A few years ago, my buddy Dana and I got to chatting about the made-for-tv miniseries version of The Shining — you know, the one Stephen King insisted on making because he thought Kubrick’s version was so bad. We eventually sat down and actually watched the piece of shit (I reviewed it here), and I think that was when we decided we should watch a bunch more of King’s shitty flicks. Now here we are, several years later, and we’ve seen 51 King flicks so far. I can’t believe we’ve stayed so committed to this stupid project, but I’m glad we did. Some flicks were surprisingly good, some were bad in a funny way, and most were just plain bad, but it was a lot of fun. Dang, did we eat a lot of chips along the way.
Now that we’ve reached this zenith, I feel like I should impart some wisdom upon the rest of the world. I mean, I feel like a bit of an aficionado on this absurd topic now so I’m going to rate all these flicks for you schlubs. I rated each movie on its own, then put them in order of their scores, then rearranged a few when I saw glaring errors like The Langoliers being rated below 1922 — yeah, those are both turds but at least one has a charm to it. In instances where a bunch of films had the same score, I arranged them in order of “which would I prefer to watch between these?” It’s tough to rate 51 films and put them in some kind of order but I’m pretty happy with what I’ve come up with here.
Before I forget though, I want to touch on King-isms. Dana and I noticed that King has a few bad habits with his writing, shit that he puts in most of his works. In addition to my grading and short review, I thought about adding a ‘King-ism count’ that kept track of how many King-isms appear in each film but alas, if I was going to do that I would have needed to keep tallies while watching every one of them — too late now. But hey, if anyone here decides to take up that mantle, I’d be thrilled to hear the results of your endeavour. Until then, my list of King-isms will have to suffice — these are the things that you will find in most, if not all, King flicks.
- main character is a writer
- main character is an alcoholic
- American rock n’ roll, primarily 50’s
- repeated seemingly silly taglines that he attempts to imbue with meaning (“m o o n, that spells _____”, “kissin’, kissin,’ that’s what I’ve been missin'”, etc)
- evil force turns out to be an alien
- story is set in a small town (usually Castle Rock)
- King impression of a touching Spielberg film
- every character introduces themselves with both first and last name (NO ONE DOES THIS IN REAL LIFE)
- main characters are loser kids who get bullied
Enough babbling! And without further ado!…
*****
The Big King Flick Countdown
*****
51. The Dark Tower (2017) – .5/10. Total trash. Made no sense, terrible acting, completely unmemorable. There was one tiny funny part and that was the only thing I liked about the entire film. And I’m normally a McConaughey fan, too.
50. The Shining (1997) – 1/10. No need to beat this dead horse after my merciless previous review. Rebecca Du Mornay was the only part of this movie that didn’t totally suck, and her performance was nothing to write home about.
49. Sometimes They Come Back (1991) – 1.5/10. I don’t remember this one at all. No, not true, I remember something about a train tunnel. Let me check the wikipedia article, hmmm…oh right, semi-real ghost greasers come back to haunt a fella. This was not scary, fun, or memorable in the slightest. Not even bad-good. Snore.
48. Thinner (1996) – 1.5/10. The fat suit is so cheap and shitty looking, I couldn’t get past it. That pretty much sums up the film. It stinks. Supremely shitty acting, especially by Robert John Burke. Like The Night Flier, this flick is bad enough that it’s a little bit funny, but nowhere near funny enough to waste an evening watching it. Despite being 92 minutes, it drags like crazy and feels way too long. Avoid.
47. Cat’s Eye (1985) – 2/10. This is the problem with writing these reviews now: it’s been two, maybe three years since Dana and I watched Cat’s Eye, and I remember we were bored and underwhelmed by it at the time but I don’t remember much else. I think that alone speaks volumes about it but I’d like to supply my dear readers with some more details than that. So let me check the wikipedia page…wow, none of this is ringing a bell. Quitters Inc. I vaguely remember but it was boring, I don’t remember The Ledge whatsoever, and I remember General but only because it sucked. The little goblin/troll thing was silly and not scary in the slightest. Lousy stop motion animation. I guess Cat’s Eye was less of a horror and more of a, I don’t know…PG-rated time waster? Not good.
