There are many great Stephen King books, and a fair few impressive movies based on Stephen King stories, too. That being said, he is a bit of a quantity over quality writer, and some books of his that were either “just” decent or maybe even a little bad have, when adapted, often resulted in movies that are a little bad, or sometimes even terrible, and the ones below are examples of just that.
As a note, this will only focus on feature-length movies that were based on Stephen King stories (though he did also work on the screenplay for a couple of these, and there’s one directorial effort on King’s front here). That means there won’t be any sequels to Children of the Corn, nor any of the somewhat notorious sequels to Pet Sematary, which aren’t really based on King’s stories so much as they “continue” stories already told in movies that were based on Stephen King stories. Get it? Got it? Good.
10
‘Thinner’ (1996)
The books/movies attached to Stephen King’s name that feel B-movie-esque in good ways are usually pretty awesome, but then you have something like Thinner, which just feels too simple and thrown together to really leave any kind of impact. The plot here is more suited to a novella, but it was stretched out into a novel and written under King’s pseudonym, Richard Bachman, and follows a man who keeps getting thinner and thinner because of a curse put on him.
The only interesting thing in Thinner is seeing how the make-up/special effects team will handle the main character getting more and more thin.
The whole movie sees him rushing around, trying to stop or reverse the curse, and the only interesting thing is seeing how the make-up/special effects team will handle him getting more and more thin. That’s about all there is to Thinner, and this is the part where one might say, “Read the book, because the movie ruined it,” but no. The book was a bit underwhelming, and the movie adaptation is similarly just sort of there, existing.
9
‘Maximum Overdrive’ (1986)
This one stands out, as Stephen King actually directed it, and it’s his only feature film, as director, to date. The movie in question is Maximum Overdrive, and it’s wild in ways that are sometimes fun, at least early on, but the whole thing also gets exhausting at a point. At least the premise is easy to summarize, since it’s about a group of people trying to survive a mysterious phenomenon that makes machines come alive and start trying to kill humans.
You get some weird humor that’s intentional, and then Maximum Overdrive is also falling apart a bit on a technical front, so some of the humor ends up feeling a bit unintentional. Still, as a particularly strange B-movie, you might be able to have some fun with it, particularly if you switch your brain almost entirely off, but whether it’s actually “good” feels much harder to argue.
8
‘Pet Sematary’ (2019)
Undoubtedly, Pet Sematary is one of Stephen King’s best books, and often gets called his single scariest one, too. There was a movie made in the late 1980s that wasn’t bad, sort of capturing what the original novel was going for, but not entirely. Certain things weren’t as heavy to watch as they were to read about, and the film was more fairly unsettling rather than outright terrifying.
Still, a fairly good adaptation of a great book isn’t the worst thing in the world, and it is better than a second adaptation, released 30 years later, not adding much at all and only really making things less scary. That’s the case for Pet Sematary (2019), which doesn’t have much of a reason to exist, since the book still holds up incredibly well, and that first major film adaptation still holds up decently, so you’re better off just going with either of them.
7
‘Dreamcatcher’ (2003)
Dreamcatcher is at least an interesting mess, with the emphasis being a little more on “interesting” when it comes to the 2001 book, and a little more on “mess” when it comes to the 2003 film adaptation. Things take place in and around Derry, which is cool, and things are initially intriguing, with the plot following a group of men who’ve been friends since childhood as they encounter life forms of a potentially extra-terrestrial origin while on a hunting trip.
From there, things get a bit strange and feverish, and it’s hard to say if all that confusion was intentional or not. Dreamcatcher is muddled, but you get bursts of energy and entertainment from the novel, and a little of those things from the film… though, in both instances, you have to be fairly patient and accepting of the fact that you might not be entirely satisfied with how King ultimately chose to conclude Dreamcatcher.
6
‘The Lawnmower Man’ (1992)
When it comes to what movies Stephen King doesn’t like, of those adapted from his stories, it turns out there’s some crossover with the movies that might, on a more objective level, be the worst with his name attached to them. Like, he’s spoken out against the film version of The Shining, which takes some liberties with the source material, and that rubbed King the wrong way, but otherwise, most people will hopefully agree The Shining (1980) is a classic.
But as for not-very-good Stephen King movies that the man himself also happens to dislike? The Lawnmower Man might be the best example, with King going to court to ensure his name was removed from the title of the film (just “The Lawnmower Man,” instead of “Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man”). It’s an awkward sci-fi/horror movie that might have some merit if you just want a lot of distinctly ‘90s cheese, but otherwise, maybe it’s best to stay away.
