Shining examples: The 15 best Stephen King movies and miniseries, ranked
From Carrie to Creepshow, there are some scary good recommendations on our list of King's finest TV and movie adaptations
Film Features Stephen King
You don’t receive the nickname “The Master of Horror” by being crap at your job. Since his first novel was published in 1974 (that would be Carrie), Stephen King has maintained his standing as a master of the form while also becoming one of the world’s most prolific authors, able to finish an entire novel in as little as a week. And when you write 65 novels (Number 66 will be released in September) and publish about 200 short stories, filmmakers have a haunted house-load of material to choose from to adapt into movies and miniseries.
The words “Based on the Stephen King novel” still means something to audiences—he’s like walking, talking IP!—and it should, since many of his stories are some of horror’s greatest. The likes of It, ’Salem’s Lot and Misery have all become classics on the bookshelves and have subsequently inspired classic film and TV adaptations. With another Stephen King flick—an adaptation of his 1973 short story The Boogeyman—now in theaters, it’s an ideal time to remind ourselves of the best films and miniseries that started life as a written work from Stephen King. Your best-loved King-inspired jam may not have made our ranking but if you wait about a week, there’ll probably be another two or three Stephen King adaptations that could inspire us to make a whole new list. And in case you’re curious, we’ve also put together of the 15 worst Stephen King adaptations, so be sure to click over there when you’re finished with this countdown.
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“What happened to Buzzsaw?”- Arnold “He had to split”. The Running Man is nothing but Arnold one liners, and it’s awesome.
“I’ll be back!”“Only in a rerun.”That catchphrase was just starting to gain ground and he already punctured it with that great exchange. Man I love this movie.
It was perfectly cast with Richard Dawson being the game show host. He played a great slimy villain. It is eminently rewatchable.
The man basically invented kiss rape.
People that worked on Family Feud said his portrayal in that movie was pretty accurate to real life in terms of treatment of underlings.
“What, did steroids make ya DEAF!?”
And that insult comes back to bite him in the ass when the guard says that back to him.
“Where did you hide that?”
“It’s none of your business”
I recently re-read the book to see if it was as nihilistic as I remembered. It is. Which is what made the movie such a let-down. I doubt they would have used that ending even pre-9/11, and possibly had him survive, but the wide-open nature of the game is just so much better than the weird sequence of setpieces arranged for contestants in the movie.
The biggest problem is that the Hunger Games exists and that keeps a real Running Man from happening.
Now… the Long Walk… I can’t believe that hasn’t happened already. It would be dirt cheap to film. Problem is, you wouldn’t be able to get away with that ending.Today, Ray would finish the walk, chug a Gatorade and lead the revolution.
A couple of these are genuinely awful, so I have to wonder why you’d pick them over the genuinely good ‘Dead Zone’ movie.
The Green Mile especially. God dammit I hate that absolute turd of a movie. It is not good, and people need to stop acting like it’s anything but blatant (and failed) pandering for Academy Awards.
The Dead Zone is one of David Cronenberg’s best movies, perhaps the greatest ever horror director (though Carpenter is my favorite, wish he had adapted more King stuff)
Or Pet Sematary (OG, obviously). Creepshow was fun in its own way but lord is it exhibit A why King should never appear in anything more than a cameo (e.g. Maximum Overdrive, where an ATM calls him an asshole).
My Pet Semetary story. I was in high school and saw that as a third wheel with my best friend and his girlfriend. She made him leave when Gage turned into monster.
I decided to stay, both because I didn’t want to be part of whatever epic fight they were going to have over him suggesting the movie and I figured I’d stick it out.
I still have never been more terrified at a movie. Not over the little boy, but over that sister with the spinal disease.
I was 16 and slept with the light on. Not a night light. Not a bed lamp. A fucking full on overhead light.
Speaking of Pet Semetary. Is there a parallel universe where Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby got Alec Baldwin and Michelle Pfeiffer’s careers?
Pet Sematary should’ve been on this list, and Fred Gwynne should’ve been nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.
It got its own Ramones song FFS!
Some people try to use an ATM…and get called an asshole.
So agree that the Dead Zone is one of the best movies based on a King source and a great Cronenberg movie. I have some problem with how the film is structured, I would like to have seen more continuity and connection between the stories, but a good score by Michael Kamen.
Agreed. Solid adaptation that remains faithful to its source and still has the imprint of Cronenberg’s style all over it, and a genuinely heartbreaking performance from Christopher Walken.
Plus it gave us this brilliance:
Creepshow is fine, but I’d drop it off of this list to make room for the underappreciated Apt Pupil. For an author known for his horror, it’s telling that most of the best adaptations have been his non-horror work. Apt Pupil isn’t as good as Stand By Me or The Shawshank Redemption, but it’s close.
Dolores Claiborne is super underrated, just for how it takes an utterly unfilmable story and completely changes the focus so that the material can work as a movie, even adding a new major character that gives Christopher Plummer one of his best parts ever.
I just noticed this movie didn’t make the list. Gets my vote for the best King adaptation of the 90s (yes, I think its better than Misery). David Strathairn plays one of the all-time great film villains.
Star for mentioning Strathairn. He and William Fichtner are two of my favorite “Oh, it’s THAT guy!” actors.
