family annihilator is not unlike the story of Jack Torrance, the human villain of King’s The Shining. It’s also impossible to hear young Kaylie and Tim vow to destroy the mirror as adults without remembering It’s beloved Losers’ Club. 

Hush and Gerald’s Game

In many ways, Flanagan’s third feature, Hush, feels like a spiritual adaptation of King’s 1992 novel Gerald’s Game. The intimate story follows Jessie, an unhappy housewife on a romantic getaway with her boorish husband Gerald. When an ill-advised sex game goes disastrously wrong, Jessie finds herself handcuffed to the bed while Gerald lies dead on the floor. With no way to call for help, Jessie must use the few objects within her limited reach to free herself before she dies of dehydration. A fan of the harrowing novel, Flanagan has admitted to carrying a paperback copy of Gerald’s Game to industry meetings, pitching an adaptation as his dream project.  

But before he would get the chance, Flanagan directed the slasher-home invasion hybrid Hush, co-written with his wife Kate Siegel, who also stars. The stylish film follows a deaf and mute writer named Maddie (Siegel) whose isolated house is invaded by a masked serial killer known only as The Man (John Gallagher Jr.). Filmed largely without dialogue, Maddie must dissect her situation as if it were the plot of her latest novel, meticulously working through survival scenarios. Like Gerald’s Game, Hush follows an isolated woman who must use her limited resources to fight for her life while sustaining unthinkable injuries. 

Following the success of Hush, Flanagan finally secured his dream project. Released on Netflix in 2017, Gerald’s Game manages to capture a story many considered unfilmable. Except for childhood flashbacks and a polarizing denouement, the 300-page book takes place almost entirely in Jessie’s bedroom as she’s shackled in place on the bed. Most of the story’s dialogue comes from manifestations of women from her past: Ruth Neary, Jessie’s headstrong college roommate, and the Goodwife, a symbol of domestic oppression. 

To streamline the story and bring out its themes, Flanagan makes a few narrative changes. With Bruce Greenwood playing a slightly more likeable version of Gerald, Flanagan recasts these interior voices as manifestations of Gerald and Jessie (Carla Gugino), explaining, “This is a movie about a marriage. I want to hear from a married couple.” Like an angel and devil perched on her shoulders, these two metaphysical characters spar with each other while helping Jessie piece together memories from her traumatic past.

Meanwhile, a stranger creeps into the darkened room while Jessie sleeps. She awakens to find the hideously gaunt Moonlight Man (Carel Struycken) silently watching her from the corner. Cloaked in shadows, Jessie cannot tell if this man — whom King calls the Space Cowboy — is an intruder meaning to do her harm or a specter of oncoming death. Flanagan cleverly plays with shadow and light to recreate one of King’s most frightening characters. 

But the adaptation’s crown jewel is a faithful reconstruction of what is arguably the Master of Horror’s most gruesome passage. Hopelessly trapped by the military-grade cuffs, Jessie must essentially strip the skin from her hand to fit it through the steel bracelet. With jaw-dropping special effects, Flanagan presents the infamous “degloving scene” in excruciating detail, forcing us to stay with Jessie through her pain. Combining terror, horror, and disgust — King’s own delineation of fear — Flanagan explores the depths of Jessie’s mind, bringing her intimate experience to the screen. 

Doctor Sleep

Flanagan’s next King adaptation is somehow even more ambitious. Thirty-six years after publishing his iconic novel The Shining, King reconnected with Danny Torrance in the 2013 sequel Doctor Sleep. After surviving the notorious Overlook Hotel, an adult Danny battles a group of psychic vampires to protect a little girl named Abra who possesses psychic gifts even more powerful than his own. 

Like Gerald’s Game, this novel also includes extensive metaphysical scenes. The beguiling villain, Rose the Hat, can project her consciousness while meditating hundreds of miles away. Danny also manages to use his telekinetic powers to “turn the world,” mentally trading places with Abra to see, speak, and fight by controlling her body. Once again, Flanagan manages to capture the unfilmable, showing Rose gracefully gliding through a representation of Abra’s mind. He’s also able to keep track of the complex narrative, much of which occurs in his characters’ heads.

However, a larger concern would be marrying disparate source material. While revered as one of history’s greatest films, Stanley Kubrick took so many narrative liberties with his 1980 adaptation of The Shining that King is notably not a fan. In addition to numerous plot details, one version of the story ends with the Overlook standing and the other sees it burned to the ground. Anticipating a cinematic Doctor Sleep (2019), Constant Readers didn’t know whether Flanagan’s film would be a sequel to King’s or Kubrick’s story. 

But Flanagan manages to pull off the impossible, blending both sides of this terrifying tale. In recreations of Kubrick’s iconic Overlook, the sensitive director weaves in pieces of King’s original novel that were excised from Kubrick’s adaptation. Themes of addiction, sobriety, and forgiveness finally break through as Flanagan transforms tender elements of King’s The Shining into new and original sequences. King has stated that the director’s additions, including a scene in which Danny (Ewan McGregor) comes face to face with his troubled father, helped him make peace with Kubrick’s celebrated film. 

Midnight Mass and The Life of Chuck

Alongside these two adaptations, Flanagan turned to other genre authors for a string of miniseries adaptations. The Haunting of Hill House is based on Shirley Jackson’s celebrated novel, while The Haunting of Bly Manor was inspired by Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. His The Midnight Club is a semi-anthology series based on the young adult horror of Christopher Pike, while The Fall of the House of Usherweaves together several of Edgar Allen Poe’s most chilling tales.

But nestled in the middle of this successful run is a series that nods to Stephen King. 

Midnight Mass follows the residents of a small New England town who fall victim to an ancient vampire infiltrating their lives through the Catholic Church. What first appears to be a blessing from God soon becomes a soul-crushing disease. While the story is entirely original, several elements feel directly inspired by King’s sophomore novel Salem’s Lot. Released in 1975, the terrifying story sees a tiny Maine town crumble with the arrival of a charming vampire. King expertly makes the town itself a character, providing a salacious look at its many scandals and secrets. While Flanagan’s story is not nearly so salacious, Midnight Mass uses vampires as a springboard to tell a nuanced story about small-town life and the complex nature of community. Filled with poignant monologues and gorgeous symbolism, the series sees Flanagan take inspiration from King to create a masterpiece all his own. 

For his next feature film adaptation, Flanagan joined the ranks of Rob Reiner and Frank Darabont in adapting one of King’s non-horror tales. Collected in the 2020 release If It Bleeds, “The Life of Chuck” is a tear-jerker novella that sees King make peace with the mystery of death. Told in three distinct chapters, the story begins with an entire world on the brink of collapse. Next we meet Chuck Krantz (Tom Hiddleston) on a joyous day in which he delights a random crowd by dancing with a stranger to a busker’s drums. This mirrors the third, and final vignette in which a young Chuck (Benjamin Pajak) learns to dance in an afterschool club. We eventually learn that these stories are pieces of the man’s memory slowly fading away as he dies from cancer. 

Flanagan’s story is a relatively straightforward retelling of this nebulous novella, skillfully highlighting the story’s emotional core. Flanagan captures the heart of this poignant tale, offering a lovely meditation on the reality of death. Though they differ in every conceivable way — including their ties to King himself — The Life of Chuck and Midnight Mass allow the director to confront the horrors of disability and terminal illness, themes King has explored in his later career. 

Carrie and beyond

Though The Life of Chuck is a fairly deep cut, Flanagan’s upcoming project is as iconic as it gets. The seasoned director will next take a crack at his own interpretation of Carrie, King’s debut novel about a bullied girl. First adapted by Brian De Palma, 1976’s Carrie has become a genre staple and an early example of Good For Her horror.  We watch Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) seek bloody revenge for a lifetime of horrific abuse by telekinetically destroying her senior prom along with a gym filled with her tormentors. 

Flanagan’s version of the story promises to modernize the 1974 novel, infusing social media, cancel culture, and sexual predation while offering more nuanced depictions of King’s original characters. Flanagan also endeavors to connect his Carrie (Summer H. Howell) to King’s expansive legacy of psychic kids with a network of powerful young women who recognize her as one of their own. This ambitious reimagining cements a deal with Amazon Prime that will hopefully lead to more King adaptations. Flanagan has also announced plans to adapt The Mist, King’s 1985 novella about a grocery store overrun with interdimensional beasts. 

But perhaps even more exciting, Flanagan is currently working through pre-production on a long-awaited adaptation of the Dark Tower saga. King’s eight-part western fantasy — including the coda novel The Wind Through the Keyhole — follows the gunslinger Roland Deschain on a quest to protect the mythical tower said to support the very threads of reality. Blending time, space, genre, and history, this sprawling saga has daunted an impressive list of directors and spawned one disappointing adaptation, The Dark Tower (2017). But if anyone can bring this massive story to life, it’s the man who gave us Gerald’s Game and reconciled the legacy of Doctor Sleep.

