Stephen Kingis behind a massive quantity of movies, some of which bear only a passing resemblance to his original works. One of the greatest authors of all time,Stephen King’s bibliographyis simply massive in its number of stories, many of which have been reimagined in a variety of movie and TV adaptations. While some of the best Stephen King movies follow the script of their source material quite closely, many of them do a terrible job translating King’s work to the screen.
Stephen King has allowed his name to be attached to a great number of projects running a wide gamut of quality, from cheap made-for-TV specials to major blockbuster films. Many of thebest Stephen King moviesuse his original writing as a close guide, but others are more apt to start almost from scratch, merely using King’s name to increase their own notoriety. Regardless of how good or bad they are,many films crediting Stephen King for inspiration fail to live up to their literary counterparts.
9The Running Man
Far from one of thebest Arnold Schwarzenegger action movies,The Running Manis a dimly-remembered sci-fi romp outclassed by peers likeTotal RecallandCommando.The 1987 film posits Arnold asan ex-soldier who is forced to partake in a dystopian reality TV showin which condemned criminals, called “Runners”, have to escape death at the hands of state-sanctioned assassins. The movie is quite groundbreaking for its time, ironically walking so that future films likeThe Hunger Gamescould run.
The Running Man
Cast
The Running Man is a dystopian action film set in a 2017 totalitarian state where the government uses deadly game shows to control the populace. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as a framed convict navigating the lethal challenges of the televised spectacle The Running Man, hosted by the relentless Damon Killian.
As an adaptation, however, the film falls very short. While both stories use the same basic premise, the book’s protagonist has a much more wholesome reason for participating in the games, and is far from the muscular action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger presents as. Instead,the novel’s scrappy hero relies far more on his brainsthan his brawn, and the mistranslation of this crucial element of the story leaves 1987’sThe Running Manfeeling distinctly not like a Stephen King story.
8Graveyard Shift
Openly Disliked By King Himself
It says a lot that King’s work is so prolific that even his short stories are worthy of movie adaptations in their own right, even if they aren’t usually done justice. EnterGraveyard Shift,a 1990 film based on the short story of the same name from King’s classic collection of tall tales,Night Shift.
Openly disliked by King as an adaptation,Graveyard Shiftis perhaps proof that not every story with King’s name on it necessarily needs its own movie.
The film concerns a group of blue-collar workers who are sent to eliminate a vicious rat problem at an old textile mill, only to encounter a bat-like monster behind the infestation.In the original story, the monstrous mutant rats are given a far wider variety of frightening forms, explained to have a more eusocial quality to their primitive society that the film glosses over.
Graveyard Shift
Graveyard Shift is a horror film based on Stephen King’s short story of the same name. The film follows John Hall, who takes a job at a decrepit textile mill and discovers that the basement is infested with deadly rats. As he investigates further, he uncovers a monstrous creature lurking in the subterranean depths. Brad Dourif and David Andrews star in this chilling adaptation directed by Ralph S. Singleton.
The movie spends more time attempting to develop the names King briefly mentions, but their attempts fall flat, resulting in cardboard-thin clichés that only exist to die one at a time. Openly disliked by King as an adaptation,Graveyard Shiftis perhaps proof that not every story with King’s name on it necessarily needs its own movie.
7The Lawnmower Man
Is Unrecognizable From Its Source Material
If there’s one movie infamous for its utterly alien relationship to its supposed inspiration, it’sThe Lawnmower Man.Stephen King’s original short story is a bizarre little saga, telling a brief campfire tale of a man who is killed by a literal lawnmower after witnessing a bizarre human incarnation of an ancient forest spirit. Meanwhile, the film centers on an intellectually disabled gardener who is experimented on with virtual reality by a mad scientist, inflicting all sorts of man-man horrors beyond comprehension on him.
The Lawnmower Man
In the sci-fi movie The Lawnmower Man, a scientist uses virtual reality and psychoactive drugs to enhance the intelligence of a simple-minded gardener, but the experiment goes terribly wrong. Pierce Brosnan stars as Dr. Lawrence Angelo with Jeff Fahey as Jobe Smith.