Speaking of someone who was formerly a “Oh, its THAT guy!” actor, even John C. Reilly shows up in this film.
I’ve been rooting for Fichtner ever since his As the World Turns days.
It’s certainly better than several on this list. I put it alongside Gerald’s Game in terms of King novels that I thought could not be complellingly adapated.
It’s my favorite of his novels but not my favorite movie. The courtroom scenes drag it down, though I get that they’re necessary to give the title character someone to tell her story (instead of the reader).
#forevergreyed
Using a hyper-talented child cast—that included River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’ConnellJesus Christ there are four main characters and you forgot to name the most prominent and probably currently well-known of them.The Shining is our number one pick for best Stephen King horror adaptationOK, the list isn’t “best Stephen King horror adaptation,” it’s “Best 15 Stephen King movies and miniseries.” The Shining is a great movie, yes, but it’s a terrible adaptation of the book, FOR THE REASONS YOU DESCRIBE.
Also it’s not quite as good as The Shawshank Redemption.
AND you forgot to put Maximum Overdrive anywhere on this list.
“OK, the list isn’t “best Stephen King horror adaptation,” it’s “Best 15 Stephen King movies and miniseries.””
And The Shining is, head and shoulders, above all other Stephen King movies and miniseries.
So…what’s your fucking problem?
MO is great fun but man did I want to kill Yeardley Smith myself.
There are few greater lines in cinema than, “Curtis? Are you dead?”
Super.
No question that Kubrick used The Shining to very different creative purposes, but I don’t know that total fidelity to the source material or even King’s stamp of approval are the most important criteria here. The movie and the novel are definitely different beasts, but Kubrick clearly paid more attention than a lot of filmmakers to what was on the page of the source material, even when he didn’t agree with it. It’s a great movie and clearly owes its existence to King and the novel. The Shining miniseries was faithful and a far, far lesser work (although to be fair, it might be unreasonable to argue its faithfulness was why it failed.)
I don’t think he forgot, I think it was his way of throwing shade at Wil Wheaton. But I mean come on, he’s at least as talented as Corey Feldman of all people. I’m also pretty sure he played Wesley Crusher exactly as Roddenberry wanted him to, it was just dumb to have a kid on the bridge of a starship.
No “Dolores Claiborne”, no “Dead Zone”; no interest.
“made said man a nut job from the get-go.”
I absolutely love that Stephen King has a decades-long hatred of this movie and literally the only coherent complaint he can make is about his inability to get past the casting of the lead.
You know what’s great about Flanagan’s adaptations of Gerald’s Game & Doctor Sleep? They’re movies rather than miniseries.1922 is ranked way too high. It doesn’t hold a candle to The Mist, despite both starring Thomas Jane.
I don’t know that that’s great.
Well, you got some things right, but…
1) Wil Wheaton exists, by the way.
2) The Running Man is great fun, but damn, that source material is still ripe for picking.
3) One thing that gets forgotten about that original It miniseries is just how spooky the adult/kid casting was. I did not know Brandis before this, but it was like they made a Richard Thomas clone and waited until he was 10.
4) Where exactly the fuck is The Dead Zone in this?
Just because Wesley was an annoying character doesn’t mean Wil Wheaton isn’t talented
These folks are too young to remember the Wesley hate. They are just stupid and forgot Wheaton.
Taken in context, Wesley was nowhere near as annoying as people treated him. Everyone on that show was annoying in the early seasons.
Would love a more faithful adaptation of The Running Man. Liked the movie, but the book is truly great. The ending is problematic, but that could be changed with little effect. I know it’s been 22 years, but crashing a plane into a building still feels too soon.
It’s odd that The Running Man and Animorphs both did a 9/11 years before that was a thing.
The Lone Gunmen even picked the World Trade Centre in March 2011.Osama Bin Laden was not an original thinker, is what I’m saying.
Damnit, I meant 2001.
What’s problematic about the ending?
Thank you for the Wil Wheaton…
The casting in the miniseries is amazing. I didn’t dislike the casting of the films but some of the performances felt really muted and they just can’t hold a candle to the mini. And yeah, the matching of kid and adult actors was crazy. Brandis and Thomas? Absolutely. Same with Green and Anderson as Richie. Dennis Christopher and Adam Faraizl as Eddie. I’m not totally sold on Perkins growing up to be O’Toole as Bev and I think the movies did that casting better BUT it’s not inconceivable. And the less said about Skaarsgard’s Pennywise compared to Curry’s the better.(To be fair, most of the critiques I have of the film are not the fault of the performers. It’s mostly the writing, which I fucking HATE, and the direction, which I find bland.)
I didn’t even know until your comment The Running Man was a Stephen King book.
So does like….75% of Hollywood owe King?
Well, a good chunk of the YA market does.
The Running Man could be WAY more terrifying in the right kind of straight adaptation.
Still shocked that nobody’s done The Long Walk yet. It would cost pennies to make and probably inspire an unironic reality show.
YUP!
I did some stage work from high school through early adulthood. I *always* wanted to play Stebbins.
It was in development pre-COVID but I haven’t heard anything since; mighta got shelved.