In addition to filming King’s most nebulous work, Flanagan’s signature blend of emotional horror meshes well with King’s own narrative style. Considering his impressive track record and the lengthy list of King titles still on the shelf, it’s likely that Mike Flanagan’s best work is yet to come.

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Speaking with Collider, Flanagan provides an update on that project.

“I’m writing it right now,” Flanagan tells the outlet. “I was working on it on the airplane here.”

Flanagan also notes that he’s turning the screenplay in around Halloween.

What does Mike Flanagan plan on bringing to the table with his own version of The Mist? In a series of posts on BlueSky, he promised that his adaptation will very much be its own thing.

Flanagan promised to a fan, “The Mist is going to be great. If there wasn’t an excellent answer to why, I wouldn’t do it.” He continued in a follow-up post, “I love Darabont’s film, and there’s zero point in remaking it. Which is why I’m going in a different direction.”

He doubled down, “This isn’t a retread. The differences start page 1.”

“And FWIW, I got the same ‘but why’ comments for Haunting of Hill House, Bly Manor, House of Usher, Carrie, The Exorcist, even Ouija: Origin of Evil,” Flanagan noted. “Also got it for Life of Chuck. I’ve been lucky so far in my career to only take on projects I’m really excited about.”

Flanagan will be writing and directing the new film adaptation of Stephen King’s novella, which was first published as part of the 1980 anthology Dark Forces before being included in King’s 1985 collection Skeleton Crew – also home to The Raft, Survivor Type, and The Monkey.

The story is set in a Maine town that is consumed by a mysterious fog from which creatures emerge to attack. A group of survivors hole up in a local grocery store, sparking mob mentality and empowering unhinged extremists who become as dangerous as the horrors outside.

Stephen King’s The Mist has of course already made its way onto the big screen with Frank Darabont’s acclaimed feature film adaptation as well as the small screen with a short-lived series.

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Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan has offered a new update that confirms the project is still “very much on the table,” while he also explained the various hurdles the project must overcome. He explained, “To do it the way I wanna do it requires an enormous commitment from a studio.”

With the narrative itself sprawling multiple novels, and with the story blending together fantasy, supernatural, and Western genres, it’s an ambitious effort from a filmmaking scope alone. Additionally, the stories weave in and out of various other stories from King’s vast library, which results in more complications, given the number of studios that possess the rights to various titles.

“The way the Dark Tower universe is connected, you’ve got characters in there that are all over the place when it comes to studio ownership,” Flanagan detailed. “So the development process on it has been epic. It, of course, has taken much longer than I’d like it to, but I work on it all the time. It’s never stopped moving. It just moves at its own oil-tanker pace.”

In this sense, the complications sound reminiscent of what the Marvel Cinematic Universe has gone through over the years, with rights issues preventing integral characters from appearing across titles and behind-the-scenes deals needing to be struck. However, King’s sprawling library and his penchant for offering up the rights to his stories make it an even more complicated situation.

Unfortunately, these complications fall entirely in line with the long and frustrating history of The Dark Tower.

In 2017, Nikolaj Arcel directed The Dark Tower movie starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, which was meant to serve as both an adaptation and a sequel to the original books. With a 95-minute runtime, the movie fell flat with audiences and critics, as it failed to capture the scope of the source material. Amazon then bought the rights to the series and even filmed a pilot for a TV series, though the streamer opted to scrap the pilot and not pick it up to series.

Knowing that we still have quite a wait ahead of us for the adaptation to move forward is disappointing, but all Stephen King fans can agree that we’d rather wait for a worthy adaptation than see another rushed attempt be released.

Are you hoping Flanagan can make his adaptation happen? Let us know in the comments below!

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One of the biggest distinctions of this new adaptation is the events of the novel will be spread out over eight episodes, with Prime Video today releasing the titles of each chapter.

Even though Mike Flanagan is known for exploring emotionally heavy topics and themes, the titles highlight his playfulness, especially considering the series premiere is titled “First Period,” with Carrie’s first period famously unlocking her telekinetic abilities.

You can check out the full list of episode titles below.

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Given that the series premiere is obviously a nod to Carrie’s (Summer H. Howell) transition into adulthood, the rest of the titles have us speculating about significant components of the narrative. “Foreign Language” could be a nod to Carrie being unfamiliar with what’s happening to her, with “Physical Education” teasing her embracing her abilities while “Home Economics” might imply Carrie’s confrontation with her mother, played by Samantha Sloyan. We can only imagine Carrie’s physics-defying abilities that could be explored in “AP Physics.”

Prime Video describes the new series, “Misfit high‑schooler Carrie White (Howell) has spent her life hidden away inside the walls of her home with her fiercely protective mother, Margaret (Sloyan). After her father’s sudden, untimely death thrusts her into the unforgiving ecosystem of public high school, Carrie is forced to navigate a viral bullying scandal that tears through her community, the relentless pressure and casual cruelty of the social‑media age, and the awakening of mysterious telekinetic powers that rise alongside her adolescence.”

Also starring in Carrie are Siena Agudong, Alison Thornton, Joel Oulette, Josie Totah, Arthur Conti, Thalia Dudek, Amber Midthunder, and Matthew Lillard.

Even if we’ve seen versions of Carrie before, Mike Flanagan recently explained to Entertainment Weekly what will set his take on the material apart from his predecessors.

“The story of Carrie alone has been told now several times,” the filmmaker shared with the outlet. “The thing that’s never been delved into is Carrie’s a part of this larger community of women and she never gets to know that. We have a book that fits perfectly into a 90-minute format. We’re talking about a series. Expansion’s essential. So if that’s the mission, how can we earn it? And that was the crux of it. Let’s understand that this is the story about gifted women. Let’s understand that this is a story about young women, in particular, learning their place in the world and coming into their power — and all the pitfalls that come with that.”

The new Carrie series premieres on Prime Video on October 7.

Are you looking forward to the new adaptation? Let us know in the comments below!

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Watch the official trailer for Prime Video’s “Carrie” television series below.

Here’s the official synopsis: “Misfit high‑schooler Carrie White (Summer Howell) has spent her life hidden away inside the walls of her home with her fiercely protective mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). After her father’s sudden, untimely death thrusts her into the unforgiving ecosystem of public high school, Carrie is forced to navigate a viral bullying scandal that tears through her community, the relentless pressure and casual cruelty of the social‑media age, and the awakening of mysterious telekinetic powers that rise alongside her adolescence.”

Mike Flanagan serves as writer and showrunner in addition to directing four episodes of the eight-part series. Amazon MGM Studios produces. Stephen King executive produces.

The show’s cast also includes Siena Agudong as Sue Snell, Alison Thornton as Chris Hargensen, Joel Oulette as Tommy Ross, Josie Tota as Tina, Arthur Conti as Billy, Thalia Dudek as Emaline, Amber Midthunder as Miss Desjardin, and Matthew Lillard as Principal Grayle.

Mike Flanagan explained to Entertainment Weekly, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”

“The themes that Steve was talking about half a century ago of kindness versus cruelty, of empathy and bullying, and violence at school have become even more relevant today than he could have contemplated because of our relationship to technology and the degree to which violence encroaches on our high schoolers, especially in the United States,” Flanagan adds. “We had an opportunity to tell a story about a modern teenage experience that could use the seeds of these characters King created 50 years ago, but express them completely differently.”

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If you recall, the Losers are counting down Stephen King’s published novels — specifically, novels (no collections) — from worst to best in 2026. For August, the Losers cycle through a few more novels before getting lost in the woods with some underrated gems in the King canon.

Stream the episode below and let us know your thoughts in the comments below. For further adventures, join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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Below, you can catch up with the entire run…

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We’ve completely lost our trust in these overly friendly entertainers and now view them as dangerous entities. Most of this fear can be traced back to Tim Curry’s phenomenal performance as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Thirty-six years after Tommy Lee Wallace’s It, the iconic villain is still nightmare fuel.

With examples dating back to ancient Egypt, the clown exists in every culture. Court jesters, fools, and comedians have all provided light-hearted humor tinged with subtle social commentary through outsized pantomime and self-deprication. By the mid-20th century, western audiences were most familiar with the circus clown, a buffonish performer in primary colors, dazzling audiences with slight-of-hand illusions and vaudevillian tricks.

Inspired by the British pantomimist Joseph Grimaldi who originated the iconic white makeup design, Bozo the Clown rose to fame with an animated series and nationally syndicated children’s show. He would later inspire Ronald McDonald, mascot of the massive fast food chain who would bring clowns to the American dinner table. 