46. The Lawnmower Man (1992) – 2/10. Wow, this one was bad. Neat concept but horrible execution. Terrible acting. The way they tried to make the main guy look like an overgrown child was insanely, stupidly cartoonish. The early 90’s computer animation was abysmal, too. The colours are so fucking bright and intense in an ugly, cheap way, like someone turned the contrast on an old tv set way up. It really looks like shit. Huh, I just read that the film actually has very little to do with the book King wrote, and King sued to have his name removed from the film. Probably a good idea, considering what a turd this one was.
45. 1922 (2017) – 2/10. Super sucked. We watched this not too long ago and I still had to consult wikipedia to refresh my memory. It was a pointlessly cruel tale. And hey man, I love cruelty far more than your average slob, and sometimes cruelty without any good reason is great. It can be especially disturbing then, like “why is this person so barbaric and inhumane?” But that is not the case here. It’s just a pointless story where bad things consistently happen to unlikeable people, and I didn’t care one way or the other what happened to anyone. Both Dana and I hated it pretty much from the start.
44. The Stand (1994) – 2/10. Yup, Dana and I watched all 6 hrs of this piece of shit. Miserable acting throughout, lots of boring and pointless subplots and tangents, and even when I saw the ending as a 14 yr old kid, I remember thinking, “the hand of god is a term that isn’t meant to be used literally,” and yet here it is. How asininely stupid.
43. Tales From the Darkside: The Movie (1990) – 2.5/10. This one that aged poorly. I loved it as a kid but now, nope. The wraparound story or whatever you call it is boring, Debbie Harry is lousy, the mummy story is boring, and the evil cat story is stupid and not scary or fun and the lighting and camera angles are annoying. The gargoyle story is the only good part of this flick, and while it’s pretty cool it’s not enough to carry the whole film.
42. The Night Flier (1997) – 2.5/10. THE NIGHT FLIER, hahahaha. When we first talked about this one, both Dana and Jenn thought it was about a vampire hopping on a flight with Virgin Air to go suck someone’s blood in St. Louis or whatever. We thought that was hilarious, but while we may have been slightly off on that detail, the real story is no better. It doesn’t make any sense at all, and it’s such a stupid premise for a story in any medium. Who cares if a vampire flies around in a plane? No one cares if he takes the subway or rides a bike, that’s not the point! The point is the vampire itself, its origin, its motivation, I don’t know, ANYTHING EXCEPT ITS MODE OF TRANSPORTATION. This one is almost stupid enough to be must-see but sadly, it’s just not quite there so it languishes in the ‘don’t bother’ pile.
41. Maximum Overdrive (1986) – 2.5/10. I actually really like the start of this one but it loses momentum and drags like hell after about 30 minutes. Too bad because this was Emilio Estevez’s heyday. King himself has even said this one is a turd, and considering the pieces of shit he has lauded (like the 1997 version of The Shining), that’s really saying something, although I don’t think it’s quite that bad.
40. Needful Things (1993) – 3/10. I have a big soft spot for Max von Sydow but when Dana and I watched this one, I had to question his readiness to work in just about any film. I mean, this is another one that I can barely remember. I don’t remember any of the other actors, and I had to read the wikepedia page to refresh my memory on everything that went down. Ok yes, all this rings a bell but it was far from great. Not scary, not fun, not memorable. The concept is ok, I guess.
39. Pet Sematary (2019) – 3/10. Another recent one that I don’t remember well. Bad sign. I understand why remakes are so popular these days but that doesn’t make me sympathetic to them, and this one sucks. First off, remaking something that was already done well is stupid. You’re setting yourself up for failure. Pick a turd, make it better! That’s a much worthier goal, in my eyes. I think the filmmakers changed a few details in the story so that they could say “we really wanted to make it our own” or some other pretentious bullshit Hollywood line that they don’t mean at all, but I think they actually just made those changes because if they didn’t they would get shit on for being lazy shitty remake producers. Their changes don’t amount to much though, and we’re left with basically the same film as the original, but not very good. Jon Lithgow gets a special shoutout for his garbage performance.