4) Yeah, where is The Dead Zone with Christopher Walken? It is a great movie… in my oh so humble opinion. It’s always been my favorite King adaptation. It’s a heart-breaking story.
Wil Wheaton exists, by the way.Should he though? I actually find him more annoying now than then.
Arnold is a lot of fun in The Running Man, but I have to give some love to Richard Dawson as Killian, great villainous performance.
The miniseries of The Stand is iconic, maybe better than the book because it is less bloated. Gary Sinise and Molly Ringwald both really good
Absolutely. Should have been around 10.
My favorite non-Parker Lewis performance from Corin Nemec.
Come on, he was very forgettable in that season on Stargate he replaced Michael Shanks.
This is your worst take ever, Evil Lincoln.
Hey I could have argued for including the Rose Red miniseries with Melanie Lynskey!
I loved the Rose Red miniseries. I’m a sucker for haunted house stories, and I especially love a maximalist, nonsensical haunted house. But I can’t get behind the Stand miniseries. The first half is solid, but the second half runs into some serious problems with Jamie Sheridan’s performance and especially his terrible demon makeup (also, network S&P really watered down the subplots with Harold and Nadine).
I really enjoyed the Rose Red miniseries, though objectively it is a mess, but likewise the haunted house subgenre is a favorite of mine
Matt Frewer as Trashcan Man acting like the third bad-guy in a Mad Max movie. Great cast.
Agree, though I think Jamey Sheridan (an actor whose work I normally like) is a little off as Flagg. Loved Miguel Ferrer’s Lloyd.
It’s not bad, but it really falls apart at the end (insert joke about King novels here)
No redemption? You’re kidding. RED is the one redeemed. The whole movie is about Red. He is redeemed by Andy’s spirit of hope. For goodness’ sake, it’s right there in the word: REDemption.
Honest to God, I think they just used the Rotten Tomato scores and moved on.
The Mist is one of my favorites. I was so into the story that I bought the 1980’s text adventure game, only to be stumped when getting to Project Arrow.The movie is fantastic, with a sucker punch ending.
I was a kid in the 80s, my list. Love all these and can rewatch infinetly 1 Carrie2 Creepshow3 Pet Semetary4 Running Man
It’s bad enough that The Shining is on this list at all, but for it to be #1? “our number one pick for best Stephen King horror adaptation” – this is a joke, right?I used to say that TS was a great film if you hadn’t read the book first, and that it was only disappointing if you had read the book first. But over the years I’ve realized that it’s disappointing both ways.Nicholson is horribly miscast. Even if you hadn’t just seen him in Cuckoo’s Nest, he plays Jack Torrence as someone who is already crazy at the start of the film. The whole point of the character is his slow descent into madness, but Nicholson looks like he’s already there.Jack’s alcoholism is a key plot point of the book but it’s barely mentioned in the film. Nicholson never shows any signs that he’s playing a recovering alcoholic.Duvall is also horribly miscast. In the book she is a strong woman who stands up to her husband many times. But in the film she is a weak doormat. Who cast this film???Nicholson and Duvall have no chemistry together. In the book Jack is struggling with his alcoholism, and Wendy is ready to leave him if he can’t get his shit together, but they are also deeply in love with each other. But I never believe that Nicholson and Duvall are a romantic couple. With just a few changes in the dialogue you could make a version of this film where they are brother and sister, or just friends, who happen to be taking care of this boy.The film introduces – and then completely ignores – the main reason Jack is hired to be the caretaker – to turn off the boiler every night, otherwise the hotel would explode. This is a key plot point in the climax of the novel, but completely ignored in the film.I could go on and on, and there are people who will say I’m wrong and the film is a classic. I just know that having read the book first, it’s a terrible adaptation of an existing novel.
100000%. It’s a very effective horror film featuring an objectively shallow performance from Jack Nicholson. And it’s a *shitty* adaptation. Great horror film, awful adaptation.
They’re not in love and Nicholson is a nut from the start and that’s the whole point. Kubrick thought that King’s depiction of an alcoholic abusive father was a whitewash and decided to show what a sociopathic abuser really was like and how a woman would react after years of marriage to him.
The book is not great. It’s as subtle as a blunt hammer to the head (the evil force IS his addiction, ya get it?!). Kubrick adapted (key word there) some of the themes to create a movie that was far more interesting and compelling than that book could have ever been. You fault the film for not following the plot of the book, but how is that the standard? For an adaptation to be “good” it has to mirror the book? Remember how fucking shite the tv movie was? That hit all of your favorite plot points … and it sucked.
Co-signed. The book wears out its welcome early on. The movie does not.
I love the novel, but I wouldn’t call it great art. Great storytelling, not great art. Kubrick’s film, however, I think qualifies as great art.
Kubrick deliberately subverts a lot of King’s novel. Most of all he withholds the answers that King was interested in supplying. Kubrick doesn’t want to give the audience consolation. King complained that Jack has no character arc in the film, but that absolutely seems to be part of Kubrick’s point. Rather than a deeply flawed good guy exploited by external forces, the movie’s Jack and the Overlook are already reflections of one another.
Still and all, though, I actually think Kubrick respected a lot more of King’s story than most people give him credit for.
