There are good ones (‘Carrie’, ‘The Shining’) There are average ones (‘Creepshow’, ‘The Dead Zone’) There are amazing ones (‘The Shawshank Redemption’) and there are laughable ones (‘Maximum Overdrive’), forget Shakespeare and Dickens: Steven King must be the single most adapted author of all time, I found 41 TV and film adaptions! Unfortunately he also seems to be the most inconsistent. Whilst the vast majority of his novels are instant classics, his film and (more importantly) TV adoptions seldom live up to the promise of the original work.
The unfortunate truth seems to be that the more Steven King gets involved with a project, the less potential it has. To date King has directed only one of his films: ‘Maximum Overdrive’, which features the laughable plot of Trucks coming to life and killing people. Though this sounds frankly ridiculous, the novel works quite well (as indeed does ‘Christine’, with a similar plot). Sadly the movie adaptation was a complete farce. However, when directors are left to work alone on their projects, the results can be stunning. Brian De Palmer’s ‘Carrie’ (1976), and Rob Reiner’s ‘Stand By Me’ (1986) and ‘Misery’ (1990) are all superb pieces that have become classics.
Commercially it seems, the less a film sticks to the plot of the novel the more successful it is, most notable in that pinnacle of 80’s sci-fi cheese ‘The Running Man’ (1987) and Stanley Kubrik’s horror classic ‘The Shining’ (1980) both of which took outrageous liberties with the text and did very well out of it. Strangest of all was ‘The Lawnmower Man’, which claimed to be ‘Based on a novel by Steven King’ without using ANY of the original plot. King eventually took the film’s creators to court and had his name removed from the credits.
Some of the most effective versions have been TV movies, most memorably ‘IT’(1990), the first half of which was outstanding, only to be let down by a slack climax. Tim Curry’s portrayal of Pennywise the clown is arguably one of the scariest characters in horror history. In the contrast to this ‘The Langoliers’ (1995) is perhaps the dullest way to spend six hours I can think of. Ho hum.
Although many King adaptations are to be avoided like a dog turd in the summer, (step forward ‘Firestarter’, which started Drew Barrymore on the long road to rehab) there are some little-known gems worth checking out: Horror fans will appreciate King’s collaboration with George A Romero and Tom Savini on ‘Creepshow’; ‘The Dark Half’ is a low profile suspense thriller and ‘Stand By Me’ staring River Phoenix and Kiefer Sutherland, is one of the best coming of age films ever made.
However, the jewel in King’s crown (excuse the pun) of adaptations must be ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ (1994), arguably the best film of the nineties, and best prison movie ever made. Everyone should see this film, which features superb performances from Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, as well as the best twist this side of ‘The Crying Game’ and ‘Sixth Sense’.
Although the writing future of King himself is hanging in the balance after an accident last year, film production certainly isn’t, however, whether there’ll ever be screen gems like ‘Christine’ or ‘The Mangle’ again only time will tell…