38. Hearts in Atlantis (2001) – 3/10. It pains me to give this one such a low grade because Anthony Hopkins usually has pretty decent taste in the projects he takes on, but this one goes nowhere. No part of this story feels important or exciting, it’s all very flat. A boy and an old guy become friends and drink root beers, the old guy is pursued by some shadowy and possibly mystical group, eventually he gets caught and taken away, the boy and his mom move away. I don’t know, it all just felt pretty pointless and uninspired.
37. Riding the Bullet (2004) – 3/10. Sucks. David Arquette is lousy, as is everyone else. The constant flashbacks and imagined possible futures are annoying as all hell and ruin any pace or possibility of building tension. Even without the flashbacks and shit, the film has a hard enough time staying focused — first Alan is hitching a ride with an ex-soldier masquerading as a hippie, then an old guy with an itchy crotch, then David Arquette, and it seems like they should all be significant but only Arquette is, and even then he’s not really significant since he’s only in the last half of the movie. It’s just all over the map. The only thing I really liked was the silly movie-within-a-movie thing they did, that was entertaining. Oh, another wack thing: the movie is set in 1969 but every time something heavy happens, a distorted electric guitar makes a baleful “weeoooweeooooweeOOOooooo” Van Halen-esque whammy bar sound — that’s obviously period incorrect, I don’t know how someone missed that. It happened lots throughout the film too.
36. The Langoliers (1995) – 3.5/10. Yes, this is absolutely one of the worst King flicks ever made, and yes, 3 hrs was way too long for it, but this is one of the great terrible ones where it’s just so stupid and so poorly done on every level that it’s got a certain charm to it. I want to single out Bronson Pinchot (aka Balki from Perfect Strangers) as being especially bad but you know, he’s pretty much on par with the rest of the cast. The CGI is possibly the worst ever, even worse than The Lawnmower Man. The concept is a neat idea but the execution is just absolute garbage. The closing scene is so ridiculously stupid, it’s burned into my memory. This is a must-see film.
35. The Tommyknockers (1993) – 3.5/10. Ahhhh, another one of King’s special turd gems. It’s so bad, it’s good. Jimmy Smit is perfectly terrible. The King-isms of the alcoholic author and the evil force turning out to be aliens are classic. The scene of Smit tossing the mannequin alien out of its seat is priceless. Another must-see, for sure.
34. It 2 (2019) – 4/10. Was WAY too long, and the “we’re not scared of you” ending was absurd because what about all the other times people told Pennywise they weren’t scared of him and he just kept doing what he was doing? Maybe because all the kids started saying it to him together? I dunno but fuck, that was silly. This one looks nice, and the acting is decent, and that’s about the best I can say about it. Kind of funny how the It remake paralleled the original in terms of the first half being good while the second half fell flat.
33. Misery (1990) – 4/10. Misery hasn’t aged well. I liked it a lot as a kid but as an adult, nope. Cathy Bates is fun in her role, and the hobbling scene is still great, but besides a few tense moments the rest of it is pretty tedious. I know, how exciting can films about a person stuck in bed be? You know, I might argue that Gerald’s Game did it better. That might catch me some serious flack but that’s how I feel.
32. The Mangler (1995) – 4.5/10. I might be being a little generous with The Mangler’s score here. It definitely sucks — it’s a stupid story to start with, and the acting in the flick is comically bad (Ted Levine, I’m looking at you). The way everyone in the town gobbles that stupid antacid is absurd too, it was obvious from the start that it was going to play a crucial role in the story. But while this one doesn’t quite have the “so bad, it’s good” charm of The Tommyknockers or The Langoliers, it’s pretty close to it. And there is some classic horror gore, which goes a long way for me, personally.