Just so I’m clear on your post:The novel is great narrative but not great art. The film, on the other hand, is great art. As proof of that statement, Kubrick withholds information. Is that a marker of great narrative art? Kubrick withholds comfort. Is that a marker of great narrative art? The film’s antagonist has no depth because Kubrick wanted him to have no depth. Is that a marker of great narrative art?I just want to understand your standards. (And maybe snark a bit. That too.)
Yeah, I clocked the snark.
I think the difference is ambiguity. It may be a kind of simplistic drawing of a line in the sand, but for me great entertainment tends to ask and answer questions, but great art asks open-ended questions in a meaningful way.
King wants to tell you why things are happening and what they mean—which is not a criticism, by the way. That’s his intent. For a horror story about a family tragedy, there is actually a lot of comfort and reassurance in the novel. Good prevails, Jack achieves a kind of redemption.
Kubrick had a much darker view of human nature and the origins of violence. I don’t think he thought there were any easy answers and that it was better to put the audience in the position of having to answer hard questions. I think it’s fair to say that Kubrick’s characters tend not to have arcs by design. They don’t transform for the better because a) Kubrick didn’t think real humans generally did, probably and b) that’s not the kind of story he was interested in telling. Not having a character arc is not the same as not having depth. (For that matter, movie Jack does have a partial arc. The stuff that’s brewing just beneath the surface from the beginning gets a chance to come out.)
Not suggesting that merely withholding information from the audience makes great art. There are plenty of cases of not providing answers that I think is just evasion or not knowing what you want to say. It’s just as much about the information you don’t withhold.
I just think Kubrick thought it would be much more rattling for the audience to have to provide their own answers.
I largely agree with your assessment of the film. But I see that as Kubrick making choices that differ from King’s choices. And different is not inherently better in this instance, if ever. And I very much disagree with your assessment of great art, though that’s a fairly subjective matter. Narrative art, in my view, has one and only one responsibility and standard: Tell a story. To that end, ambiguity or “making you think” are secondary concerns. I’m not against them, I just don’t think they’re important. I tend to get snarky, not infrequently aggravated and even rude, at people who place a higher value on those secondary concerns. Hell, even equal value. The only group I tend to give a pass on this is visualists. It IS a visual medium, fair enough. (Although even there I tend to snark about Mothlight or Kenneth Anger or whatever experimental person I feel like throwing out.)
As long as you’re making narrative art, a story that works on a purely literal level is pretty much a prerequisite. I’m not saying anything that precludes that. Tell a good story, yes. And I believe that great storytelling, whether you just want to entertain your audience or have ambitions to say something beyond the literal, is a kind of magic either way.
My definition of art in this case would be a work where there are multiple layers of meaning that co-exist beyond the text. Something that uses the story to reach for some kind of broader thematic resonance.
Don’t get me wrong—Stephen King clearly had themes he was exploring, but I think he was interested in mostly telling you what he thought about those themes. Which is perfectly fine, that was his intention and he did it well.
Kubrick definitely used King’s story to a different end. He moved into the Overlook because he thought it had good bones and immediately started remodeling. He saw it as a way into exploring the themes that preoccupied him. Some people might feel that’s doing King dirty, but I don’t particularly because I feel it worked so well.
The novel and the movie, despite sharing a considerable amount of DNA, are different animals by intent and design. I’m a big fan of both for different reasons. I’d agree that narrative art, by definition, is tasked with delivering a story that works well purely on its own terms, but I think there are plenty of uses to storytelling than simply the text.
You’re right that the book is very unsubtle. Everything else in this waste of a post? Nah. The problem with the TV movie had nothing to do with the story and everything to do with some sloppy direction.But I get the sense from your first paragraph that you’re a Kubrick stan(ley). That’s cool. Maybe he could have created a post that was far more interesting and compelling than your diatribe could have ever been.
I’m both a Kubrick stan and a King stan, so I’ve had a complicated relationship with this movie over the years. I’ve ultimately figured out that I don’t like this movie not because it’s not a straight adaptation of the book, but because it lacks an essential element of the book—I don’t give a shit about any of the characters in the movie. Maybe it’s easier to become attached to characters in written form, since you have access to their deep inner lives, but the film just seems so cold (no pun intended). I feel like a voyeur passively watching what happens with no investment in whether these people live or die.
I’ve been re-visiting a bunch of King novels on audio book, and The Shining does not hold up as well I thought. King obviously loves Halloran, but his journey from FL to CO in the book is so drawn out it bogs down the entire 3rd act.
Nothing you said here is objectively wrong…but that doesn’t make The Shining a bad movie. It’s an incredible movie, but it was a horrible adaptation of the book. Kubrick took the barebones plot – Dad, Mom, and Son with psychic superpowers are stuck in a haunted hotel alone for the winter – and made a story that was incredibly different, but still masterfully told. I will also not stand for the Shelley Duvall slander – she went through absolute hell making that movie. Her performance is exactly what Kubrick wanted it to be, and it’s wonderful it its own strange, screechy way.
Well fucking said
I will also support Duvall. But Jack is just bad. It’s not just that the adaptation of the character sucks, it’s Jack being movie crazy. It’s a *fun* performance but there’s no range at all.
