Garrett’s Grumblings – My List of Ten Best Stephen King Screen Adaptations Pt 1

With the trailer to the JJ Abrams’ produced adaptation of Stephen King’s 2011 novel 11/22/63 dropping upon us last week, I thought now would be as good a time as any to put together a list of my ten favorite King adaptations. King is a seminal author to me. I have told the story a hundred times of when I was 11 years old and found the novel Cujo on my father’s night stand. A week or so of reading later, I was hooked line & sinker into his world. I have never passed up the opportunity to read his new release or see the adaptations of his work as they premiered. Much like that Bigfoot looking guy who works for this site named Ammon Gilbert, I have been a die hard reader of the man’s work for over a quarter century.

It also so happens that I find 11/22/63, along with Mr Mercedes, to be the best stuff he’s put out this century. So as King so loves to say in his forewords, come with me, Constant Reader, and see if these choices match yours. If they don’t, let me know either here or on the Facebook page.

Honorable Mentions: Dolores Claiborne (1992), The Dark Half (1989), The Good Marriage (2014), It, Apt Pupil (1998). Silver Bullet (1985), and Salem’s Lot (1994)

10) The Shining (1980)

Ok. I sense a trolling right off the bat, so let me explain my position here. Anyone who knows me knows I am not an overt fan of director Stanley Kubrick’s work. I find the man’s films, for the most part, to be laborious wastes of two plus hours each. And honestly, if it wasn’t for the VERY ill advised attempt by King to adapt his precious novel  for TV in 1997, Kubrick’s adaptation would have more than likely been left off this list. However let me tell you why I included it so low here. It is simply because if 1997’s miniseries starring Stephen Weber proved anything, it was that Kubrick’s instincts to ground the author’s original story, about a caretaker who goes crazy and attempts to kill his family, as much as possible was much to its narrative’s gain. For example, could you imagine how silly this movie would have looked had Jack Nicholson been helped by hotel hedge animals as in the novel? If you’re that curious, check out that miniseries. The results are nothing short of hilarious.

Kubrick focused almost all of his film on Torrance and his psyche coming apart at the seams. I know King likes to say that his main gripe with the picture is that we know from the get go that Jack was crazy. That may be so. But it isn’t until we see him at the bar falling off the wagon that we believe he has the capability to let the hotel influence his entire family’s demise. Like him or not, I thought Kubrick did this book right.

9) Cujo (1983)

Ahhh, the one that started it all for a young Garrett Collins. Perhaps non coincidentally, this is another film that tones down the supernatural aspect of the source material. King devotees know that originally, the huge saint bernard title character was possessed by the spirit of renowned killer Frank Dodd. The filmmakers instead start the film off with a title sequence showing this seemingly adorable dog chasing a rabbit and getting bitten by a rabid bat. The film is an odd commodity in that it wants to have its cake and eat it too. As Cujo ramsacks a broken down car containing Donna Trenton (Dee Wallace) and her son Tad (Danny Pintauro of Who’s The Boss?), he gets more and more deteriorated. This would suggest a more supernatural progression of his being than what we are told. Still, there are plenty of tense moments in Cujo, and King has always maintained that Wallace deserved an Oscar nomination for her performance. Speaking of Oscars…..

8) Misery (1990)

I can only imagine what was going through King’s mind when Kathy Bates was announced as the Oscar winner of a role he created. Director Rob Reiner -who we will speak more of later- directed this chilling tale of an author who gets stranded and rescued by a psychotic nurse who wants one thing and one thing only – her beloved character of Misery to make her grand return. The nightmares King must have had -and I can imagine the near experiences too- had to play into the novel’s writing. I remember reading it the Thanksgiving before the movie opened. I was sick as a dog, and the pages were almost turning themselves with how much I was sucked in.

Renowned screenwriter William Goldman (The Princess Bride) adapted the book to page and it was up to Reiner to pull it off onscreen. He got both an at the time unknown Bates and true Hollywood tough guy James Caan to agree to star, and all of a sudden a King adaptation had risen from the depths of Dino de Laurentiis productions and straight into the Hollywood mainstream. One famous omission from the overall mean spirited source material was instead of having antagonist Annie Wilkes cut off Paul Seldon’s foot and burn it with a torch, she would break his ankle with one swing of a sledge hammer. The change was welcomed, and the image of Bates swinging that sledge hammer is embedded in anyone who has seen it’s mind forever.

7) Pet Semetary (1989)

Has there ever been a more fitting Stephen King bit of casting than that of Fred Gwynne as lowly neighbor Jud Crandall? Just thinking of his delivery of the line ‘sometimes, dead is better’ gives me chills. Pet Semetary was a book that King admitted while in the writing process gave him nightmares. The resulting movie, if I can be honest for a second, wasn’t great in terms of filmaking. The acting is at times stiff -that’s putting it nicely- and some of the editing and unraveling family situations would fit better in any soap opera from the time.

What makes Pet Semetary work is its mood. Director Mary Lambert percolates her film with just an overall sense of dread and despair. This mood rescues the film even when it is at its worst. For example, given how it is lazily set up, of course we know that the cat is going to get run over by a truck. The maid, a character I remember playing a bigger role in the novel, is barely here, put in mostly just to say they did. Her one bit of telling little girl -and child of power- Ellie Creed that their cat Church is about to get his ‘nuts cut’ is the one smile I cracked the entire movie. And if it wasn’t for the terrifying images onscreen, Denise Crosby’s account of what happened with her dead sister Zelda would have been Pheobe Cates from Gremlins bad. Still, the movie’s final third is well done, and thanks to Jud’s death, I still check under a bed right before walking next to it barefoot.

6) Christine (1983)

What can I say? I have a soft spot for this oft forgotten gem. One, it is John Carpenter right in his prime. Two, it is Keith Gordon in a truly menacing performance as a teenager who would do anything to protect his ‘girl’ Christine. Oh, did I mention Christine wasn’t a girl, but in fact a car?

The movie made such an impact on me because I was in fact younger than Gordon’s character of Arnie Cunningham when I read the book. And that teen angst, the urge to stick it back to everyone who did me wrong, was persistent in my head. It must be said that once again, a what some King fans call very important aspect of the story that also happened to be supernatural, was left out of the film. That being the car didn’t come off the assembly line evil. It was in fact possessed by the spirit of its previous owner Roland D LeBay.

Myself, I can point to more wrong with the movie version of Christine than that. Like, why does the head bully of this film look older than anyone who works for this site NOW? Why are Alexandra Paul’s line deliveries about as wooden as the burning house from the end of Lethal Weapon 3? But there is also so much to like about Christine. Its at times brilliant use of oldies (‘you can keep on knocking but you can’t come in’), its portrayal of that teenage friendship coming apart at the seams. Yet another infectious 80s Carpenter score. All of this makes Christine well worth a ride.

Well, that does it for now. Come back in a couple days when I finish up this list of my top ten favorite Stephen King adaptations. Until then, I bid you, Constant Reader, goodbye. I’ve always wanted to say that.