Because of the massive disparity between the original story and the film,Stephen King infamously suedThe Lawnmower Manto have his name struck from the credits, wanting nothing to do with the movie. Consideringits horrible early usage of CGI and nonsensical plot, this was a smart career move by King, who was successful in his lawsuit. There’s no doubt thatThe Lawnmower Mantakes the crown asthe single most unfaithful Stephen King “adaptation”.
6Maximum Overdrive
A Hilarious Failure Helmed By King Himself
Stephen King himself has only directed a single film based on his own work, the disastrously badMaximum Overdrive. While King is undisputedly a brilliant writer, this single directorial effortwas enough to ensure he never sat in a director’s chair again. The plot very loosely follows that of his short storyTrucks, in which a gas station full of people are held hostage by a group of sentient semi-trucks. The film expands the idea further, explaining that all artificial technology on the planet is coming to murderous life due to the effects of a mysterious comet.
Maximum Overdrive
Written and directed by Stephen King, Maximum Overdrive is a 1986 horror movie about a group of people who are trapped at a truck stop when all the machines in the world, including trucks, cars, and lawn mowers, become sentient and homicidal.
Maximum Overdriveis completely removed fromTrucksin tone, the latter being quite a bleak and depressing short. Meanwhile,Maximum Overdriveis clearly the result of a drug-fueled bender that has relentless energy, from the hilarious deaths to the blaring AC/DC soundtrack to the sudden appearance of a young Giancarlo Esposito before he became famous. Even if it is a ton of fun to watch,Maximum Overdriveis undeniably terrible as both an adaptation and as a film in general.
5The Dark Tower
Butchered An Epic Saga Into A Pathetic Single Film
Perhaps the magnum opus of Stephen King’s bibliography, theDark Towerseries is an expansive fantasy masterpiece that spans a hefty nine novels, which only get longer as the series continues. The books follow the gunslinger Roland and his allies on their quest for the titular Dark Tower, a mysterious obelisk at the center of existence.
Every Stephen King Movie Ranked, From Worst To Best
Stephen King is one of the most adapted authors of all time, and the bestselling horror writer has over 50 movies released to his name.
To truly do the series justice, an adaptation of theDark Towerbooks would either have to be a sprawling multi-film series on the level of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or simply a long-running TV show. Sadly, the disastrously bad 2017 movie attempted to squeeze the entire story into a single feature-length film.
The Dark Tower
Idris Elba, Tom Taylor, Claudia Kim, and Matthew McConaughey star in The Dark Tower, a Western Sci-Fi film directed by Nikolaj Arcel. Released in 2017, The Dark Tower follows a young boy with visions of an apocalyptic future in which a powerful man, dubbed The Man in Black, lays waste to the universe. The film is based on the Stephen King book series.
As ifthe piecemeal representation and reshuffled events of the filmweren’t bad enough,The Dark Toweris rated PG-13, totally undermining many of the series more adult and often horrific chapters. Hopefully, theupcomingDark TowerTV serieshelmed by experienced King adaptation director Mike Flanagan can finally do the series justice in live-action.
4The Langoliers
Was Too Cheap For Its Ambitious Source Material
One of the many made-for-TV two-part movies made in Stephen King’s name,The Langoliersis an infamous example of a film that bit off more than it could chew. Based on the excerpt of the same name from another of King’s short story novellas,Four Past Midnight,The Langolierstells the story of a plane full of people who land at an airport only to find it mysteriously abandoned. They soon realize they’ve somehow arrived at a point outside the flow of time, and face being devoured by the monstrous Langoliers.
The Langoliers
In The Langoliers, a 1995 miniseries based on Stephen King’s novella, ten passengers on a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston awaken to find themselves in a deserted world. As they navigate this mysterious and seemingly abandoned reality, they must uncover the truth behind their predicament while racing against time and the ominous threat of the Langoliers. Directed by Tom Holland, the miniseries stars Patricia Wettig, Dean Stockwell, and David Morse.