You aren’t wrong…but that also doesn’t make it any less enjoyable (at least for me). In a movie where the director wanted that performance from Shelley Duvall (which, as I said, I will defend forever), it’s not too surprising that Kubrick’s vision included an over-the-top psychopath performance from Nicholson, as well. I’d love to know if Nicholson and Duvall had different approaches in mind that were dismissed in favor of what we see on screen – would that movie be better, or is the lack of any sort of nuanced acting part of what makes The Shining so great?
As you’ve probably figured out, The Shining is one of my favorite movies, so perhaps my take is biased. I think the unhinged, “technically not good” performances enhance the sense of discomfort you feel as a viewer. I completely understand why people feel like it’s bad, but I also feel like that’s kind of the point.
Agreed.
The Shining is unquestionably the best film ever based on King’s works. The misalignment between the book and the movie could be because the movie was made by the better artist….and best director to ever handle anything of King’s.
This criticism is pretty common, but it’s all just different versions of “the movie isn’t a straight adaptation.” The movie never implies that Jack is a decent guy in recovery, it presents him as a terrible, abusive guy basically from the beginning. Nicholson’s performance suits that character, and Duval’s performance suits the frightened, chronically abused character she plays. The tension of the novel is between Jack’s good and evil sides, and that tension is never present in the movie. There are plenty of problems with the movie, but as a work of adaptation it basically takes a different perspective on the story. King saw it as a redemption story, and Kubrick saw it as a story about a family horrifically unraveling. The idea that an adaptation is better the closer it hews to the source doesn’t make any sense – why have a second version of the same thing?
But it doesn’t make any MORE sense to ignore the thematic heart of the story – Why adapt the book in the first place? I’m sure Stanley could have found another haunted house screenplay to film or novel to adapt. He chose The Shining. I’m all for making necessary changes in adaptation. That’s why it’s an *adaptation*. But I don’t understand why he made the changes he made *except* to say that it was “his” movie instead of King’s. I don’t think much of xaa922’s comments above but they’re right that the novel is not at all subtle. That being the case, why adapt it if you aren’t going to serve the very unsubtle story?
The answer of course is it doesn’t matter. The work exists by itself. I don’t think any less of Blade Runner or The Neverending Story because I’ve read their source material (and Starship Troopers frankly improves on its.)Or to paraphrase another horror classic- Read Marcus Aurelius. With each thing consider what it is in itself.
To clarify, I think The Shining is a horror classic deserving of its status.But it’s also an entirely shit adaptation.Those two statements are not mutually exclusive.
Based on what’s in the movie, I think it’s probably because the plot, setting, and setpieces translate well to the screen. (There’s also an old story that Kubrick wanted to adapt a contemporary novel, and The Shining was the only one in his office that grabbed his attention.) The two versions of the story complement each other.That said, I personally think King’s version of the story is the weaker one precisely because depicting this angry, selfish, abusive man as “complicated” is invoking the ugliest version of American masculinity. I find the movie far less dated than the book because it doesn’t soft-pedal Jack’s abusiveness (when he and Wendy attempt to do so, it’s part of the terror). I also find it aggravating that King dismissed the movie’s version of Wendy as anti-feminist, in part because it ignores how well Shelley Duval plays a woman at the very end of her rope and in part because King was never afraid to graphically depict a woman giving her abusive husband a mind-blowing orgasm.
But that angry, selfish, abusive man IS also a loving father and husband. He IS the victim of the disease of alcoholism. I’m sorry, are characters not meant to be complicated? We call that sort of thing “internal conflict” in the narrative biz. Did you even read the novel? It’s not like King FAILS to critique that very same ugly masculinity. You say that the novel “soft-pedal”s Jack’s abusiveness. Again, did you read the novel? It does not shy away from the darkness in Jack’s nature.How is the novel’s story “weaker”? You might not like the depiction of Jack’s character or YOUR interpretation of King’s… hell, I dunno, giving Jack more depth than a moustache-twirling villain?… but I fail to see how that’s a narrative “weakness”.
I don’t think Jack is a compelling character, and I find King’s characterization of him bogged down by cliches and sentimentality. I prefer the way Kubrick approaches the story, which is to treat Jack as the antagonist. It’s fine if you prefer the characterization in the novel, but I prefer the characterization in the movie. More broadly, I think that King’s novels from the 70s show their age as part of a midcentury Mailer/Updike tradition that romanticizes men’s unpleasant behavior toward their families. He doesn’t necessarily find Jack’s behavior (or Larry Underwood in the Stand, to take another example) admirable, but he also doesn’t see it as boring.
It’s one of the first examples of late-career quarter-ass Nicholson who can’t be assed to do anything other than dial the volume of “weird smarmy creep” up or down. Muttering smarmy creep to shouting smarmy creep, that’s the whole range. Duvall puts him on her back and carries him through the back half of the movie, like a pro wrestler gently guiding Jay Leno’s hand to his own throat and bodyslamming himself.That said, it’s still an okay movie thanks partly to her efforts and partly to Kubrick’s work with the camera and the edit room. But Nicholson’s clownshoes performance definitely keeps it out of the top ten here.
Agreed. Honestly, I like the Doctor Sleep film more than The Shining adaptation.