31. 1408 (2007) – 5/10. Another fairly bland, unremarkable one. It’s definitely not terrible (in either the good or bad ways) but it’s definitely not great either. Samuel L. Jackson doesn’t get to strut his usual stuff and that’s a bit of a waste, I think. John Cusack is not a talented actor, and that’s apparent here. He is…fine, I guess. Dana and I both liked the nightmarish aspects of 1408 alright, but weren’t blown away by any means. It’s an ok time waster, I suppose.
30. The Apt Pupil (1998) – 5.5/10. Ian McKellen is good. No one else is. I like the ‘who is manipulating who’ game that goes back and forth and then is used on the teacher at the end, it’s sort of an interesting study on the levels of manipulation, but that’s about it. Not very thrilling for a psychological thriller.
29. The Green Mile (1999) – 5.5/10. I still get this one and The Shawshank Redemption mixed up a bit — both are set way back when (one in the 30’s, the other the 40’s), both take place in jailhouses, both have a mean jailhouse officer/warden who gets his in the end, both have the ‘dark Spielberg’ thing, both are way too long. What a surprise to think of King recycling ideas! Anyway, Green Mile is the weird one of the two, what with its mystical powers shit, the gruesome execution scene that doesn’t fit the tone of the rest of the movie, and the utterly useless wraparound story of the old man at the retirement home. We watched this one separately and that made it way less fun. Definitely one to watch with a pal so you can laugh at it.
28. Sleepwalkers (1992) – 5.5/10. Jeez, I’m not confident about this one. I remember that I thought it was pretty stupid yet fun, but I don’t remember many details about it. I remember the CGI sucks, there was some gore, and I liked the incest angle. Wow, my reviews are really going to make waves through Hollywood.
27. Firestarter (1984) – 6/10. It’s decent. I like the sci-fi elements of the story, and I thought the cast was all pretty alright. Seeing George C. Scott as a tough guy bounty hunter is odd and hard to swallow but I liked him anyway. Neat special effects at the end. I think my biggest complaint about Firestarter is the runtime — 2 hours was too much. There was no reason this had to be more than 90 minutes, if that.
26. Big Driver (2014) – 6/10. We stumbled onto this one, and had never even heard of it. I think we meant to watch Tommyknockers or something like that on youtube and this one was mislabeled. We were a little ways into it before we realized what was going on, but once we saw it was in fact a King adaptation, and one we had never heard of, well that was too promising to turn away from. It wound up being not bad! We were surprised at the violence, which was nice. And King venturing into the rape revenge category is strange, but I liked it. Ohhh, here’s a twist on a classic King-ism: the main character is an author…but they are also a woman! Wow, how does King do it, time after time? Such sublime talent.
25. Children of the Corn (1984) – 6/10. I want to love this one because it has all the right ingredients — autumn, fields of corn, kids with biblical names, Satanic shit and sacrifices — but it somehow isn’t quite as good as it should be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun and all, just not the must-see film I thought it was when I was 12.
24. Gerald’s Game (2017) – 6.5/10. Slightly better than middle of the road. Of King’s two adaptations that take place almost entirely in a bed, I prefer this one. I liked some of the old fashioned gore. Interesting premise for a film, although I feel like the Moonlight Man stuff is kind of tacked on. I feel like there would have been enough material just with the relationship stuff, sexual stuff, the logistics of Jessie’s situation, and Jessie fighting to keep her sanity. All the repressed memory/sexual abuse history/Moonlight Man/trial stuff was too much. It cluttered the movie. Writing about it now, it seems like all of this should have been able to be tied together more coherently but maybe I’m expecting too much from a made-for-Netflix Stephen King adaptation. Holy macaroni, of course I am. Ok moving on.
23. The Dark Half (1993) – 6.5/10. I think I like this one more than most other people. Whoah, I just noticed it was directed by George A. Romero. That’s fascinating. It sort of explains some of the things I remember most about it: I LOVE the scene with the eyeball and teeth growing in Thad’s brain, that’s some classic horror shit right there, and I like the final scene with the sparrows even if it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Birds tearing someone to shreds and carrying those shreds away is sweet. George Stark’s “badass” character is super cheesy but it inexplicably doesn’t bother me too much.
