Best Stephen King Film Adaptation

[Pete]

Creepshow
The Dead Zone (Cronenberg)
The Green Mile
Salem's Lot
The Shawshank Redemption
The Shining (Kubrick)
Silver Bullet

[The Reaper Man@Cult Labs]

The Dead Zone is right up there with the best of them.
Walken's sympathetic performance is fantastic.

[Gojirosan]

Worst?

Sleepwalkers (though I still love its absurdity! And Clovis rules!)
Maximum Overdrive
It
Silver Bullet
That TV version of The Shining - actually laughably inept.

There are others I haven't even bothered to watch after the first few, tragic minutes.

[pedromonkey]

Originally Posted by Gojirosan

Worst?


It

There are others I haven't even bothered to watch after the first few, tragic minutes.

It? Really? i think it's one of the better king adapts, yeah the giant spider looks silly but it's still a pretty creepy flick.

[Pete]

The first part of It is really good but it rapdily goes down hill during the second.

[Gojirosan]

Originally Posted by pedromonkey

It? Really? i think it's one of the better king adapts, yeah the giant spider looks silly but it's still a pretty creepy flick.

Stupid story, badly made, I thought. As Loops says, the first half is promising, but ultimately it's rubbish.

[bizarre_eye@Cult Labs]

For me it's easier to lump the King adaptations into two categories: Films, and made-for-TV movies as it's sometimes harder (and more unfair) to compare a 2 hour big budget blockbuster with a 3 part televised serial with no budget and few big name or no-name actors.

That said there are a lot of the TV movie King's which I enjoy a lot more than some of the bigger budget, supposedly better made films.

My favourite film adaptation has probably got to be Kubrick's The Shining (I am a bit of a Kubrick junky, though). Jack Nicholson just provides a master-class in the psychotic, and the pace and tension that builds throughout the film is superb, meaning that it is one of my all-time favourite horror movies (even though it is not my favourite Stephen King story). Misery is very close behind though.

I know people have a lot of love for Carrie, too but for I didn't rate the film much at all to be honest, probably because I love the book so much (I first read it when I was 8, and must have read it about 20 times since).The film seemed to gloss over a lot of the more interesting points of the novel to me, and even though Sissy Spacek gives a great performance, I just didn't enjoy very much. The addition of the ‘shock’ ending, which is not present in the book, is an interesting addendum though.

Other King adapted films I’ve enjoyed include The Shawshank Redemption (probably one of the most faithful to the source material), Apt Pupil (although I thought book was much better), Stand By Me (based on his short story The Body), and Carpenter’s Christine.

Cronenberg's The Dead Zone is also worth a mention, as it is sometimes forgotten, and of course stars the great Christopher Walken. It's not the best King adaptation (and far from Cronenberg's best), but is enjoyable nonetheless.

Reading some of the posts above The Mist seems to be dividing opinion greatly. My take on it is that while some of the performances were very decent, I thought it dragged in places and is not a film I’d probably re-visit very often. I haven’t watched the black & white version yet, but I’m looking forward to doing so to see if it improves much on some of the dodgy CGI in the colourised version.

Also; and I know it seems to be almost universal hated, but I have to say that I quite enjoyed 1408. Sam Jackson and John Cusack are usually safe bets performance-wise, and the story was engaging so I did enjoy it (some iffy CGI aside). The alternate ending present in the DVD extras also put an interesting spin on things too.

As for the TV movies, Salem’s Lot and The Stand are probably my favourites, with Storm of the Century, The Tommyknockers, It, and Needful Things being very enjoyable too. The Stand is probably my favourite King novel, and I think the TV movie really does the book justice and captures the events perfectly. Salem’s Lot is also very well made and is easily my favourite Tobe Hooper film.

The worst King film? The Running Man in my opinion. Now, before you all “blow a fuse”, the reason why I dislike it so much is because of the source material involved. King (writing under the pseudonym Richard Bachmann) wrote The Running Man as a tense dystopian thriller, and it is a phenomenal story which I love to read over and over. When you compare it with the film of The Running Man it bares almost no comparison. The film is a brainless cheese-fest (which is not necessarily a bad thing), but watching it always leaves a sour taste in my mouth when considering the phenomenal piece of work it is ‘adapted’ from.

When considering King you can’t disregard the cult fave Creepshow though, which is always a Halloween favourite in my house (even though I may be the only one watching it!). There is something about Stephen King horror tales that seem very accessible, as I can remember watching many at a young age, and know a great many people who enjoy his work even though they’re not fond of horror films. Plus, as his influence is spread so far and wide through books, TV, and films, it’s almost impossible to avoid something that hasn’t been influenced by the man. A lesser-known stand-out for me was The X-Files episode Chinga about a possessed doll - great fun.

[scribbler]

Blimey, haven't been on here for so long I feel I should post in the newbies section first

My selection, for what it's worth, would be :

1) The Shining (nothing can be added to what's already been said)
2) Misery (loved it so much I nearly purchased a Liberace CD)
3) The Mist (mainly because of the downbeat ending. Being a miserable git anyway, I do love a non-Hollywood ending). I think I prefer the b/w version too, being an old Universal junkie.
4) Shawshank. Cliched choice I know, but one of the first movies I upgraded on blu-ray. Actually, it's not really cliched at all... it is a fantastic piece of cinema.

Okay.... # 5 in my list..... I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose 99% of you here, but...

5) The Langoliers. Yep, you read it right. I loved the original novella, so instantly took to the tv adaption. Had it on VHS and then on dvd. I won't hold my breath for the blu-ray though

[Gojirosan]

I have never seen the adaptation of The Langoliers, but the story itself was one of the few post-Christine (roughly the point where I think he started losing it, or I started losing interest in him*) Stephen King tales to have impressed me.


*Though having said that, the very worst Stephen King book I have ever read - indeed, one of the worst books I have ever read full stop - was The Gunslinger, which IIRC was written before the Christine/Pet Sematary junction.

Sorry Dark Tower fans, but that first book was just appalling. I have refused to read subsequent Dark Tower efforts as I suspect they would annoy me even more. Fantasy is a hard enough genre to write interestingly as it is, never mind trying to write it if you only have the skills of Stephen King!

[scribbler]

I doubt you'll be alone in that opinion of the Langoliers, Gojirosan

But I think the reason I like it, is because I've always had a soft-spot for tales involving a small, select band of people, alone & against big odds (in this case time-eating bad CGI furballs). Don't get me wrong, I love the huge epic 'whole world uniting against outside invaders' type scenarios (ID4 being my cheesefastic favourite. And yes, I did upgrade to blu-ray!), but find the tales involving small groups much more interesting.

Mind you, Re the Langoliers, the blind girl did grate a bit

Personally I'd love to see an adaption of 'The Long Walk'. A Bachman novel, and well worth a read, especially if you're into the likes of 'Battle Royale' etc.