Didn’t read the reasons why—I don’t do slideshows—but my immediate reaction was, “The fucking Shining, really?”Because nothing happens for any reason in the movie, what does happen is arbitrary. So why should I care?
#forevergrey
Oooh, this is a real spicy bad take.
Using a hyper-talented child cast—that included River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’ConnellI will not stand for this Wil Wheaton erasure!
There is no Wil Wheaton! There never was! I want you to stop this nonsense about a Wil Wheaton at once.Also, G. Gavin Gunhold is dead.
THERE. ARE. FOUR. WIL WHEATONS!
The It miniseries is lightyears better than the bullshit film duology. It’s a better adaptation (the movie makes so many stupid, unnecessary changes), Pennywise is vastly superior (Skaarsgard is impressive in his physicality but he’s a creep from the jump and there’s NO fucking way a little kid would ever get near him), the actors are far closer to their book counterparts… It’s not even close. I appreciate that the miniseries is even ON this list since people have a recency bias but the first film doesn’t even belong here. The Dead Zone is way better. Needful Things is more fun. The Stand miniseries is a better adaptation. The Green Mile is better than Mushyshitty’s It. Golden Years is better. Maximum Overdrive. Children of the goddam Corn.I don’t like the recent movies, if that isn’t clear.
You really have to squint to see anything worth watching in Children of the Corn. It’s inert. Maximum Overdrive at least has the benefit of being stupid. For my money the Dead Zone is overrated and nowhere near as entertaining as Cat’s Eye. With the adaptations of It, who know? I don’t think there’s an adaptation that can really capture the source material, and the new ones worked pretty well as horror comedies. The ending of Volume 2 has maybe the worst possible combination of tropes (the ending of Nightmare on Elm Street barely works on its own, let alone as the cap to a 40 minute CGI chase scene). The TV movie has lots and lots of limitations, but the scenes that work are really well executed.
I enjoy Cat’s Eye a lot *but* I don’t think the disparate segments hang together all that well as a whole. But it’s a heck of a lot of fun! And to be fair I think that’s an issue with anthology movies generally. Rare is the anthology film that 100% fits together. (Discounting the ones that aren’t meant to like ABCs of Death.)I tend to forgive the weaknesses in the mini because they ARE a result of the format limitations rather than choices some asshole who has no sense of the source material made.I also hate Mushyshitty’s Mama FWIW.
You mention recency bias but clearly are blind to your own massive nostalgia bias. None of those movies you’ve listed are objectively good. “Cheesy” is the most generous I can be about them.The miniseries is bloated, corny, and not even the tiniest bit scary (unless you were a child when you first watched it, I’d imagine). I thought the movie duo was uneven but Skaarsgard made a fucking stupid villain into something actually scary.
You should get change on those Two Sense since you’ve only used about one sixteenth. I obviously brought up some of the cheese to make a point about how much I hate the duology. Although The Dead Zone IS “objectively good”. It’s well made, well acted, well written. I’m sorry, maybe because it was made before whatever year you were in diapers you think it’s “cheesy”.The miniseries is “bloated”? It’s a fucking 1000 page book! If anything the miniseries is anemic! And that’s doubly hilarious since the two theatrical releases together run longer than the miniseries. But sure, the miniseries is “bloated”. And kudos on figuring out the prime audience for the book and the miniseries. Sure, adults read it. But so did a shitload of kids in middle school and high school. For every adult who read It I guarantee there was a kid sneaking it under the covers at night.You want to talk about “a stupid fucking villain”? How about the creepy looking clown played by Skaarsgard, who NEVER actually looks like a children’s entertainer? Oh, and what a brilliant idea to move up the timeline of the films to the 80s, when “scary clowns” was *already a fucking horror trope*. You know why the miniseries stuck to the novel timeline? Because a clown could actually prey on kids in the 60s. The creature only appears as a clown as part of its predation. Skaarsgard’s Pennywise makes no sense. He exists ENTIRELY as a cheap, shitty horror movie “spooky clown” trope. Art the Clown is a more effective horror movie clown and Terrifier is hot garbage. (I still haven’t seen the second one, maybe it redeems that pile of stupid. Amazing FX work but one of the shittiest “stories” I’ve ever seen on film.)As long as the movies were gonna fuck with the novel as much as they did, it would have made waaaay more sense to just update Pennywise to something more contemporary for 80s kids. Pennywise should’ve been a knockoff Bart Simpson.
A strong Yes to Needful Things. Stephen King, Ed Harris and Max Von Sydow make for a potent cocktail.
Children of the Corn is a weird case where it feels like they expanded the short story to feature length by just padding everything out. (I mean by taking out the couple’s toxic dying relationship they made it so even less was happening, but you get the idea.) The kids shouting cult doctrine at each other is briefly amusing but it’s not enough to keep the majority of it from being REALLY dull.
Yeah, and I think several of the sequels tried to overcome the dullness of the original with B-movie weirdness or crappiness and it just doesn’t work as anything but Bad Movie Night fodder.
Everyone always forgets Storm of the Century. Not an adaptation, true, since King just wrote the screenplay, not based on a novel. Still, best made for TV King thing ever.
I watched SotC with my family during a snowstorm that was so bad we had a couple of days in a row off. I really enjoyed it (even though the end made me sad), but I am not sure how much of that is atmosphere/timing. I would love to revisit it to see how it holds up.