22. It (2017) – 6.5/10. There was so much hype about this one when it came out, and I was right to be dismissive of that hype. It was ok but not great. Most notably, Pennywise 2017 can’t hold a fucking candle to Tim Curry’s Pennywise. I blogged about it all here though so you can check that out if you are a real glutton for my pissing and moaning.
21. The Shawshank Redemption (1994) – 6.5/10. I know some dorks will shit on me for only giving this a 6.5/10 but hey, who has sat through 50+ King flicks? Not you, I bet. You wade through the hell I have and then rank em, if you really give a shit. And listen, The Shawshank Redemption isn’t a bad film, it just doesn’t do a lot for me. Like a handful of King’s film adaptation, I think it’s needlessly long, and reeks of King’s ‘dark Spielberg’-ism, which is one of his least charming -isms.
20. The Mist (2007) – 6.5/10. Pretty alright, pretty fun. It’s kind of funny because it’s King’s take on Lovecraft-style horror, yet because of the “there’s evil and monsters here/oh it turns out they’re from another dimension” twist, he basically manages to turn the classic Lovecraft schtick into a triedand true King-ism. Jenn watched this one with us and we all enjoyed the grim ending. Everyone loves a real ‘feel bad’ flick, it seems.
19. Cell (2016) – 6.5/10. I definitely like this one way more than anyone else. I’m not saying I love it or that it’s good, I just don’t see why people would hate this one but love The Mist, you know? Both are pretty dumb, fun horror flicks. Maybe it’s the subject matter of Cell that bothers so many people, like people feel making a horror movie about such a contemporary topic as cell phones is uncool. Whatever, doesn’t matter: I liked the gore, I liked Jackson’s performance, and I liked the grim ending. He was imagining doing the right thing, but he was already fucked!! I love that kind of stuff.
18. The Dead Zone (1983) – 7/10. I love a lot of David Cronenberg’s films but I do find they usually have a weird, kind of flat, almost monotonous pacing. It never feels like you reach the climax, which does bug me a little, but there are so many things in The Dead Zone that I like that I can mostly overlook the pace. One of those things is the bleak Ontario winterscape, and another is that this is some prime Christopher Walken, second only to his performance in The Deer Hunter, in my books:
17. The Silver Bullet (1985) – 7/10. I don’t think this film gets enough love. Like Children of the Corn, it’s got all the right ingredients for a classic horror movie (small town, autumn, werewolf, crazy uncle played by Nick Nolte lol), but the difference is that The Silver Bullet pulls it off. Of course, I’m not saying it’s a cinematic masterpiece. I just mean that it’s fun and scary (if you’re a pre-teen) like a horror movie should be. It’s the kind of movie I want to watch in October when I’m seeking good Halloween vibes.
16. In the Tall Grass (2019) – 7.5/10. I liked it! Go figure. I anticipated hating it, being new and on Netflix (like 1922) but it makes great use of a bunch of King-isms. Like, while I was watching it I thought, “oh man, if only the evil force here could be an alien…” and bing bong, there it is! Yeah, it’s definitely a stupid flick and actors Patrick Wilson and Avery Whitted suck, but it’s a good old-fashioned horror with some fun twists, and it walks the line well of toying with abstract ideas enough to be interesting, but not so much that it takes itself too seriously.
15. The Running Man (1987) – 7.5/10. This one is pretty dumb and terribly acted but that’s part of the fun of it. It’s the kind of 80’s movie that is great to watch with a bunch of friends while eating pizza, you know? Another fun concept, I like the cheesy sets and costumes, I like the various villains Arnie must contend with, and of course this is the kind of role Arnie was made for. Very decent.
14. Salem’s Lot (1979) – 8/10. I love this one, and the different versions are interesting too — when Dana and I watched it, Dana mentioned that the pace seemed totally fucked, like it built to climaxes at really odd times only to relax and be chill for a while more before sort-of climaxing again. Also, some parts of the story were never resolved or just didn’t make much sense. Then we learned that the version we had watched was the totally truncated, edited for TV version, and that the original version was an hour longer and had a very different ending. One night I went back and watched the full version and what do ya know, it was way better. This one is creepy and unsettling in all the right ways, and James Mason was fucking brilliant in it.
