One major milestone we’re celebrating this month is the 40th Anniversary of Stephen King in film, as kicked off with Brian De Palma’s seminal 1976 classic Carrie. The story of a shy girl, her psychic powers and the psychotic mother to end all psychotic mothers was released in November of that year, and proved both a box office smash and the first step in the popularization of the author, who has since had countless adaptations of his writing brought to both the big and small screen. To celebrate, we’ve conjured a list of The 10 Best Stephen King Movies ever made.
This also happens to fall at the same time that Scream Factory is releasing a bonus-packed Collector’s Edition Blu-ray of Carrie on October 11, which features a gorgeous transfer of the film as well as a ton of new bonus content, including a revealing half-hour interview with screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen on the process of discovering King’s manuscript and bringing it to the screen. Think about how momentous that is… imagine a world without Stephen King movies? Now THAT is scary.
Click here to pre-order your copy of Scream Factory’s new Carrie Blu-ray!
There aren’t too many controversial choices on this list, as the ones that have stood the test of time are pretty much regarded by both the public-at-large and the author himself as the superior films. Not all of them are horror, but neither is good ol’ Uncle Steve’s output as a writer. That said, we encourage you to make your own favorite Stephen King movies known in the comments below!
The 10 Best Stephen King Movies
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Carrie (1976)
Sissy Spacek plays the title character in Brian De Palma's brilliant high school horror show. With both her religious zealot mom (Piper Laurie) and inherent psychokinetic powers, Carrie White is ostracized beyond belief. An attempt by a classmate to integrate her into the in-crowd only leads to horror and death, though its the way Carrie nonchalantly reacts to her mother's terrible abuse that is the deeper underlying tragedy.
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Salem's Lot (1979)
Originally airing in two 2-hour parts on CBS, this TV movie version of King's vampire opus stars a very groovy David Soul as an author who returns to his childhood hometown in Maine (natch) to investigate the supernatural goings-on in the infamous Marsten House. Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper showcased a more classic horror movie style for this story that is as much about small town atmosphere as it is about scaring the bejeezus out of people.
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The Shining (1980)
Fans of Stephen King's book often site the author himself's view that Stanley Kubrick's film somehow botched the "good dad-to-maniac" vibe of Jack Torrance, but Jack Nicholson's performance is far more nuanced and, frankly, terrifying than the character is in the book. According to the book, Torrance's torment comes from outside influences, whereas the movie paints a picture of a man for whom interior demons need only be re-awakened.
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Creepshow (1982)
If you need something done right, you better do it yourself. With that in mind, King took to screenwriting with this brilliant anthology film directed by genre master George A. Romero (Dawn of the Dead). It contains five short segments with an EC Comics-esque framing device. Although it's often overlooked, this film is one of the truest at adopting the look and feel of a comic book to cinema. The stand-out story, "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill," stars King himself as a dumbass hillbilly caricature who becomes infected by a fungus from outer space.
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The Dead Zone (1983)
Unlike Carrie, The Dead Zone offers a *slightly* more positive look at someone cursed with psychic powers. In this case Johnny Smith (Christopher Walken) is a schoolteacher who wakes up from a coma with the ability to learn people's secrets through physical contact. When he shakes the hand of a corrupt politician (Martin Sheen, in a very timely role for the political climate now) who will cause nuclear armageddon, he must decide whether or not to act on that vision.
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Stand By Me (1986)
While King's brand will always be associated with horror, he's also a very gifted writer outside of the genre. Take his short story "The Body" from the book "Different Seasons," a look back at four kids growing up in the '50s who decide to take a weekend trek into the woods to find a dead body. Rob Reiner's film adaptation emphasizes King's unheralded gift for character and emotion, with Wil Wheton and the late River Phoenix giving powerful performances that cut to the core of the heartbreak of being a kid.
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Misery (1990)
Rob Reiner stepped back into King country for this thriller about a deranged nurse named Annie (Kathy Bates in an Oscar-winning role) who "takes care" of a romance novel writer (James Caan) after a car "accident." The relationship between writer and fan was never more perverted than it is here, although King has acknowledged that the book was also a metaphor for his struggle with cocaine addiction.
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The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Arguably the most beloved King adaptation ever made, Frank Darabont drew from a tall tale in "Different Season" to tell the story of a wrongfully-convicted murderer (Tim Robbins) and his two-decade-long friendship with a con named Red (Morgan Freeman) in a state penitentiary. Darabont's rich characterizations and deft storytelling always keep a balance between bleak and hopeful, with a rare "Hollywood ending" that feels truly, truly earned.
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Dolores Claiborne (1995)
Another favorite adaptation of the author's is also a favorite of ours, albeit a wrongfully overlooked one. Unlike Shawshank, which eventually found its audience on home video, Dolores Claiborne remains an underappreciated drama about a strong-willed housekeeper (Kathy Bates) who is accused by an overzealous detective (Christopher Plummer) of murdering the woman she worked for. Her daughter (Jennifer Jason Leigh) returns to her Maine hometown to defend her mother and winds up uncovering long-buried secrets.
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The Mist (2007)
Frank Darabont took Lovecraftian horror to new heights with this adaptation of one of King's most robust short stories. It finds the occupants of a small town trapped inside a grocery store as a mist carrying increasingly more deadly monsters creeps in. Of course, the real terror lies in the mob mentality that grows with each passing hour they become trapped, as embodied in a woefully unstable religious nutjob named Mrs. Carmody, played with deliciously villainous relish by Marcia Gay Harden.