I’ve been wanting to watch that. Where can it be streamed?
Does The Shinning from Treehouse of Horror V count? If so where does it fit on the list?
DO YOU WANT TO GET SUED?!?
It must fit somewhere in this disturbing universe!
How in the hell do you leave off The Dead Zone? Hell, the
cast alone deserves inclusion. Walken is brilliant, as is Brooke Adams.
Throw in Tom Skerrit, Herbert Lom (in an effective cameo of sorts), and,
of course, Martin Sheen. The music is superb, as is the moody
cinematography. I mean, what the hell else do you want in a movie? Even
the set designs are fantastic.
Also, I never bought the
ending of The Mist. Based on the, what, 24 hours in “the mist” you give
up all hope of surviving? Yeah, the beast is huge…but it completely
ignores them. Good movie but the ending is a cheat to freak folks out.
When
I saw The Shining with my mom, she was so pissed that they changed the
ending that she started shouting at the screen…which she tended to do
when she disapproved of a movie. LOL
Brooke Adams, an underrated “Scream Queen,” with Dead Zone, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Shock Waves (the best Nazi zombie movie)
From Tasha Robinson’s Book vs Film on The Mist (https://www.avclub.com/book-vs-film-the-mist-1798213030)Which is why the ending of Darabont’s version of The Mist didn’t really work for me. The problem isn’t that it tosses ambiguity out the window, or that it’s so unremittingly bleak that it’s almost comically manipulative. It’s that the timing seems off. After they run out of gas, Drayton seems awful damn eager to whip out his gun. Do they wait until they’re hungry, or thirsty, or it’s dark and horrible creatures have found the car, or until someone has to pee and risk getting eaten by stepping out of the truck? Nope, it’s “Whoops, outta gas,” then kaboom, straight to the mass murder. Which is why the mist clearing 60 seconds later feels cheap to me, and why the ending made me roll my eyes more than weep copious tears.
“Nope, it’s “Whoops, outta gas,” then kaboom, straight to the mass murder.”This right here.
This was my first experience with Walken, Sheen, Cronenberg AND Brooke Adams. And also, serious Herbert Lom (my dad was a Peter Sellers fanatic, so all I knew Lom from was Pink Panther stuff)
That movie is absolutely amazing. The fact that it is left off is a war crime.
1922 is unintentionally funny as fuck. Kinda.
I’d substitute the Cronenberg adaptation of “The Dead Zone” for “The Running Man” (which has a problematic ending), the Hulu adaptation of “11-22-63″ for “Creepshow”, and somehow fit in the 1990s ABC adaptation of “The Stand” somewhere, maybe for “Christine”. Honorable mention to the TV adaptation of “The Dead Zone” also. I’d place the 1979 “Salem’s Lot” higher (the TBS remake wasn’t bad either), and rate “Misery” slightly ahead of “The Green Mile”.
What about Dolores Claiborne?
I understand that the most true adaptation may not be the best piece (hello Mick Harris, I am one of your few fans) but the Craig R Baxley miniseries of Stephen King scripts deserve more love.
Garris deserves love at least for the two seasons of Masters of Horror he produced.
Nice example for future Countdown Slideshow Evil Geniuses: make the first entry bad enough that everyone will argue about it. Frontloaded Clickbait. The Running Man isn’t even in the top 15 Arnold movies. Will not watch it again.I like that Doctor Sleep is getting a second look these days.I really like that Creepshow has been getting love lately. The five shorts balance each other really well. King can’t act – okay, agreed. But he still kinda lucked into the right tone. Verrill is such a moron that that he was always gonna die somehow due to his own fault. That you get his goofy thought process played out (“I wouldn’t pay fifteen cents for a broken meteor!”) makes you feel a little bad that you are rooting for the pro-wrestling, beer-swilling rube to die. Now? Yowza. Offensive stereotype or Offensive prescient Q hot-take? Jordy’s outerspace green funk is going to get us all in the end.Come to think of it, Left and Right Class War is all over Creepshow (1)Happy Birthday: Old money family’s Old Money Scion rises from the grave & breaks necks. Jumps scares abound.Jordy Verrill: Rural Dope unleashes Space Virus – it’s coming for YOU big city.Tide: Rich bastard kills his rich wife and her lover. (Is Danson her Tennis Instructor or something?)The Crate: 50ish white University Prof(s) instigate and cover up (for now) monster murders. Killed: Janitor, Grad Student, and “Bitchy” Wife.Creeping: Uber Rich Billionaire killed by cockroaches and tech failure.
Gerald’s Game scared the shit out of me when I read it; that’s a hard pass on any adaptation. #1 is Stand By Me for me.
“The best Stephen King adaptation is the one that Stephen King famously hates” is certainly… a take. There is zero chance that the best King adaptation is NOT Shawshank. It’s also a wild take to put Stand By Me outside the top 5.
Red is the one who gets redemption in Shawshank.
He puts the Red back in redemption, he does.
Well, yeah – Red is the protagonist of Shawshank. Andy is the Magical White Guy who comes into his life and offers him a chance of redemption.