As the archetype gained popularity, audiences slowly grew suspicious of the perpetual smile. DC Comics added a sinister edge with the Joker, a criminal mastermind who terrorizes Gotham with a jester facade, while the 1979 arrest of serial killer John Wayne Gacy connected the harlequin persona with grisly true crime. It’s no wonder that when Stephen King began writing about the essence of fear, he chose a sinister clown for his central antagonist. Remembering his inspiration, the Master of Horror would later describe clowns as the creature children fear, “more than anything else in the world.”

Published in 1986, It follows the Losers’ Club, a group of tween outcasts hunted by an alien entity. The shapeshifting creature has the ability to transform into its prey’s greatest fear, amplifying the terror to season the meat. But It’s default persona is an ostensibly friend circus clown who introduces himself as Pennywise. King even name-checks Bozo and Ronald McDonald when we first meet the beast in a sewer drain. Hoping to recover his lost paper boat, five-year-old Georgie Denbrough is lured into a false sense of security by a friendly smile and faint sounds of the circus. But the moment he reaches for his handmade toy, Pennywise grasps the child’s arm and rips it off. 

King’s novel became a runaway best-seller, immediately eyed as the next high-profile adaptation. Following in the footsteps of Tobe Hooper’s 1979 Salem’s Lot, Wallace’s It premiered as an ABC two-part special during November Sweeps Week of 1990. But King worried about the project’s success, particularly considering the novel’s disturbing content and themes of child endangerment. Hoping to draw eyes towards the risky endeavor, Wallace filled his adult cast with A-list actors like John Ritter, Olivia Hussey, Harry Anderson, and Annette O’Toole, most known for their work outside the genre sphere. 

Perhaps the most unusual casting decision was for the central villain himself. Though Malcolm McDowell and Alice Cooper were considered, likely for their own horror legacy, Wallace lobbied for Curry who envisioned the character as “a smile gone bad.” Then known for more comedic roles in Clue and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Curry admired Pennywise’s beguiling charisma and deadly intent, remembering that the monster must first draw kids close before sealing their fate. Curry’s own menacing charm is on full display. Though playing a bloodthirsty child murderer, he lures us in with a wink and a smile while danger twinkles in his eyes. 

Compared to Bill Skarsgård’s modern iteration, Curry’s Pennywise is fairly subdued. His clown is decked out in a yellow jumpsuit with purple-striped sleeves and billowing ruffles. White gloves and orange pom-poms complete this traditional look, topped with a button nose and bright red hair. Replicating Grimaldi’s makeup design, minimal features traced in black and red float in a sea of uncontoured white. Only jagged teeth, yellow eyes, and a bulbous forehead — inspired by Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera – give the look a strangely inhuman feel. Makeup Effects Coordinator Bart Mixon intentionally leaned into a friendly vibe noting, “This creature is trying to lure children in, so he’s not going to be a monster at first.”

Having previously worked under heavy prosthetics, Curry strongly argued for a more understated look and created an arsenal of his own menacing facial expressions. Wallace would later praise this more authentic approach, remembering, “He was right, of course. With those eyes, and that mouth, and his crazy, sardonic sense of humor, less turned out to be more in the makeup department.” Though several scenes feature Curry baring sharpened teeth, a smaller, less vicious set allowed the actor to more easily enunciate. 

This distinctive voice is central to the terror Curry creates. A wise-cracking trickster, Pennywise torments his victims with disturbing jokes and unnerving prophecies. Before going in for the kill, he warns the Losers, “I’m every nightmare you’ve ever had. I’m your worst dream come true. I’m everything you ever were afraid of.” In addition to amplifying the fear, Curry’s gruff voice helps connect the shapeshifting monster’s more nebulous personas. A mummy, a skeleton, and a treacherous witch all speak in Pennywise’s gravelly tones. When young Loser Beverly (Emily Perkins) sees blood explode from her bathroom sink, she doesn’t see the sinister clown at all, but hears his disquieting voice drifting up from the sewer drains, warning her of the horrors to come. 

As Bev cowers in fear on the bathroom floor, Wallace zooms in for a close-up of the frightened child’s face. It’s a technique he repeats several times through the series, creating the illusion of children in jeopardy. Wary of Broadcast Standards and Practices, Wallace avoids putting his young cast directly in the path of danger, using clever tricks and varied point of view to imply danger safe for network TV.

Rather than actually harming the kids, Pennywise taunts from a distance while Wallace highlights their expressions of fear. Though intended to soften disturbing content, the result is actually scarier. With no child in the frame, we feel as if Pennywise is menacing us through the thin protection of our TV screen. This destabilizing perspective shift allows us to fully absorb Curry’s terrifying performance as we squirm in his unrelenting gaze. 

Wallace uses special effects and replacement puppetry only when necessary; when Pennywise crawls out of a tiny locker room drain and later when he disappears into his subterranean lair. When viewed in a bubble, these moments admittedly feel campy and dated, but alongside Curry’s mesmerizing delivery, they are uncanny punctuations of terror. Pennywise often appears in the cold daylight, creating an eerie clash between fantasy and reality. When Bill (Richard Thomas) first returns to his childhood home, Pennywise taunts him from a line of open graves, one for himself and each of his friends. There are no thunderstorms or scary tableaus. Pennywise merely laughs while standing in the open earth.

Later, he torments Richie (Harry Anderson) in a crowded library, screaming ominous jokes while patrons pass by unaware, reading the newspaper and checking out books. Filmed in the bright light of day, Wallace eschews standard horror tropes and lets Curry create terror on his own.

By many accounts, the original It has not aged particularly well (the less said about that spider conclusion, the better.) To be fair, certain elements of King’s original story would challenge the most talented director, but the 1990 miniseries often feels overly saccharine and occasionally silly, particularly when compared to Andy Muschietti’s effects-heavy interpretations, It and It: Chapter Two. But Curry’s unsettling portrayal of the sinister clown has managed to stand the test of time. Though entirely covered with makeup and silk, the actor’s raw talent shines through and we feel as if Pennywise is targeting us. 

I don’t write this to denigrate Skarsgard’s portrayal or Muschietti’s blockbuster films. The Swedish actor managed to do the impossible when reinventing King’s iconic character. But the modern version of Pennywise is a highly-stylized counterpoint to Curry’s stripped-down interpretation, revealing what the talented actor was able to do with a bit of makeup and artistic flair. His Pennywise remains one horror’s most iconic characters, spiraling into a subgenre all its own. In the thirty-six years since It premiered, the murderous clown archetype has been utilized by some of horror’s most exciting creators and seen in countless series and films.

Stephen King is often credited with destroying the clown industry, reframing once friendly figures as sinister killers in disguise. But I would argue it’s Curry’s performance that put the jovial clown out to pasture. While King’s story is certainly terrifying, nothing compares to the British actor’s signature blend of menace and charm.

We first meet Curry’s Pennywise as he offers a friendly wink and wave while hiding behind a laundry line. On second glance, his appealing demeanor has dissolved. What’s left is a grimace of abject malice as he advances on a helpless child. In less than thirty seconds, he’s managed to reel us in and scare us to death. Curry may not have invented the killer clown, but his iconic Pennywise remains one of the horror’s most terrifying creatures. It’s a microcosm of Curry’s talent for reeling us in then tearing us to shreds.

Though Curry did not invent the sinister clown, he is the quintessential example of the trope and still one of the scariest characters in the history of horror. 

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The Lovecraftian tale was also featured in King’s Nightmares & Dreamscapes.

“Crouch End” will be a six-part limited series at Prime Video.

“London never sleeps deeply, and its dreams are uneasy. When global movie star Doris Freeman bursts into a London police station claiming that strange phenomena are behind the disappearance of her husband, police inspector Ted Vetter must investigate whether she’s telling the truth, whether she could be a murderer, or whether there’s something even more chilling at play.”

Variety notes in today’s report that Prime Video’s “Crouch End” is being adapted by Paul Tomalin (“Bodies”) and directed by Tom Shankland (“Berlin Noir,” “The Serpent”).

“Stephen King is one of the defining storytellers of our time, and we’re thrilled to bring his Lovecraftian tale to life in London with Crouch End,” said Nicole Clemens, VP of International Originals at Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios. “Paul Tomalin brings a singular, character-driven vision to the series and, paired with Tom Shankland at the helm, plus the first-class production teams at Mammoth Screen and Fifth Season, this show will grip audiences worldwide with its visceral crime thriller and supernatural mystery.”

Paul Tomalin said, “After reading Crouch End some years back, Stephen King’s vivid prose has haunted my nightmares ever since. Having the honour to adapt it with the incredible team at Mammoth, Fifth Season and Amazon alongside director Tom Shankland is a dream come true. I couldn’t be more excited to bring this thrilling tale to the screen.”