13. It (1990) – 8/10. If I was only grading the first half of this, I’d probably give it a 9/10, but the second half is pretty dumb and really drags the overall score down. The kid actors are surprisingly decent, the story is cool, and Tim Curry was fucking unreal. I know he is largely remembered as Frank N. Furter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and certainly that was legendary too, but I think his Pennywise was his crowning achievement, personally. Anyway, the second half loses momentum, and some of the casting just stinks. Who chose Richard Thomas to play the adult version of Bill? That one was unforgivable to me. Pennywise talking to Bowers through the moon was awful too. Believe it or not, Pennywise is supposed to be an evil alien. Yup, he starts out as a killer clown, then the kids find he’s actually a giant spider dwelling in the sewers, but the movie neglects to mention that in the book it is revealed that evil clown/spider in the sewer is from OUTER SPACE. Wow.
12. Pet Semetary (1989) – 8/10. I loved/was terrified of this one when I was a kid, and it’s still good now. About the only part I was a little bummed about was the sick sister part — as a kid, it was one of the weirdest, freakiest things I’d seen, but as an adult it was just bad makeup and corny acting. Besides that scene though, there’s a lot to like here. I enjoy how cruel it is, what with children, spouses, and pets all dying. I like the gore. I like the kind, head-injured ghost. The acting is generally pretty good. This one definitely holds up better a lot of the others from this era.
11. Creepshow (1982) – 8/10. I’m a sucker for 80’s horror, vignettes, Stephen King (despite how much I rip on him), and Leslie Nielsen in a serious role. Father’s Day is a little slow but I still use “I want my cake” so it’s obviously got some magic to it; The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill is odd and ends on a weird, sad note, which I like — it’s an effective semi-horror piece; Something to Tide You Over is perfect, it’s creepy and you don’t know who to cheer for, and Nielsen is amazing; The Crate is also a little slow but the premise is perfect old school stuff, and like the “I want my cake” line, I frequently refer to the bloodthirsty ape at the bottom of our local quarry, and that counts for something; and They’re Creeping Up on You is tense as fuck and has some almost David Cronenberg-ish body horror. Love it.
10. Graveyard Shift (1990) – 8/10. Another overlooked classic, in my opinion. Brad Dourif and Stephen Macht both give stellar performances here, and the subject material is perfect horror movie stuff — evil boss forces his employees into subterranean layers where they are hunted by a bloodthirsty mutant rat-bat? Holy moly. It doesn’t get much better than that. And another (mostly) grim ending too, yaaaaay.
9. Cujo (1983) – 8.5/10. Cujo doesn’t get enough love. This one was one of the biggest surprises for both Dana and I — we expected it to be mediocre but it turned out to be a really solid, fun, legitimately tense flick. Not to mention the dog(s) that played Cujo were actually amazing actors! My only big complaint is that I wish the kid died, like he did in the book. More ‘feel bad’ endings, please.
8. Christine (1983) – 8.5/10. Second biggest surprise of this project for both Dana and I. Neither of us were excited about this one but we came away from it wow’d. I think John Carpenter is pretty hit-or-miss but this was definitely one of his hits. The special effects were excellent, some of the kills were creative, and the overall tone is just fun, classic horror movie shit. No reinventing the wheel here (har har), just tried and true tricks of the trade, and it works great.
7. Dolores Claiborne (1995) – 9/10. This was the biggest, happiest surprise of this project. We were anticipating being pretty bored by this one and while it’s probably more of a drama than anything else, it’s better written and better acted than 98% of King’s other adaptations so we were legitimately enrapt. It’s a solid story with relatable characters and convincing portrayals. Don’t watch it expecting a horror and you should be pleasantly surprised too.
