Stephen King Movies

[Sensorymoments]

I have to admit- I have seen more of his books in movie form, than I have actually read.

I have seen IT, The Cell, Shawshank Redemption, The stand (read this one too), Pet Cemetary 1 and 2 ( these were stephen king right? )
and I've probably seen a few more that ,I didn't realize were stephen king's

My favorite would have to be IT. That tale of clowns, has got to have been one of the most horrifying movies I have ever seen. I couldn't get over it for days.

What is your favorite?

[Sensorymoments]

I almost forgot, dolores clairborne, and the shining

Does anyone else feel that his stories translate very well into the big screen, maybe more so than other books. I find that alot of details aren't lost, and the multilayered nature of many of these stories translates well as well?

[Stephanie]

In a short story, no details have to be lost because the story is short enough to fit into 90 to 120 minutes. Consider The Stand - such a heavy tome that the TV movie was, what, ten hours long? I truly love a great big long novel, but King's short stories are some of my favorite. Usually I don't care to give up my characters after only one sitting, but with King, they generally hang around my mind long after, so I don't feel quite so bereft.

Stephanie

[becke_davis]

My husband is not a huge King fan but Shawshank Redemption is one of his alltime favorite movies, and he really liked the TV series of the Stand -- so did I.

[cosmotrotter]

---

becke_davis wrote:
My husband is not a huge King fan but Shawshank Redemption is one of his alltime favorite movies, and he really liked the TV series of the Stand -- so did I.

---

My favorite absolutely is Kubrick's The Shining. This is followed by Brian de Palma's classic Carrie. The pretty good Kathy Bates performance in Misery is next. Dead Zone isn't so bad, for period kitsch. The Silver Bullet is great for laughs. Cujo, Firestarter, Christine, the old ones are watchable...

Many of the later ones have been written in the hopes of filming, I think, and are weaker.
I think movies made from his books are more effective when stylized by a director with a sense of something bigger than the story - establishing a mood, etc. The characters are often flat and the plot, if mechanically filmed, is rarely scary. However, with some fleshing out, good atmospherics, good performances from good casting decisions, and direction that includes some laughs as well as seriousness, they can be quite fun.

[metheos]

agree totally that king's later books ALL read like Movie scripts which is why i'm surprised that he is schooked that people consider "the stand" his best work-bad movie though
Favorite movie would be the "original" The Shining-which KING HATES w/Passion
Carrie comes in aclose 2nd

[theghost]

Are you talking about the upcoming "Cell"? "The Cell" starring Jennifer Lopez is not a Stephen King work, although it is visually stunning. Pet Cemetary, the first one, was Stephen King, the second was not.

Disappointments for me have been Tommyknockers and Dreamcatcher. I felt that while the Kubrick version of "The Shining" was a good film, it did not do the book justice and the mini-series done after Kubrick's death kept more to the theme of the book, the disintigration of a family. Cujo is my least favorite book...and so the least favorite movie.

The Stand, which some people have said they didn't believe was a good movie adaptation, I thought was done well for the contraints it faced. The book is long and many of the themes would not have translated well to regular television (the mini series was originally aired in prime-time on NBC) Changes were a necessity, but the overall theme of the book was intact.

Shawshank, The Green Mile and Stand By Me are my three favorite movie adaptaions by Stephen King. These three works show the depth of Mr. Kings ability to create characters which stay with us, a mark of a true classic.

One other favorite thing of mine? The running theme of placing characters from the Gunslinger universe into other works. Gives fans something to look for.

[skye_4_13]

Stephen King's "Cell," which has to do with people become quasi-zombies because of some pulse sent through cell phones (let me point out that Stephen King doesn't even own a cell phone. Wonder why?) hasn't been released to the screen yet. Everything I've found says "sometime in 2007".