5
‘The Dark Tower’ (2017)
2017’s The Dark Tower isn’t really The Dark Tower. Like, the overall Dark Tower series is lengthy and rather staggeringly ambitious, so a movie was never going to be able to do the series justice. But even if you judge this as an adaptation of the first book in the series, The Gunslinger… well, you can’t, because it’s not even really trying to do that. An adaptation of that book specifically would be difficult to do, but interesting, if attempted.
Instead, The Dark Tower (2017) grabs some elements from the first stretch of the Dark Tower series, all pretty loosely, and skips over some of the most interesting stuff found there (nothing much from The Drawing of the Three, for instance). If you’re not caught up with The Dark Tower, you’ll probably be a bit confused by this movie, and if you are caught up with the long-running Stephen King series, you’ll be disappointed to see what they adapted, and how little material was ultimately thrown into this filmed remix of King’s (arguable) magnum opus.
4
‘Salem’s Lot’ (2024)
If you’re reading Stephen King’s books chronologically (which isn’t a bad idea, considering some books will randomly spoil big things that happened in books he wrote earlier, when they’re not necessarily sequels), then you’ll get to Salem’s Lot pretty early. Also, if you’re just reading Stephen King in a less structured way, there’s still a pretty good chance you’ll get to Salem’s Lot before too long, since it’s often regarded as one of his best novels.
And deservedly so, since it’s a greatly tense slow-burn story about a town that gradually falls under the influence of a growing supernatural threat, to be as vague as possible. It needs all the pages it has to draw out that suspense and make the town feel like a real place, so when it was all condensed in 2024 for a film adaptation that clocks in at under two hours, disappointment was pretty much inevitable.
3
‘Carrie’ (2013)
Reading King’s books in publication order will get you to Carrie before even Salem’s Lot, since Carrie was his first published novel. And then Carrie was also the first Stephen King book to get a movie adaptation, and that movie – released in 1976, directed by Brian De Palma – was pretty great at scratching the same itch the book did. The 2013 remake, on the other hand…
Well, the premise is the same. There’s a girl who’s bullied at school and abused by her mother at home, and then eventually, the strange telekinetic powers she has are used for destructive purposes when all the pressure makes her snap. But the premise being intact does little to make Carrie (2013) worth exploring, especially when that still pretty damn great novel exists, and the De Palma adaptation continues to hold up. It’s a bit like the Pet Sematary (2019) situation, only instead of there being a great novel and a good pre-existing movie out there already, here, there’s a great novel and an already great movie more worthy of your time.
2
‘Firestarter’ (2022)
Straying from the source material in some ways while also misunderstanding what there was to be worked with in other ways, Firestarter (2022) is just an all-around mess. The 1984 version, which is probably best-remembered for being an early starring role for Drew Barrymore, isn’t great by any means, but it looks great when you compare it to the other Firestarter film that came out nearly 40 years later.
There’s a girl who can indeed start fires, and much of the story involves her being on the run with her parents, and… see, that might make it sound interesting, and Firestarter (the book) is pretty interesting. But it’s mishandled in a particularly striking way here, enough so that if someone wanted to argue Firestarter (2022) was among the worst horror movies released in recent memory, it’s unlikely many people would feel enthusiastic enough to mount a defense to such an argument.
1
‘Cell’ (2016)
Everything was in place to ensure Cell was not very good. The source material stands as one of the weaker Stephen King novels, and one that was always going to translate quite poorly from page to screen. It’s pretty far-fetched and strangely-paced on the page, for starters, being about a signal going through everyone’s cell phones and turning them into mindlessly violent creatures, but the book… okay, it’s not good, but it opens well, it’s not too long, and it could’ve been worse. It’s not great, but King has done worse.
A sometimes decent book would have to be reworked pretty skillfully if one wanted to make it into a good movie, and that’s far from what happened with Cell (2016). All the bad parts of the book are made worse here, and the occasional parts that did work aren’t translated well onto the big screen. It’s a zombie movie of sorts that lurches between bad in a funny way and bad in a boring way, and is, to date, probably the worst film adaptation of a Stephen King novel.
Cell
- Release Date
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July 6, 2016
- Runtime
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98 minutes
- Director
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Tod Williams