Director Tom Shankland adds, “I’ve been a Stephen King super-fan forever. The chance to work with this great team and bring his utterly brilliant London mystery to life is beyond exciting — Crouch End will be cinematic, original and thought-provoking in equal measure.”

This won’t be the first time Stephen King’s “Crouch End” has been adapted for the screen. Back in 2006, it was adapted for the small screen for the series Nightmares & Dreamscapes.

The late Tim Curry narrated the audio book version of King’s terror tale.

Bloody Disgusting’s Jenn Adams recently selected “Crouch End” as one of the 13 Stephen King short stories every fan should read. She wrote, “King ventures into Lovecraftian Lore with Crouch End, a deeply unsettling story of an American couple on a doomed trip to London. Having lost their way, they wander down the wrong street and possibly into another dimension filled with hideous monsters and sinister approximations of city life. Set in a real district of London, the story was inspired by King’s trip to the UK to visit collaborator and friend Peter Straub. King resists the urge to fully reveal Crouch End’s mysteries, creating another haunting example of less-is-more horror.”

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While MGM+ hasn’t revealed an exact premiere date yet, season two will include eight episodes. 

In season one, “Teen genius Luke Ellis is kidnapped and awakens at The Institute, a facility full of children who all got there the same way he did and who are all possessed of unusual abilities. In a nearby town, haunted former police officer Tim Jamieson has come looking to start a new life, but the peace and quiet won’t last, as his story and Luke’s are destined to collide.”

Season two will pick up after the season one finale, in which the survivors discovered similar facilities all over the world. 

“Set free but hunted, new dangers await the escapees from the Institute, and I can’t wait,” said Stephen King of the renewal.

The series hails from director/executive producer Jack Bender (From, Mr. Mercedes), writer/executive producer Benjamin Cavell (Justified, The Stand), and MGM+ Studios. Both filmmakers are no strangers to the world of Stephen King.

Mary-Louise Parker (Ms. Sigsby), Ben Barnes (Tim Jamieson), Joe Freeman (Luke Ellis), Simone Miller (Kalisha), Fionn Laird (Nick), Hannah Galway (Wendy), Julian Richings (Stackhouse), Robert Joy (Dr. Hendricks), and Martin Roach (Chief Ashworth) star, with Alfie Allen (“Game of Thrones,” The Predator) joining the second season.

Get a peek at Allen, Barnes, and Parker in the first batch of images below.

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Sam Raimi will produce the upcoming Desperation movie, while Stein and Lipovsky are on board to direct. Searchlight Pictures is the studio attached to the feature film project.

Published in 1996, Stephen King’s novel Desperation was previously turned into a made-for-TV movie starring Ron Perlman, Tom Skerritt and Steven Weber back in 2006.

Wikipedia reminds, “Desperation is a story about several people who, while traveling along the desolated Highway 50 in Nevada, get abducted by Collie Entragian, the deputy of the fictional mining town of Desperation. Entragian uses various pretexts for the abductions, from an arrest for drug possession to ‘rescuing’ a family from a nonexistent gunman. It becomes clear to the captives that Entragian has been possessed by an evil being named Tak, who has control over the surrounding desert wildlife and must change hosts to keep itself alive.

“They begin to fight for their freedom, sanity and lives before realizing that if they are ever to escape Desperation, they must trap Tak in the place from which he came.”

Desperation was published at the same time as Stephen King’s own “mirror novel” titled The Regulators, which shares characters but takes place in an alternate universe.

The union of Sam Raimi and Stephen King is an exciting one for fans of both Raimi and King, and there’s a nice bit of full circle history there too. As you may recall, it was Stephen King’s review of The Evil Dead that Raimi credits for saving and legitimizing his indie debut feature.

And the rest is history! Stay tuned for more on this developing story.

The post ‘Desperation’ – Sam Raimi and ‘Final Destination Bloodlines’ Directors Teaming for Stephen King Movie appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Cosm and Warner Bros. Pictures today announced IT as Cosm’s next experiential cinema title. The New Line Cinema horror film based on Stephen King’s bestselling novel marks Cosm’s first-ever horror experience and will debut at Cosm venues on August 28, 2026!

The highest-grossing horror film of all time, IT (2017) captured audiences worldwide. Nearly a decade later, the classic film will captivate audiences once again and introduce an entirely new category of experiential horror thanks to a production collaboration between Cosm, Warner Bros. Pictures, Little Cinema, Double Dream (founded by IT filmmakers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti), and New Line Cinema (a label of Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group).

The company previews, “Leveraging Cosm’s 87-foot-diameter, 12K+ LED domes and proprietary fulldome production technology, guests will be transported into the eerie woods, haunted sewers, and shadowy corners of Derry, Maine. Intensified sound design and dynamic environments will supplement the film beyond its original format, helping Cosm redefine the jump scare as guests come face-to-face with the haunting Pennywise.”

“Over the past year, we’ve seen experiential cinema in Shared Reality bring to life a fresh, exciting way for fans to interact with – and enter the worlds of – their favorite films,” said Alexis Scalice, Vice President of Business Development and Entertainment at Cosm. “Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema, Double Dream, and Little Cinema have all been incredible partners to help deliver IT as Cosm’s fourth film in Shared Reality.

“Together, we are taking horror beyond the frame, creating an immersive experience to deliver thrills unlike anything fans have experienced before.”

“After the incredible audience response to our previous Shared Reality presentations, we’re excited to continue this ongoing collaboration with Cosm and Little Cinema by bringing IT to this immersive format,” said Jeff Goldstein, President of Global Distribution at Warner Bros. Pictures. “Each project has pushed the boundaries of how audiences experience these iconic films, and IT offers a uniquely thrilling opportunity to further that vision – delivering a bold, sensory-rich way to engage with one of the most memorable New Line titles in the Warner Bros. Library.”

“Each title we’ve brought to Shared Reality together has taught us something new about how stories can wrap around an audience,” added Jay Rinsky, Chief Creative Officer at Little Cinema. “IT teaches us fear, and we’re treating every shadow, every silence, and every red balloon as a chance to invent something the medium hasn’t seen yet. It’s been a privilege to evolve this format alongside entertainment pioneers such as Cosm, Warner Bros., and Double Dream.”

Cosm’s growing portfolio of Hollywood and Blockbuster IP provides Cosm guests across the world with a year-round slate of experiential cinema programming. IT will premiere at Cosm Los Angeles, Dallas, and Atlanta on August 28, 2026, and will debut at Cosm Detroit at a later date.

Learn more on Cosm’s official website and stay tuned for additional details.

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Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.

Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.

Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.

He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters. 

Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”

His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way. 

A New Prom Night Nightmare

The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers. 

In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge. 

The Monstrous Addition of Social Media

On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.

Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age. 

Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned. 

A Completely Reimagined White Family

In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.

Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality? 

Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.

Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”

Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.

Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.   

Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe

While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength. 

Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue. 

Giving Carrie Her Own Voice

Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair. 

Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.

Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself. 

The post What Mike Flanagan’s ‘Carrie’ Teaser Reveals About His Bold New Adaptation appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

Dreamcatcher sees friends Henry (Thomas Jane), Jonesy (Damian Lewis), Pete (Timothy Olyphant) and Beaver (Jason Lee) reunite for their annual hunting trip in Maine. Their reunion is cut short when they find themselves caught in the middle of a war between a hostile race of farty-farty aliens and an elite US military unit led by Colonel Abraham Curtis (Morgan Freeman), who has been driven mad after spending decades tracking the extraterrestrials. When Jonesy is possessed by one of the aliens, the remaining friends seek out their disabled childhood friend Duddits (Donnie Wahlberg), who they believe has powers that can save Jonesy…and the world.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, and RSS.

Episode 396: Dreamcatcher (2003)

Watch out for “ister gay” (oof), take some Gas-X and bite our bags because we’re talking Lawrence Kasdan’s baffling 2003 adaptation of Stephen King’s equally baffling novel Dreamcatcher.

Join us as we go all in on the farty-farty aliens populating this hilarious misfire that often feels like a bad Kevin Smith script. It’s a film filled with characters who get a single defining trait (if they’re lucky), played by respectable actors who are here for the paycheck (looking at you, Morgan Freeman).

Plus: blown-out assholes, using guns as telephones, pitying poor Donnie Wahlberg, and wondering why the hell this movie is called Dreamcatcher.

Cross out Dreamcatcher!

Coming Up Next: We’re going to be lounging around a posh Greenwich Village apartment as we check in on Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954).

P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 513 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Forbidden Fruits, Saccharine, Evil Dead Burn, an audio commentary on Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (aka Howling II: Stirba – Werewolf Bitch), and the conclusion of our coverage of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat on the Requel Tier.