They've got the Eli something-or-other, a guy from Hostel, directing it, which--even as much as love the Stephen King movies--I hate to say it, any association with a movie like Hostel makes me question what the quality of the movie is going to be. I like to differentiate between "horror" movies (or books) and "see how many different ways we can kill people, and be as gory as possible while we're at it" movies (also known, in my vocabulary, as slasher movies). I just got something against a movie that advertises (nevermind that the advertisement was made up) that over half their audience had to be rushed to the emergency room, like it's a good thing. I prefer the "it's scary because it could happen" (The Stand) brand of horror to the "it's scary because it lets you see the inside of a person" brand.

But that's just me.

[theghost]

I have to agree, in fact my husband and I were just dicussing that very thing. Movies like "Hostel" try to gross people out, which is a rather sad attempt to re-capture the campy gore flicks of the eighties....sans camp. "Horror" is Vincent Price in "The Wax Museum" or the unseen threats that permeate Japanese literature and film. "Horror" is that thing inside everyone that might jump out in a dark alley and pull us backwards into the shadows.

Gore is just that...gore. It doesn't frighten, it doesn't make the hairs on your neck stand up and if I want to see blood I can turn on the evening news. I'm hoping that the film adaptaion of "Cell" won't fall to the substandard of "gross out".

[Stephanie]

I think I'll join this camp! I don't care for gore either, but a good thriller? Definitely right up my alley. The Hitcher springs to mind. Love Rutger Hauer.
Then there are other ways to gross us out ... My take on it is this- why does it have to be ugly in order to entertain? Consider all the computerized beasts in movies these days- having just seen HP4 again, I'm thinking of the Mer-People in that flick. Ugh! So, I could do without the grotesque monsters, too.

Stephanie

[Sensorymoments]

---

Stephanie wrote:
I think I'll join this camp! I don't care for gore either, but a good thriller? Definitely right up my alley. The Hitcher springs to mind. Love Rutger Hauer.
Then there are other ways to gross us out ... My take on it is this- why does it have to be ugly in order to entertain? Consider all the computerized beasts in movies these days- having just seen HP4 again, I'm thinking of the Mer-People in that flick. Ugh! So, I could do without the grotesque monsters, too.

Stephanie

---

Perhaps this is what makes stephen king so interesting and tantalizing. He creates suspense out of everyday fears- he creates fear of things that we almost believe could truly happen. He knows we never neeed to see an ounce of blood, or even have anyone die, to be scared....

I just watched the nightmare and dreamscapes miniseries-(shortstories made into little mini movies made for tv) It was soooooooo goooooddddd
I highly recommend picking it up!!!!

[Eliza]

I love Stephen King's movies almost as much as his books. I think the reason they are so good is that King stays so completely involved in the process instead of just giving it up to some director. I read that The Stand was originally going to be done by George Romero a hundred years ago, but his 3 hour movie cut out too much important material and King thought Romero took too many liberties with his story. So it was scrapped. I wish he'd always been so vigil. I loved his novel Hearts In Atlantis, one of my favorites of his. The movie could have been one of his best but they left out too much by squeezing the story into two hours. The casting was dead on and they depicted the neighborhood exactly as I'd pictured it. More then that, they somehow captured the atmospher of the book. But they left out so much that it didn't really even make sense. They chose to focus on one part of the book and in doing so lost the whole.

[threat2]

Stephanie,
I thought I was the only one who considered "The Hitcher" a fantastic scary movie! C.Thomas Howell was great too, as was Rutger Hauer. I think that if people have read the novels they would be very disappointed in the movies, with the exception of Carrie, The Shining, and Misery which were all wonderful screen adaptations. I know S.K. tries so hard to write good screen plays, but his imagination is just to big to translate on the screen. For instance, IT, my favorite novel so far, was a decent movie, but watching the movie just doesn't bring the insight into all of the characters personalities like his novels. It's impossible! That's why many of his novels are so long. He goes into great detail about each character's thoughts, personalities, habits, dreams, desires, past memories, etc. The man is a genius first and foremost, second...one of the best writers I've ever encountered. Which means I should probably address a different thread regarding his popularity!
T.