Wait, wait…hold up. You seriously put the Tim Curry miniseries of It on this list but not The Dead Zone? I don’t know whether to laugh or weep in despair.
Swap out the Mushyshitty It movie and I agree.
Here’s my hot take: Stephen King sucks and his bloated dominance of the horror genre has stifled innovation and diversity for decades at this point. Except for maybe a handful of successful adaptations (all HEAVILY divorced from him and his source material at that), most of the things made from his work are painfully cheesy, bloated, and full of undeveloped characters and plot lines that go no where (the true King signature!).
Here’s my hot take of your hot take:Shut up and go home. You have offered nothing but the words “cheesy” and “bloated” a dozen times with nothing to actually support your invective. Hell, you use the word “bloated” twice in the same post! Here’s a soundalike for your posts: bloviated. And cool fake outrage over King’s popularity having anything to do with the lack of innovation or diversity in the horror field. I wasn’t aware that King was a fucking publisher or studio executive. I know he’s an old straight white guy so that makes him The Enemy but could you be less fucking obvious, Anarchist Cookbook? Go read Adbusters in the window of your local coffee shop so the other Ironic Moustache Kids can see your Counter-Culture cred!
Too much cheese can lead to bloating.
Dammit, Primus, I was gonna sail on that!
Nah he’s a pretty good writer. Like people point to specific story concepts and imagery from his work but what really is notable is that he is good at the actual putting-words-together bit, in particular he’s great at establishing the mundane surroundings of characters’ lives and grounding things in reality before it all goes to hell. Like by comparison try the first couple pages of anything by Dean Koontz and you realize this is harder than it looks.How would you say he’s stifled innovation or diversity? Like I’m not writing off this idea but I can’t point to a particular trend in horror literature that has prevented good works from getting published/read that’s specifically down to his work. Like it’s obviously not subject matter, the guy writes about everything from a world-ending plague to a woman handcuffed to a bed because her husband tried to get kinky.
For a half a second I thought the guy in the middle was Neil Young.
Missing The Outsider, which was one of the best miniseries to come out that year. And the first season of Castle Rock .Also, maybe this is a hot take, but Doctor Sleep is so much better than The Shining.Anyway, this is a pretty good list, and any King fan is a friend of mine.
Man, I had high hopes for Castle Rock. I liked both seasons. 2 was a bit of a mess but Caplan as Annie was *chef’s kiss*.And yeah, The Outsider is pretty great.
Love The Outsider. I keep planning on re-watching it.
Green Mile over Pet Semetary? Just me?
No Dolores Claiborne on the list? Kathy Bates’ return to Stephen King country was outstanding.
Add me to the list of people baffled by the exclusion of Cronenberg’s “The Dead Zone,” but I suppose a year from now we’ll all be back here sputtering with indignance when this clickbait list is updated to include “The Boogeyman.”
I just need to add that while these lists are subjective, and that while all of these shows are fine, OBJECTIVELY, there is no way you can leave “The Dead Zone” off of this. My day will continue just fine, it’s just a really obvious mistake.
Hey, remember the A.V. Club’s Podmass? I can’t let this slideshow pass without endorsing Lasertime’s Best of Stephen King episode.
http://www.lasertimepodcast.com/2020/10/22/the-best-of-stephen-king-laser-time-420/
1) i’m begging people to realize Doctor Sleep was A Good Movie, Actually
2) the Running Man entry sure did use a lot of words while somehow failing to mention the best thing about the movie—Richard goddamn Dawson
“except for an apostrophe before the S in Salem”Eh?Anyway, Salem’s Lot should be number one and anybody who thinks otherwise hasn’t seen it.
Mr. Mercedes
Might not count because it’s not a movie or miniseries. But yeah that was really good.
Wasn’t it a miniseries on Peacock? Or maybe it’s just a series and doesn’t count? Anyway it was a lot better than a few of the things on this list.
It was on “Audience” network, whatever that was. But was later put on Peacock. Ran for 3 seasons so I’d say it was just a regular series. Kinda surprised it went so long considering no one talked about it and it was on a weird network.
I would like to convey my (possibly irrational) dislike for The Shawshank Redemption, which I know has one of the all-time IMDB scores. I found it merely ordinary the first time I watched it — a little mawkish, but no worse than 100 other movies I saw that year — but since then I have come to dislike it with a fiery passion, at least partly because everyone seems to think it’s some sort of masterpiece. Inexplicably over-rated.
Missing:1408Dolores ClaiborneThe Dead ZonePet Sematary (1989)The Outsider (this one is especially egregious)Apt PupilDoctor Sleep
Hot Take: I love King’s dialogue, but it only works in his books.Specifically, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is a great novella, and it sounds realistic – you ‘hear’ the words the characters say and you believe that someone would say those words.And then those exact same words are spoken in The Shawshank Redemption movie and they sound utterly unbelievable. It’s Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman sounding like they’re reading poorly written cue cards.King’s dialogue doesn’t work when you actually hear it, as opposed to when you ‘hear’ it while reading his books. I loathed that movie. Really wanted to like it, but the dialogue sounds almost as ‘fake’ as in The Hudsucker Proxy, where it was SUPPOSED to sound unrealistic. Love King’s writing, hate almost all of his movie adaptations. Except Carrie.