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Along with the new teaser comes the announcement that the eight-episode limited series premieres on Prime Video on October 7.

The series follows misfit high‑schooler Carrie White (Summer H. Howell), who has spent her life hidden away inside the walls of her home with her fiercely protective mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). After her father’s sudden, untimely death thrusts her into the unforgiving ecosystem of public high school, Carrie is forced to navigate a viral bullying scandal that tears through her community, the relentless pressure and casual cruelty of the social‑media age, and the awakening of mysterious telekinetic powers that rise alongside her adolescence.

Carrie is written and executive produced by showrunner Mike Flanagan (Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House) with Flanagan also directing four episodes.

Stephen King also serves as executive producer. 

Also starring in the series are Siena Agudong as Sue Snell, Alison Thornton as Chris Hargensen, Joel Oulette as Tommy Ross, Josie Tota as Tina, Arthur Conti as Billy, Thalia Dudek as Emaline, Amber Midthunder as Miss Desjardin, and Matthew Lillard as Principal Grayle.

Each of the show’s episodes will apparently open with the introduction of “a different, unique story of a different woman, somewhere else in the world and in time, coming to terms with their own abilities.” Flanagan teased, “Carrie’s specific place among that group of women is part of the real joy that we get to discover over the course of the season.”

Expect Flanagan to expand King’s story in unexpected ways, using a modern lens. 

Also check out the new poster below, giving a peek at Carrie in her prom queen tiara.

The post ‘Carrie’ Seeks Friends in First Teaser for Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King Series for Prime Video appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

If you recall, the Losers are counting down Stephen King’s published novels — specifically, novels (no collections) — from worst to best in 2026. Before July bleeds into August, the Losers dance right into the roaring ’20s with some lengthy discussions on some of King’s angriest and most surrealistic works.

Stream the episode below and let us know your thoughts in the comments below. For further adventures, join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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Entertainment Weekly is previewing the upcoming series this morning with a handful of first look images that introduce us to Summer H. Howell’s Carrie White and more.

Mike Flanagan explains to Entertainment Weekly, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”

“The themes that Steve was talking about half a century ago of kindness versus cruelty, of empathy and bullying, and violence at school have become even more relevant today than he could have contemplated because of our relationship to technology and the degree to which violence encroaches on our high schoolers, especially in the United States,” Flanagan adds. “We had an opportunity to tell a story about a modern teenage experience that could use the seeds of these characters King created 50 years ago, but express them completely differently.”

Of particular note, Mike Flanagan teases in his chat with Entertainment Weekly that the series will spotlight additional characters who have their own telekinetic abilities.

Each of the show’s episodes will apparently open with the introduction of “a different, unique story of a different woman, somewhere else in the world and in time, coming to terms with their own abilities.” Flanagan teases, “Carrie’s specific place among that group of women is part of the real joy that we get to discover over the course of the season.”

The eight-episode limited series is expected to premiere on Prime Video this Fall.

Here’s the official synopsis: “Misfit high‑schooler Carrie White (Summer Howell) has spent her life hidden away inside the walls of her home with her fiercely protective mother, Margaret (Samantha Sloyan). After her father’s sudden, untimely death thrusts her into the unforgiving ecosystem of public high school, Carrie is forced to navigate a viral bullying scandal that tears through her community, the relentless pressure and casual cruelty of the social‑media age, and the awakening of mysterious telekinetic powers that rise alongside her adolescence.”

Mike Flanagan serves as writer and showrunner in addition to directing four episodes of the eight-part series. Amazon MGM Studios produces. Stephen King executive produces.

“Carrie” stars Summer Howell as Carrie White, with Samantha Sloyan as Margaret White, Siena Agudong as Sue Snell, Alison Thornton as Chris Hargensen, Joel Oulette as Tommy Ross, Josie Tota as Tina, Arthur Conti as Billy, Thalia Dudek as Emaline, Amber Midthunder as Miss Desjardin, and Matthew Lillard as Principal Grayle.

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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.

The post Here’s Johnny! 5 Unexpected Homages to ‘The Shining’ in Non-Horror Media appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

If you recall, the Losers are counting down Stephen King’s published novels — specifically, novels (no collections) — from worst to best in 2026. To cap off June, they crack into the 30s with some rough choices surrounding some of King’s most fantastical works and a sequel that’s as divisive as always with this group.

Stream the episode below and let us know your thoughts in the comments below. For further adventures, join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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To blow off steam, the Losers hit the road to visit all the towns in Stephen King’s Dominion. Derry, Castle Rock, Ludlow, Boulder, the list goes on. They’ve got miles to drive and so many (scary) sights to see. At the end of the day, though, they have to ask themselves: Which one’s the best? And, more importantly, what does “best” mean in this context?

Stream the episode below. PayDays and Nozz-a-La, optional. For further adventures, join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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The post Stephen King Summer Road Trip – What’s the Best Town to Visit? [The Losers’ Club Podcast] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

The unrivaled Master of Horror made a splash in 1974 with his debut novel Carrie and has been terrifying readers ever since. Two years later, Brian De Palma brought this shocking story to the screen with an equally electrifying horror film that remains a genre classic and a prototypical example of “Good For Her” horror. This dual debut seemed to open the floodgates, unleashing endless waves of Stephen King films.

From the highs of Misery, Cujo, and The Shawshank Redemption to the schlocky fun of Cat’s Eye, Creepshow, and Children of the Corn, the last five decades have seen just about every notable horror creator take a stab at the author’s massive collection. 

In recent years, this singular subgenre has begun to burst at the seams, expanding to include Stephen King-esque fare. In 2016, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer debuted Stranger Things, a sci-fi series heavily inspired by two of King’s most famous books. The Netflix series remixes Firestarter and It by following a little girl with psychic powers and an intrepid group of kids on bikes who must battle an otherworldly foe and a sinister government agency. With its clever blend of modern effects and comforting nostalgia, this gateway horror series paved the way for Andy Muschietti’s It adaptation which remains the highest grossing horror film of all time. 

Four years later, Mike Flanagan would create Midnight Mass, a spiritual adaptation of King’s second novel Salem’s Lot. Published in 1975, the book sees a tiny New England town torn apart by a centuries-old vampire. Though Flanagan’s story is perhaps more tender, both iterations of the classic horror tale follow close-knit communities shaken to their core by the presence of an  ancient evil. 

In addition to these recent hits, 2025 was a banner year for the Master of Horror. Audiences delighted in six mainstream adaptations, including the massively popular It: Welcome to Derry which chronicles earlier cycles of the titular clown’s reign. With this boost to King’s cultural cache, it’s no surprise that we’ve begun to see more unofficial adaptations of the author’s work and horror creators who build their own unique castles in King’s creative sandbox. 

So what defines a Stephen King-esque story?

For the past fifty years, the prolific author has dipped his toes in nearly every subgenre from supernatural stories and grisly gore to western fantasy and science fiction. Including his vast catalogue of short fiction, King has tackled ghosts, demons, werewolves, zombies, aliens, mutants, and self-driving cars, not to mention bizarre monsters of his own creation. But what truly unites this vast array of horror is King’s focus on relatable characters. In his 2000 memoir/instructional text On Writing, the prolific author describes the amusement he finds in writing disparate characters, placing them in horrific scenarios, then exploring the ways they try to survive.

An unofficial Stephen King adaptation may take place in the author’s native New England — bonus points if it’s set in Maine — and reference his well-known heroes and villains. But what makes the King connection unbreakable is a character-driven story about average people who band together in the face of abject terror. 

Weapons Captures Small Town Stephen King

Following his 2022 shocker Barbarian, Zach Cregger returned with Weapons, a sprawling story that begins in a doomed elementary school. On an otherwise ordinary day, Justine (Julia Garner) arrives at her desk to find that all but one of her students have disappeared. As the mystery grows increasingly violent, Justine and Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of a missing boy, find their way to the home of Alex (Cary Christopher), the class’ only surviving student. In some ways reminiscent of Salem’s Lot, Weapons swings wildly through the unfortunate town, introducing us to its flawed inhabitants as we watch their lives fall apart.  

Cregger’s setup nods to a pair of King short stories. Both “Suffer the Little Children” and “Here There Be Tygers” tackle monstrous presences in elementary schools, but as Weapons reaches its final act, Constant Readers may remember another Stephen King tale. Featured in his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew, “Gramma” introduces us to George, a little boy tormented by an aging witch. On an afternoon alone with his sickly grandmother, the frightened child gradually realizes that the imposing old woman has been waiting for an opportunity to cast a spell that will extend her own life by possessing his body.  

Alex finds himself similarly tortured by his aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan), a garish witch who orchestrates a desperate plot to sustain her own strength. Transforming humans into mindless weapons, Gladys has taken over Alex’s family home and lured his classmates to the basement. Holding them in a comatose state, she syphons off their energy to extend her own supernatural life.