[Eliza]

I had a really interesting debate with a friend of mine after seeing The Green Mile. We had both already read the book previously and were curious how they would portray certain parts of the book visually. "...but for a moment the color seemed to jump out of everything, as if the world had been somehow squeezed and made to sweat." I wasn't dissapointed with the way they accomplished it, I really liked that movie. But I usually tell people that they should read the book to get the full story. Do you think some things are impossible to translate from page to screen?

[threat2]

I really do think that many books are impossible to translate from the page to the screen...but then again, I have been wrong before! (I thought Augusten Burroughs "Running wityh Scissors" would be impossible to make into a movie, but it wasn't bad to be honest.) I forgot about The Green Mile, that was an excellent movie in my opinion, but of course I never read the book. Can someone remind me what Insomnia is about? I can't remember if I read that novel or not. Thank you!
T.

[Stephanie]

Theresa,

I know what you mean about King's imagination. I'm always thrilled to find another of his books to enjoy- some are not for me, the truly terrifying (for some reason, Gerald's Game really creeped me out and I've never read IT because of the premise- I love clowns, and I'm not ruining that!)

King's writing is exceptional, also. It's not often you find such a writer, who has mastered the craft and also has an endless supply of stories. I think being prolific is part of what makes King so popular. He continues to draw in new young readers, and has retained his old fan base as well. I love to see a young adult pick up his work, first because I know they'll be hooked, and then because I know they'll be increasing their vocabularies and learning good sentence structure and how to really turn a phrase.

Stephanie

[Stephanie]

Eliza,

I do think some aspects of a book will be lost on the screen. The main loss is the character's thoughts- unless they do a voice-over (which has to be done exceptionally well to work) being inside a character's head is one of my favorite parts of reading. I also like to picture scenes and people my own way!

Stephanie

[threat2]

Hi everyone!
I ordered Nightmares & Dreamscapes (the DVD) on Netflix!! I was in the grocery store tonight and they had N&D for sale, it was all I could do NOT to purchase it and read the stories again! (I'm going to try to find it at a used bookstore. I wish I had my original copy! I do still have the hardcover of The Tommyknockers! The inside cover shows the price as $19.50! (a while ago)
T.

[dulcinea3]

I have also seen more movies based on King's books than actually read the books, but I have read some of them.

My favorite movies are Carrie and the mini-series of The Stand (which, BTW, is about six hours long, for the person who was wondering). I had not read Carrie (although I have since then), and I had read The Stand. Of course, even for a mini-series, they couldn't get everything into it, but I think they really did an excellent job.

I had read The Shining before seeing the Kubrick film, and that ruined the movie for me - I don't think it is a good interpretation of the novel, at all. I suppose it comes up on lists of best horror movies for other reasons, and can stand on its own as long as you don't think about the book. I much preferred the later mini-series with Stephen Weber. King was involved with it, and it was so much closer to the novel (and of course the mini-series format allows more plot to fit in).

I never read Cujo, but I heard that the ending was entirely different in the movie.

I had read Needful Things, thought it was excellent, and was looking forward to the movie. I had pictured Christopher Plummer in the lead, but Max von Sydow was a good choice. However, I was disappointed in the movie overall. And they did something that really irritates me, which was to change small details, when I don't see why they couldn't have used the original details. For example, the collection of Hummels which were carnival glass in the novel, and changing the raccoon tail to a letterman's jacket. That kind of thing drives me crazy!

I didn't really like the novel Dreamcatcher because King indulged too much in his scatological interests, and I thought it was gross. I avoided the movie at first, but I finally watched it, and I didn't think it was too bad.

I had read Pet Sematary, and I didn't care much for the movie.

I think those are all the ones I had read and also seen the movie of.

[Stephanie]

Dulcinea

I love to hear what people think about books and movies, and I have to agree with your pet peeve- it also irritates me when details (and endings) are changed and there is no rhyme or reason. I can see why certain aspects of a book might need to be left out- time constraints, etc., but for the life of me I can't figure out why Richard Dreyfus' character couldn't die in Jaws - other than that the movie, unlike the book, gave the viewer no real reason to dislike him.

Stephanie


PS - I have to wonder- Dulcinea, Don Quixote's girl?