6. Dreamcatcher (2003) – 9/10. Bear in mind, this is a ‘soft’ 9/10, ie I’m not giving it that score because it’s a high quality flick, I’m giving it that because this is one of the best examples of King embracing his ridiculous shark-jumping tendencies, and that’s awesome. I don’t think any reasonable person who watches this one could know where it is going. I don’t even want to get into it too much, just in case you haven’t seen this one yet. It’s better if you have no idea what to expect, that’s the fun of it. Lots of King-isms. Plus it’s got some good gore and shit. This is another must-see.
5. Carrie (1976) – 9/10. Definitely one of the best King flicks. Solid acting, the hyper religious mother is disturbing, the cruelty of Carrie’s classmates is wonderfully awful, the massacre is great, and the ending is even better.
4. Doctor Sleep (2019) – 9/10. This is a weird flick. It’s weird because, as my pal Marc put it, it feels like really good fan fiction. It doesn’t feel like a typical Stephen King flick, it’s more like someone who loves King and The Shining wanted to pay tribute to those things, and expand on The Shining’s universe. They did so by introducing a bunch of new elements and characters, and competently, convincingly tying them back in to the classic shit of The Shining. And it’s wild how solid both the throwback stuff AND the new stuff was. Wow, I just read the wikipedia article on Doc Sleep and the director, Mike Flanagan, talks a lot about how Kubrick’s The Shining was so different from King’s book, and how Flanagan wanted to bridge those things AND the Doctor Sleep book — it’s like a 3-way interconnection, which is something I intuited but didn’t fully grasp. That’s awesome, and I think Flanagan and co. really pulled it off. Of note, the scene of Rose flying was really trippy and cool. Maybe I’m biased on this one because this was the 50th King flick we watched and were pretty hyped about that, and we were expecting a big turd and it’s easy to be pleased when you have low expectation, but fuck it. I still say it was really good.
3. Creepshow 2 (1987) – 10/10. One of my fave classic horrors of all time. The vignettes build in intensity perfectly, and the wraparound story not only ties together the vignettes but is great too. I like the fact that the wraparound story is animated too, that element sets it apart from the others. Lots of excellent gore in this flick — the kill scenes in The Raft are awesome, as is the mangled yet persistent living corpse of the hitcher in the last story. I never tire of this one.
2. Stand By Me (1986) – 10/10. Not a horror but hey, it’s King, and it’s one of his best adaptations. It’s timeless, I feel like even dickhead millenials would enjoy this one today. Such a great coming of age film. I always found it incredibly relatable, touching, and funny. Great cast, too. I really don’t think there’s anything about it I dislike.
1. The Shining (1980) – 10/10. Obviously the best King adaptation, anyone who says otherwise is a contrarian or has some seriously fucked taste. Everything about it is brilliant — the casting, the acting (even the child actor!), the sets, the shots, the soundtrack, the atmosphere, the scares…fuck man. I hate lauding Kubrick because everyone does it but hey, he really was a master.
*****
That’s it! If you made it this far, congrats. What a slog. I know there are a bunch of tv show adaptations of King’s books, like Mr Mercedes for example, but I’m not interested in those. It was hard enough forcing myself to watch other new films like the Pet Sematary remake, I don’t think I could sit through multiple episodes of something that doesn’t interest me much. I think Mercy and A Good Marriage are still on our list to check out, I might have to make an addendum for those eventually.
Thank you, and good night.
*Edit: it’s been a few years since I wrote this post and while lying in bed sleeplessly this morning, I thought of a terrible “horror” (I use the term loosely here because it wasn’t scary in the slightest) movie I had seen at some point. I could barely remember anything about it, mostly just a vague feeling of boredom and wishing it would hurry up and be over soon. I really thought about it and slowly recalled an old farm house, maybe an old lady in it…eventually I thought it may have been a King flick but I wasn’t sure. So at 5:00 am, I consulted a list of Stephen King film adaptations and when I saw the name Mercy, I was confident that was it. Clicked on it and yup it was. This one is definitely near the top of the list in terms of ‘worst King flicks’ because it was just so insanely bland, boring, and unmemorable that I had almost forgotten I had ever seen it. I feel like that speaks volumes about it.*
crimson highway 