Vastly different in many ways, both “Gramma” and Weapons hinge on a sinister witch who uses horrific magical spells to sacrifice the bodies of her vulnerable prey. 

Hokum Echoes The Shining and 1408

It’s nearly impossible to watch a film about a haunted hotel without thinking of King’s third novel, The Shining. This icy story follows Jack Torrance, an angry writer struggling with his sobriety and a shameful incident haunting his past. Accompanied by his wife and young son, Jack has taken a job as the winter caretaker for the Overlook, a haunted hotel situated high in the Rocky Mountains. Snowed in, Jack finds himself tormented by dangerous ghosts who amplify his greatest fears. 

Damian McCarthy’s Hokum follows a similarly troubled figure. Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is a surly writer who travels to the Bilberry Woods Hotel in rural Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes. Haunted by his own tragic past, Ohm finds himself trapped in the honeymoon suite, a decaying room that’s been permanently closed to protect visitors from a dangerous witch trapped within its walls. Visual nods to King’s text abound with woodcut figurines and an animated clock, mirroring ominous descriptions found in King’s text. 

Another terrifying sequence sees Ohm staring with horror at a closed door, the only thing separating him from the approaching witch. As the door knob slowly turns, Constant Readers remember Jack’s narrow escape from the ghostly woman in room 217. And Ohm’s popular Conquistador books directly reference King’s long-running fantasy series The Dark Tower which follows a gunslinger named Roland Deschain tasked with protecting the nexus of the universe. 

In addition to these thematic comparisons, Hokum bears striking resemblance to King’s terrifying short story “1408.” Collected in 2002’s Everything’s Eventual, the terrifying story follows Mike Enslin, a dejected writer who’s risen to fame penning essays about his adventures in haunted locations. Mike arrives at the Hotel Dolphin and bullies his way into the titular room, despite the manager’s dire warnings. McCarthy nods to this story with an ominously misplaced hotel room door, reminiscent of King’s entry to 1408, an unsuspecting portal that appears to move each time Mike looks away. 

However, McCarthy’s most direct reference lies in a minicorder Ohm uses to capture notes. Trapped inside the dreaded honeymoon suite, this device offers well-timed messages while sitting next to a decomposing corpse. Mike records his time in 1408 with his own trusty minicorder. Described for the reader, his tape has captured the man’s slow descent into madness as the room prepares to swallow him whole. With conclusions that differ wildly in tone, both Ohm and Mike find their lives irrevocably changed by encounters with the supernatural realm. 

Widow’s Bay Builds Its Own Version of Castle Rock

Katie Dippold’s Widow’s Bay has taken the idea of an unofficial King adaptation and turned it into an art form. The Apple TV series sees the residents of the titular island plagued by a curse that dates back centuries. Not only does the picturesque hamlet not accommodate wifi connections, those born on the island face certain death should they ever try to leave. Desperate to modernize the tiny town, Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) draws in waves of tourists just as a new cycle of terror begins. 

Blending horror with deft comedy, Dippold makes cheeky references to King’s body of work. Tom warns that, “there’s something in the fog,” reminding readers of King’s 1980 novella The Mist. And Loftis’ own stay in the town’s haunted hotel sees him tormented by the ghost of a murderous clown. We even spy a vintage King hardback peeking out of a local book trade box.

In many ways Widow’s Bay feels like a new iteration of the author’s Little Tall Island, a tiny village off the coast of Maine. In addition to the 1992 novel Dolores Claiborne and a handful of harrowing short stories, this quaint fishing village is also the setting for King’s 1999 teleplay Storm of the Century. Premiering on ABC primetime, this tragic tale follows a terrified group of islanders who batten down the hatches for a dangerous Nor’easter only to find a more sinister threat lurking within. 

Constant Readers may also be reminded of Castle Rock, the author’s favorite fictional town.

First introduced in the 1981 novel Cujo, the charming village becomes the star of Needful Things, King’s satire about consumerism. After several Castle Rock stories, we’re reintroduced to its residents as they gossip about the arrival of Leland Gaunt and the grand opening of his curio shop. Anything their hearts desire can be found in his varied inventory, so long as they’re willing to pay the price. Pitting cantankerous neighbors against each other, Gaunt ignites a wave of grisly violence by exploiting long-held resentments and feuds. 

The town’s only defense against this supernatural threat is beleaguered sheriff Alan Pangborn. Still grieving the deaths of his wife and younger son, Alan struggles to connect with his older child and pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Also a widower, Loftis struggles to raise his own restless son and explain the strange details of his wife’s tragic death. Attempting to unravel the island’s dark secrets, Tom is aided by quirky residents including a surly fisherman named Wyck (Stephen Root) and Patricia (Kate O’Flynn), an earnest Town Hall employee. King’s own novels feature many of these proactive alliances with disparate characters combining their strengths to overcome insurmountable odds. 

With Widow’s Bay renewed for a second season and Mike Flanagan’s Carrie series on the horizon, the future seems bright for new King adaptations, both spiritual and directly pulled from his catalogue. The prolific author also shows no signs of slowing down with two publications nearing release. His upcoming novel, Other Worlds Than These, is the long-awaited third Talisman book which teases direct ties to his Dark Tower world. Holly Forever will be a new installment of his crime series, offering a different kind of genre fare.

This embarrassment of riches spawning multiple worlds seems ripe for spiritual adaptation and will likely inspire horror creators for decades to come.

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Ben Young, who broke out with the ultra-bleak horror movie Hounds of Love, is attached to helm the short story adaptation from King’s 2015 collection The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Deadline reports.

The story follows “Ollie Franklin, a charismatic resident of an assisted living facility who begins experiencing disturbing visions after the death of a fellow resident. As the line between memory, regret, and the supernatural begins to blur, Ollie is forced to confront long-buried secrets from his past before time finally catches up with him.”

Young adapts the screenplay with writer Troy Abruzzise.

“Stephen King was one of the first authors I ever read religiously, so getting to work on something that came from his imagination is a genuine honour,” Young told Deadline. “What I love about Mister Yummy is that the horror is inseparable from the humanity. It’s creepy, moving, character-driven, and exactly the kind of movie I’d line up to see. It’s also the first feature I’ll direct that I’ve also written on since Hounds of Love, so helping shape the script into the kind of Stephen King film I’d want to experience myself has been a real joy.”

Producers include Aimee Schoof, Isen Robbins, and Megan Freels Johnston of Intrinsic Value Films (Tesla, Experimenter), along with Josh Kesselman (Devil’s Peak, The Great), and Thomas Mahoney of Handsome Watson (Wild Indian, Brian).

Mister Yummy joins upcoming King adaptations “Carrie,” The Stand, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Rat, Autopsy Room Four, and Cujo.

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If you recall, The Losers’ Club is counting down Stephen King’s published novels — specifically, novels (no collections) — from worst to best. For May, the heat turns up as they round out the 40s with a handful of picks that race all around King’s Dominion. In fact, one divisive title dusts off an iconic debate within the Club.

Stream the episode below and let us know your thoughts in the comments below. For further adventures, join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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Missed the first three episodes? Catch up below!

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As The Boys concluded its epic run, an eerie sense of prophecy seemed to plague the fifth and final season. Based on the comics by Garth Ennis, the Prime Video series takes place in a world where superheroes are real, but must contend with all-too-human flaws. Over forty episodes, we’ve watched Homelander (Antony Starr), a sinister twist on Superman, bully and brutalize his way into the highest levels of geopolitical power.

As life continues to imitate art, the supervillain’s fifth-season arc features shocking parallels to our reality and a certain U.S. President, including a life-sized golden statue and a vision of the superhero as Jesus Christ. Surprised by these coincidences, series creator Eric Kripke insists he based Homelander’s dramatic fall on historical examples of authoritarian creep, quipping, “It’s just really hard to out-satire this world.”

The series finale features an epic showdown between Homelander and his mortal enemy, resistance fighter Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), who leads a ragtag team known as the Boys. Butcher and his partner in crime, Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara), find themselves aided by Homelander’s estranged son Ryan (Cameron Crovetti), in an epic battle that nearly destroys the West Wing.

But strip away the superpowers, capes, and bombastic effects, and this climactic battle is a modernized version of another classic political thriller. Stephen King’s The Dead Zone features a similar face-off between an unexpected vigilante and a villainous politician destined to bring about the end of the world.  

The Dead Zone’s Greg Stillson laid the groundwork for Homelander decades ago

First published in 1979, King’s award-winning novel follows Johnny Smith, a doomed schoolteacher who spends five years in a coma after a near-fatal accident. He awakens with clairvoyant power and the ability to access anyone’s deeply held secrets through physical touch. Smith locates his doctor’s long-lost mother and assists the sheriff of a neighboring town in unmasking the identity of a serial killer by holding the hand of his most recent victim.