The Langoliersis one of the most ambitious and esoteric Stephen King stories to ever be adapted. While the film actually does follow the plot of the original story somewhat closely,the made-for-TV budget simply doesn’t have the firepower to make the titular beastsanything close to frightening. As a result, the Langoliers appear as a flying horde of meatball-shaped blobs that crudely hover through the air in one of the roughest examples of early digital effects around.
3Cell
Fumbled A Great Concept
Cellis one of the most creative and chilling ideas for an apocalypse Stephen King has ever had, ripe for an adaptation that could have made it one of thebest zombie moviesever. The story unfolds when a mysterious signal broadcast across the world suddenly turns everyone who happened to be using a cellphone at the time into a vicious animalistic killer devoid of human thought.
The events of the story differ quite heavily in the movie, showing protagonist Clay go on a much shorter journey compared to the cross-country trek of Clay from the book.
Other than sharing this basic premise,the 2016 film has little in common with the book. The events of the story differ quite heavily in the movie, showing protagonist Clay go on a much shorter journey compared to the cross-country trek of Clay from the book.
Cell
Cell is a 2016 science fiction horror film directed by Tod Williams and based on the novel by Stephen King. Starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, the film follows a graphic novelist who bands together with a group of survivors after a mysterious signal broadcast over the cellular network turns most of humanity into mindless, violent savages. As they navigate a dystopian landscape, they strive to find safety and answers.
The film also settles on a much more grim downer endingcompared to the more vague resolution of the books, doing even less to explain the behavior or properties of the infected swathes of humanity. Stripped of most book-accuracy,Cellis simply left with two tired performances from John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson that fail to spur any interest.
2The Boogeyman
Dumbed Down Its Nightmarish Creature
The concept of the boogeyman is an almost ancient ritual that exists in many cultures, being a blanket term for any kind of unseen monster that terrorizes children specifically. Stephen King’s short storyThe Boogeymanexpands on the mythos, following a couple whose two previouschildren died under mysterious circumstances after yelping the phrase “Boogeyman!”. As their third child comes home, the couple are once again plagued by the seemingly cursed spirit set on destroying their family.
The Boogeyman
The Boogeyman is a 2023 film directed by Rob Savage and starring Madison Hu, Vivien Lyra Blair, and Sophie Thatcher. The release is based heavily on Stephen King’s short story of the same name. The director intends to warp the story enough to be somewhat different from the 1973 release.
A film based on the book released without much fanfare in 2023, having little to do with the supposed source material. 2023’sThe Boogeymanonly references the events of the book in passing as the history of the monster is unraveled for a whole new set of characters. Yetthis boogeyman is an entirely different creaturewith a whole other M.O. compared to the short story, a generic jumpscare monster that doesn’t hold a candle to the chilling intelligence of the creature described in Stephen King’s work.
1The Shining
Proof That King’s Work Is Sometimes Better With Some Adjustments
The Shiningperhaps proves that being a good movie and a good adaptation are two very different things, being one of the best horror movies of all time while deviating quite heavily from Stephen King’s original book. Both stories followthe Torrance family as they spend winter in the profanely haunted Overlook Hotel, which eventually causes husband Jack Torrance to attempt to murder his family. Visionary director Stanley Kubrick leaves out a few odd details from the book, such as hedge sculptures that come to life.
However,the biggest deviation is the source of the horror itself. The book posits that Jack is a good man with issues who is taken advantage of and possessed by the Overlook Hotel, whereas the movie suggests that the haunting was a mere excuse for the man to live out his true twisted fantasies. Famously,Stephen King hates Kubrick’sThe Shiningfor this change, clearly identifying with Jack as a self-insert. Regardless, there’s no denying thatThe Shiningis one of the greatest films based onStephen King’s work, even if it is only loosely.
