Stephen King may be the King of Horror writing, but some of the movies adapted from his stories failed to hit the mark, and they deserve another shot at success. Over the decades, the beloved stories of Stephen King have been frequently adapted for TV and film dozens of times. In fact, some of his stories have even received multiple adaptations expanding the original story, or bringing an older story up to date for modern audiences and horror fans to enjoy.
However, with so many of King’s stories receiving adaptations over the years, there has been a fair share of stories that made absolutely dreadful movies. Whether the budget was too low, the execution was lacking, or the directing was absent from everywhere that it could have benefitted, these films failed to live up to the Stephen King name. Some of these stories are enthralling to read, but seeing them play out with lackluster adaptations need to be remade completely to do the original stories justice.
Needful Things is a film about a man by the name of Gaunt who arrives in a small town in Maine and opens up an antique store. The shop is quaint and immediately draws in customers to peruse the wares provided by Mr. Gaunt. However, the shop is not as it appears, and Gaunt sells these goods for low low prices, and a small favor from the buyer. Over time, Gaunt manages to play the townspeople off of each other and cause complete chaos.
The story appears to be a fairly simple one to adapt, and while the acting and ending were generally favorable, the story was harshly compared to the source material. The story in the book focuses more on relationships between and the evil lurking in the town itself. Many of Stephen King’s novels give voice to powers that exist beyond a single individual and influence those living within its bounds. However, the movie altered the story to make it much shallower, and simply focus on Gaunt as the villain with little nuance.
King is knowledgeable n for writing lengthy stories with incredible detail and exploration throughout. However, when he wrote the screenplay for Sleepwakers, it was likely a much more restrictive process. The film came in at just 91 minutes, and in that short time, the movie starts with a strong and intriguing premise. As the story progresses, the stakes get increasingly confusing and bizarre, and the whole film devolves into a half-baked story.
When two sleepwalkers, or energy vampires are the last of their kind, they do what they must in order to survive. This means finding virgin young girls and feeding off their energy through sensual means. The story showed some genuine promise, and King is known for his ability to expand a story to great lengths. If the movie were remade today, King should definitely build on the narrative he began crafting, but improve on the ending to make this a truly great movie.
Dreamcatcher featured a talented cast including Damian Lewis, Timothy Olyphant, Jason Lee, and Thomas Jane. The story follows four friends who have some psychic abilities they acquired when they were younger. The film also explores sci-fi horror, with a first-contact scenario with body-snatching aliens. However, despite the familiar concepts and the famous faces, the movie failed to earn a decent return, and was ultimately deemed a flop.
The movie was released more than 20 years ago now, and the ability to create aliens and portray psychic powers has increased exponentially. Having this story taken into a modern setting and seeing it explored with greater technological abilities is almost guaranteed to see this movie perform better than the original. The 2003 movie had many of the elements in the right place, but perhaps with better marketing and trailers, the views could have been much higher.
Speaking of having the right elements in place, The Mangler was even more favorably positioned to do something great for horror and Stephen King’s adapted works. The movie was directed by Tobe Hooper, who also directed 1974’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The movie also starred none other than Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund.
Despite the shiny horror pedigree of the movie, The Mangler struggles to make something of its plot and instead creates a hollow story that fails to be taken seriously. It is one of the lowest-rated films in Stephen King’s body of work (via Rotten Tomatoes), and the story failed to engage or scare its audience. The movie does have potential as a horror comedy because of the unusual monster, with outrageous, odd moments that will help to alleviate tension.
Riding the Bullet was originally a novella by Stephen King before the adaptation came out in 2004. The story struggles to find footing, despite wonderful casting, including David Arquette and Jonathan Jackson. The movie is a confusing muddle, with cuts to dreams, the past, and the present throughout, with no real explanations. The supernatural horror clearly had an underlying idea going into the movie, but the execution failed to deliver a coherent story.
However, it would be worth giving this story another chance to be adapted in a way that will live up to the writing of Stephen King, and make something of a lesser-known adaptation. With a more robust script and a shift in the creative direction, there is no reason that Riding the Bullet couldn’t find new life as a clever and creative story with a satisfying twist ending, just as it was originally intended.
Thinner is one of the stories by Stephen King that had a great deal of potential as a commentary on greed and overindulgent lifestyles, but the finished product failed to see the full potential of the story. Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke) is a successful lawyer who is also incredibly obese. Halleck defends some of the worst and most dangerous criminals in Connecticut, but he has no moral qualms about his day job. When he is involved in a traffic accident that results in the death of a Romani Gypsy, Halleck calls in some favors to literally get away with murder.
However, Halleck then has a curse placed on him by the family of the woman he hit with his car, and begins to lose weight at a rapid pace. The issue with the movie is the lack of any character to root for. Everyone involved is murderous, horrible, and willing to go to extremes to get what they want. Recreating the film, there is a lot of room to improve on the 1996 movie and keep the horrifying body horror concept that makes the original a worthwhile watch despite its lack of positive characters.
Graveyard Shift is one of the rare films on Rotten Tomatoes to earn a 0% score, and even more damning, Stephen King himself has stated his disdain for the film (via Deadline). The 1990 film follows a group of employees at a textile mill who happen to be working the graveyard shift when a series of odd occurrences result in the disappearance of some of their colleagues.
The film struggles to effectively build a narrative, with cheap jumpscares, characters that lack character, and a plot that lacks any sense of mystery but if the acting, direction, and script had been fleshed out, there is no reason this could not have been a somewhat decent horror flick. The monster is a scary creature, and there is an attempt to misdirect the characters and the audience from what is behind the killings, but it fails to capitalize on these efforts. If the movie were remade now, with a stronger script, it could redeem the 0% score on the original.
In 1986, Stephen King decided to try his hand at directing one of his own stories and chose to develop a short story that was included in one of his first collections of short stories, Night Shift. When a comet passes over the Earth, a mysterious power causes all electronic equipment to come to life and develop sentience. The film stars Emilio Estevez, and while the movie clearly had numerous faults and errors that could be jotted down to King’s lack of directing experience, it does provide some laughs.
However, King was going for a more straight horror film, and it could be the perfect time to add his second directing credit to his name, and redeem the failed effort almost 40 years later. The biggest criticisms appear to be around the actual directing of the actors, and the coherency of the story, both of which were lacking. The premise, of an overreliance on machines, and the study of what happens if they suddenly turn is actually a powerful concept, but perhaps it’s better for Stephen King to let someone else occupy the director’s chair for a remake.