King parallels Smith’s mysterious journey with the career of an ambitious businessman. We’re first introduced to Greg Stillson as an enterprising bible salesman who kicks a barking dog to death after checking his surroundings for witnesses. 

As he rises up the political chain, Stillson bribes his way to a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. With a biker gang working as his personal strongmen, he will stop at nothing to amass more power. We watch as he threatens his political rivals and arranges the death of an FBI agent investigating his many crimes. Perhaps most disturbing, Stillson knows how to charm an audience, enjoying meteoric political success thanks to his talent for deception and a mega-watt grin that effectively hides his villainy. David Cronenberg’s 1983 adaptation of the story casts Martin Sheen in this pivotal role, sixteen years before he would play the beloved President Josiah Bartlet in Aaron Sorkin’s long-running series The West Wing.

Homelander is also adept at this cleverly concealed dichotomy, hiding his own murderous rage behind highly orchestrated acts of heroism. We first meet the blonde superhero as he stops a dangerous bank robbery, then pauses for selfies with his adoring fans. Literally draped in the American flag, he constantly reminds the world that civilians and first responders are the true heroes, downplaying his own actions to maintain a humble facade.

It’s only behind closed doors that we see who Homelander truly is. While attempting to save a hijacked plane, he accidentally kills the pilots too, sending the commercial jet plummeting to the ocean below. Because he can’t let the world know that he has failed, the callous hero refuses to save anyone onboard and allows hundreds of innocent passengers to sink along with the plane’s wreckage, sacrificing their lives to preserve his pristine reputation. 

As the seasons go by, Homelander slowly becomes more powerful, eliminating or vilifying anyone who stands in his way. He’s surrounded by a loyal group of sycophants who enable his increasingly egregious acts through a complex system of propaganda and misinformation. But the psychopath’s ambition knows no bounds. When the sitting U.S. President balks at his desire to eliminate Congress and imprison or kill the opposition, Homelander crushes the politician’s head and installs his loyal fixer in the coveted role.

Both villains mask violence behind patriotic spectacle

Having injected a rare serum granting him immortality, Homelander plans an Easter address in which he will declare himself the second coming of Christ and order the world to fall to their knees. Fortunately, Butcher and the Boys force their way into the Oval Office, determined to stop him once and for all.  

King’s The Dead Zone condenses this epic saga into a single vision of the future, instead focusing on the veracity of Smith’s clairvoyant power. By the time he crosses paths with the sinister political candidate, we firmly believe that these outlandish visions serve as an iron-clad prophecy. Shaking his hand, Smith glimpses a terrifying future of Stillson’s presidency, the man’s angry temperament sparking a nuclear war that will bring about the end of the world. Burdened with this knowledge, Smith knows that his singular vision cannot combat Stillson’s benevolent facade and decides to take matters into his own hands. He buys a rifle and stakes out the setting for an upcoming political rally, hiding in the auditorium’s balcony. 

As Stillson delivers a well-received speech, Smith misses his first shot, allowing his target time to defend himself. Frightened for his life, Stillson grabs a nearby toddler and holds him in the path of danger. Unwilling to kill the child Stillson uses as a human shield, Johnny relents and is fatally shot, but not before a photographer captures a damning picture of Stillson in this unforgivable act. King stops short of killing the horrific villain, allowing him to suffer the consequences of his own cowardice. Though Stillson survives this climactic showdown, Smith’s final vision reveals a political career in tatters. The once-powerful man will never again be able to convince the world to see him as anything but a conniving fool.

The Boys’ bombastic series finale features a similar end for Homelander. As the world watches his live address, he announces himself as God before slipping into familiar rage, threatening death to anyone unwilling to worship his name. Butcher interrupts this terrifying speech, sending cameramen fleeing for their lives without thinking to cut the live feed. In a brutal fight, Butcher and Ryan subdue the struggling villain while Kimiko unleashes a radioactive blast designed to eliminate superhuman abilities.

When the dust settles, Homelander regains his footing only to find that his eyes no longer emit deadly laser beams. His attempts to blast off into the sky result in a series of pathetic jumps no higher than a few feet off the floor. With the cameras still rolling, the world can see that Homelander is no longer a superhero, but a flesh-and-blood human just like them. 

Why The Boys ending is more brutal than Stephen King’s original vision

Without his steel skin, lightning-quick reflexes, and super speed, Homelander finds himself easily outmatched by the seasoned fighter. Butcher effortlessly stops his feeble punch and begins pummeling the man’s now-fragile face. Terrified, Homelander begs for his life, offering Butcher the full weight of his obscene power. Denied mercy, Homelander debases himself at the man’s feet, offering to eat his shit on live TV.

We remember the eerily prescient words of another fallen hero, delivered in the season’s first episode. Just before Homelander snaps his neck, A-Train (Jessie T. Usher) insists, “Take away these powers, and what are you, huh? A pathetic, weak, snivelling fucking loser.” With cameras still rolling, the world now sees the true nature of their self-professed savior. Like Stillson, he has been defanged and revealed as the weakling he truly is. 

Despite these similarities, Kripke has a more brutal end for his humiliated villain. In an interview with Deadline, he explained, “People have asked me, ‘Well, why don’t you send him out in the world powerless, wouldn’t that be the ultimate punishment?’ I’m like, it would, until he gets his hands on some more Compound V, and then you’re back to where you started.”

Thanks to this in-world serum, Homelander has been able to subdue his enemies with brute force and the ever-present threat of death. After all, the blue injectable allows him to instantly slaughter massive crowds with a simple flick of his laser eyes. Kripke continues, “So, he cannot walk out of that room alive, but we can spend time with him powerless to really reveal what everyone’s been saying all season, which is, ‘Take away those powers and you are nothing.’”

As the world witnesses their hero laid low, Butcher exacts his long-awaited revenge. He drives a crowbar into Homelander’s forehead, then cracks open the top of his skull. Homelander’s brains spill over the Resolute Desk while his body falls gracelessly to the floor. The camera lingers on the shocking demise before Butcher abruptly cuts the feed, leaving the world to grapple with the image of their former hero’s mangled body and proof that no one is indestructible. 

King wrote The Dead Zone in the aftermath of the Watergate Scandal and Richard Nixon’s unprecedented fall from grace. Explaining his inspiration for the novel in his 200 memoir On Writing, the author remembers wondering if a political assassin could ever serve as a protagonist. Though Smith fails in his stated mission, he ultimately succeeds in revealing Stillson’s true nature before he can bring the world to the brink of disaster.

But The Boys exists in a different time. Decades later, we’re now plagued by so-called “alternative facts” and a populace determined to believe anything that maintains their delusions of unrivaled strength. Nothing short of complete destruction will force Homelander’s devout followers to accept the truth: that their empire has been built on lies.

While Stillson could be allowed to destroy himself, we must see the mighty Homelander fall to understand that he has always been nothing more than a fragile man in an empty suit. 

The post ‘The Boys’ Series Finale Explained: Homelander’s Fall Mirrors a Classic Stephen King Villain appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

So, in this special episode, we hear from the maestros behind that makeover magic: Julianne Clancy, Senior Director of Marketing at Vintage Books; Mark Abrams, Art Director at Vintage Books; and legendary artist Ghoulish Gary Pullin. Together, they share the process of reinventing iconic covers for a new era, the timeless influence of horror, and why reading is back, baby.

Killer conversation with a killer ka-tet. Stream the episode below and be sure to pick up your own collection from Vintage Books from your local bookstore or straight from the publisher!

For further adventures, join the Club over long days and pleasant nights via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, RadioPublic, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS. You can also unlock hundreds of hours of content in The Barrens (Patreon).

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The humble writer from Portland, Maine, published his debut novel in 1974 and quickly became a household name. By 1978, he’d released five incredible books that continue to dazzle modern readers. Carrie, ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, Night Shift, and The Stand run the gamut of horror subgenres, exploring everything from vampire lore and feminism to haunted houses and the apocalypse. But despite these differences, each story is a showcase for the prolific author’s ability to create intensely relatable characters forced to confront their darkest fears.

To celebrate this unparalleled legacy, Vintage Books presents a stunning reissue of King’s first five publications.

Adorned with gorgeous new covers from award-winning illustrator Gary Pullin, this series combines each story’s retro vibe with the timeless terror we’ve come to associate with the man now known as the Master of Horror. 

Carrie (1974)

Considering his later success, it’s surprising to learn that King’s debut novel almost ended up in the trash. When he first envisioned the bloody story, King was a young father living paycheck to paycheck on a teacher’s salary, supplementing the family’s meager income with short stories published in men’s magazines. Frustrated with what was shaping up to be a longer work, King famously gave up on his draft of Carrie and threw the first few pages away. Fortunately, his wife and fellow writer Tabitha pulled the manuscript out of the wastebasket and encouraged him to continue writing. 

Carrie follows a lonely high school girl whose telekinetic abilities blossom with the late arrival of her first period. A victim of relentless bullying, Carrie White finds herself the target of a vicious prank when her popular classmates orchestrate her unlikely election to prom queen, then douse her with pig’s blood at the moment of coronation. Humiliated, Carrie unleashes the full force of her awful powers on the laughing prom-goers, sparking a fire that threatens to destroy the town. 

The slim novel sold modestly upon initial release, but became a worldwide phenomenon thanks to a masterful adaptation from Brian De Palma. Featuring powerhouse performances from Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie, Carrie (1976) remains a beloved genre classic and an early example of Good For Her horror. There’s even a new series adaptation on the way this year.

Vintage Books’ rerelease features an introduction from feminist author Margaret Atwood, who — upon the novel’s 50th anniversary — called its upsetting themes “still horrifyingly relevant.”

‘Salem’s Lot (1975)

King’s second novel highlights the author’s talent for creating abject terror while exploring the nuances of small town life. Haunted by an incident from his childhood, widowed novelist Ben Mears returns to the titular town intent on renting the Marsten House, a crumbling mansion said to be haunted by the ghost of its former resident. Unfortunately, he returns to find the home purchased by Kurt Barlow, a mysterious European antiques dealer, and his more visible companion, Richard Straker. Meanwhile, residents of the sleepy town find themselves shunning the light and inexplicably thirsting for human blood. 

A modern retelling of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, King reverses the legendary text’s exploration of Victorian technology with characters so convinced of their rationality that they reject the growing vampire threat until the moment it bites them on the neck. Several sequences remain among the most frightening of King’s vast catalogue, but ‘Salem’s Lot is at its best when following the residents of the secretive town. One mesmerizing chapter begins with farmhands working in the pre-dawn hours before circling through a series of scandalous vignettes featuring a cantankerous bus driver, an elementary school bully, a corrupt real estate mogul, and an unfaithful housewife. The chapter ends when two young brothers are stalked through the darkening woods, kicking the vampiric horror into overdrive.

In some ways, ‘Salem’s Lot encapsulates the best of King’s distinctive style. Ben Mears serves as the first writer protagonist, while folksy side characters juxtapose fantasy elements with the grounded reality of everyday life. Neighboring the infamous Chamberlain — the town nearly destroyed by Carrie White — ‘Salem’s Lot also begins a literary connected universe still rippling through pop culture more than five decades later. 

Vintage Books’ rerelease of the novel that inspired multiple adaptations comes with an introduction by horror author Joe Hill.

The Shining (1977)

Not only King’s first hardcover bestseller, The Shining also introduces readers to his signature brand of storytelling through unflinching self-examination. The terrifying tale follows Jack Torrance, a failed teacher and fledgling playwright struggling to maintain his sobriety. Hoping to get his life back on track, Jack accepts a job as the winter caretaker at a luxury hotel set high in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. Joining him in this eerie assignment is his watchful wife, Wendy, and son Danny, a little boy gifted with immense telepathic powers. But solitude begins to wear on the fracturing family as the spirits who wander the empty halls want to claim the child’s talents for themselves. 

On the surface, The Shining is a nerve-shattering tale of a haunted hotel filled with vengeful ghosts. But beneath this horrific exterior is an intimate story of addiction-fueled domestic violence and a man consumed by the worst parts of himself. Written several years before the author entered recovery, King has described Jack as a vessel for exploring his own relationship with alcohol and the pressures of early parenthood.

Four decades later, he would write Doctor Sleep, a sequel following an adult Danny Torrance struggling to make peace with his father’s legacy that would also be adapted into a feature film.

Night Shift (1978)

King’s first collection of short stories is a thrilling showcase for the author’s unparalleled creativity. Lean, mean, and often grisly, these twenty tales pack a powerful punch while spanning a variety of subgenres and subjects. “The Mangler” features an industrial steam ironer accidentally possessed by an unlikely demon, while “Sometimes They Come Back” follows a traumatized high school teacher who must battle disruptive students from beyond the grave. “The Lawnmower Man” is an Arthur Machen-inspired curio blending folk horror with the tedium of suburbia, while “Graveyard Shift” sees a factory worker devoured by hordes of mutant rats. 

In a nightmarish return to his tortured town, King bookends the collection with “Jerusalem’s Lot” and “One for the Road,” wildly different short stories which serve as prequel and coda, respectively, to ‘Salem’s Lot. Though many entries see King gleefully lean into the uncanny and gross — like “Gray Matter” in which a father is consumed by moldy beer — others are more poignant. “The Last Rung on the Ladder” follows a brother forced to reckon with his wayward sister’s legacy, while “The Woman in the Room” sees King explore the experience of watching his mother slowly pass away. 

With most entries clocking in under twenty pages, Night Shift is surprisingly cinematic and has spawned a staggering number of adaptations.

To date, thirteen feature films and TV series have risen from the collection’s pages, not including ten sequels to Fritz Kiersch’s campy classic Children of the Corn. With Rob Savage’s The Boogeyman — inspired by Night Shift’s sixth short story — terrifying audiences in 2023, this curious collection continues to fuel the horror genre with new iterations of unimaginable fear.

The Stand (1978)

The same year Night Shift became a national bestseller, King published The Stand, a sprawling apocalyptic fantasy inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This harrowing story opens with a malfunctioning gate and a frightened security guard fleeing a chemical weapons research facility just minutes after a disastrous breach. Weeks later, the Superflu or “Captain Trips” has spread across the United States, decimating the population as the army frantically tries to maintain control. 

King shows the collapse of society through a handful of disparate characters who somehow prove immune to the virus and find themselves left behind in a country strewn with rotting corpses. As each struggles to pick up the pieces, some are drawn to an old woman playing guitar on a humble porch, while others dream of a Dark Man wandering deserted roads throughout the night. After a brutal summer, these two factions find themselves in a desperate battle between good and evil where the prize is the very soul of humanity. 

At a whopping 1,152 pages, King’s longest work to date was originally released in 1978 with dramatic edits removing around 400 pages of colorful prose. Vintage Books’ rerelease features the “Complete and Uncut” version of King’s epic novel, originally restored in 1990. Among other exciting sequences, this expanded tome features the Dark Man lurking within a massive tornado and a beer-swilling miscreant known as the Kid who pays an unthinkable price for his treachery.

The Stand is now considered a masterpiece and one of America’s best modern novels thanks to King’s skillfully balanced characters who contemplate the awful price of war and our collective ability to better ourselves. A poignant conclusion asks the reader, if given a clean slate to start again, would we find the courage to stand for what’s right or wind up remaking the same mistakes? 

Five decades after they first hit bookshelves, King’s first five novels continue to unnerve readers with stories that still feel frighteningly familiar. The Stand proved eerily prophetic during the 2020 pandemic, inspiring The End of the World As We Know It, a collection of in-world stories contributed by  Paul Tremblay, Tananarive Due, and more of the genre’s most popular writers.

Tobe Hooper’s 1979 adaptation of ‘Salem’s Lot just received a stunning new 4K rerelease while Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterpiece The Shining continues to shape the look of modern horror, prominently referenced in blockbusters like Ready Player One and Coralie Fargeat’s awards darling The Substance. And no one goes to prom without thinking of a wide-eyed Carrie White doused in blood on the high school stage. Mike Flanagan’s upcoming miniseries adaptation promises to modernize Carrie’s brutal themes, bringing this disturbing tale of bullying into the digital age.

There’s never been a better time to pick up a copy of Vintage King and join the vast community of Constant Readers.  

The post Vintage Stephen King Collection Captures Enduring Legacy of Horror Master’s First Five Novels appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.

It’s available in the June issue of The Atlantic and can be read online with a subscription or a 30-day free trial.

The 6,000-word short story sees King trading in his signature New England setting for coastal Florida to explore a family’s dark secret.

King will next publish Other Worlds Than These on October 6 — but if Dinah’s Hat is any indication, a new short story collection could follow.

Other Worlds Than These is the final entry in the horror fantasy trilogy that King created with Peter Straub, following 1984’s The Talisman and 2001’s Black House.

King penned the 624-page novel based on a concept by Straub, who passed away in 2022. The book also wraps up the fate of the worlds from King’s Dark Tower series.

It follows Jack Sawyer, who must stop a rampaging gang of infected teenagers from America-side, and the forces of the mysterious Gullet at the edge of Mid-World, before it destroys our world and all worlds.

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