SerHaHa Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 No love for "The Stand" from 90s TV with Gary Sinese et al? I quite liked that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manhole Eunuchsbane Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 6 minutes ago, SerHaHa said: No love for "The Stand" from 90s TV with Gary Sinese et al? I quite liked that. Gobbo loves it. M-O-O-N. That spells the Walking Dude. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 Absolutely The Dead Zone. Great flick. King was also highly involved with Creepshow, which is one of my favorites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myshkin Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 5 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said: Gobbo loves it. M-O-O-N. That spells the Walking Dude. Incorrect. I love Denim Randy. The Stand is just okay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaime L Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 Shawshank Redemption will always stand alone. After that it's The Shining and Stand By Me. Pet Sematary is also a lot of fun. IT is fun too, just unintentionally. On the other end of the spectrum is The Stand which is his best book and worst adaptation my miles. 6 minutes ago, Myshkin said: Incorrect. I love Denim Randy. The Stand is just okay. Bold gambit by the miniseries suggesting that the personification of evil will shop exclusively at JC Penney. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myshkin Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 9 minutes ago, Jaime L said: Bold gambit by the miniseries suggesting that the personification of evil will shop exclusively at JC Penney. Fortune favors the bold, and this gambit paid off in spades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calibandar Posted June 2, 2016 Author Share Posted June 2, 2016 12 hours ago, SerHaHa said: No love for "The Stand" from 90s TV with Gary Sinese et al? I quite liked that. No, that was truly awful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 I liked both Salem's Lot adaptations a lot. I also remember digging Maximum Overdrive but it's been like thirty years since I saw it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manhole Eunuchsbane Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 5 minutes ago, Writhen said: I also remember digging Maximum Overdrive but it's been like thirty years since I saw it. I love that last scene where one of the actors is pumping gas for the trucks, and as the camera shot pulls back, it shows a line of trucks and cars that stretches back for miles and miles. Pretty fucking bleak. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 12 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said: I love that last scene where one of the actors is pumping gas for the trucks, and as the camera shot pulls back, it shows a line of trucks and cars that stretches back for miles and miles. Pretty fucking bleak. I think it did have a The Mist-style ending like "oh, and BTW, everyone's f**ked", yeah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manhole Eunuchsbane Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 Just now, Writhen said: I think it did have a The Mist-style ending like "oh, and BTW, everyone's f**ked", yeah. Yeah, I think most of his best stuff has an unhappy ending, as most true Horror should. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted June 2, 2016 Share Posted June 2, 2016 6 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said: Yeah, I think most of his best stuff has an unhappy ending, as most true Horror should. ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbunting Posted June 3, 2016 Share Posted June 3, 2016 I have only read a few of his books but have seen a lot of the movies. My clear favorite is Shawshank Redemption. No other even comes close, one of my favorites by anyone. 2nd tier IT - Cujo - Green Mile - Stand by me 3rd tier Running man - Maximum Overdrive - Pet cemetary best of the rest Carrie - Misery - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted June 3, 2016 Share Posted June 3, 2016 I'll third Shawshank Redemption. It's not even a close contest for the #1 spot. After that, I'd go with Green Mile, The Shining, Dead Zone, Apt Pupil, The Storm of the Century, and 1408. Carrie and Misery are both reportedly really good, but I haven't seen them yet (and the novel version of Misery was so creepy to read that I don't really want to watch the movie). 1. Pet Sematary was very good considering the inherent troubles in adapting it. The novel is very much about what happens inside Louis Creed's mind, about how his genuine grief and feelings are warped into something horrible. That was always going to be a tough sell for film adaptation, but they did pretty good with it. 2. Dreamcatcher has a weird SF-ish charm to me, and I liked watching it even though it's bad (although the novel it's based on is definitely not one of King's best works). It's the same reason why Children of the Corn was good - both of them made good schlock movies. 3. I'm very divided on The Mist. It's well-directed, well-acted, good visuals, and the ending is an absolute emotional gut-punch. But at the same time, that ending is so harsh I literally can't imagine watching it again. 4. I vehemently disagree with that listicle's opinion of Storm of the Century. I loved it, I though it was creepy, and Colm Feore was good in it. Plus it had an interesting twist on how King usually does horror. 5. I didn't care for IT (the gap between the mini-series and book in quality is just too severe), but I really liked the Shining mini-series. Jamey Sheridan's Flagg is just so goddamn creepy for me - he nails the way Flagg has the awful grinning horror coupled with a very "Americana" look (pity they had to cheese it up with a terrible demon head mask at times). 6. 1408 is just great. Seriously, it's a damn good horror movie, and some great solo acting from John Cusack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Writhen Posted June 3, 2016 Share Posted June 3, 2016 I thought the It TV movie was pretty good overall. I also like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining adaptation, though SK reportedly doesn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spring Bass Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 King didn't care for the Kubrick adaptation, so they did another mini-series which was supposedly more true to the book (and which was reportedly terrible). My only concern is that Nicholson's Jack Torrance comes across as a slightly unbalanced asshole from early on, so it's not as much of a tragedy when he goes fuck-nuts because of the haunted house. Book-Torrance was a more interesting variety of bad person. As schlocky and awful as it is, I really enjoyed watching The Langoliers. It's just so strange and off-putting, making it effective horror even if it's almost comically bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancerman Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 8 hours ago, Writhen said: I thought the It TV movie was pretty good overall. I also like Stanley Kubrick's The Shining adaptation, though SK reportedly doesn't. It suffers primarily because the story is set up to have the children and adult narratives to occur side by side, that way the surprises and revelations were kept in tact and the themes of the novel juxtaposed. It's one of the reasons why people always preferred the first half. Because you saw the kids already go through everything. In the book you literally find out what the hell happened in the sewer right before the adults go into battle with it. It's a different experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris the Blade Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 My favorites are (no specific order) The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Stand By Me, Dead Zone, The Mist and 1408. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red snow Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 I quite enjoyed his creepshow anthology film at the time. I think king appeared in one of the segments as a main character. IT terrified me as a child and I'm not sure whether it was the fact clowns are intrinsically creepy or that film made me suspicious of clowns. I can still see It staring from the gutters. I guess with The Stand and Dark Tower both featuring Mconaughey there's a chance for them to do a King cinematic universe? I don't know if the rights belong to multiple companies or not but it would be fun going forward to try and tie them into Dark Tower where possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Quork Posted July 6, 2016 Share Posted July 6, 2016 I've read all of Stephen King's books (some I love, some I like, some not so much) but I rarely like the adaptations that I've seen (and I haven't seen all of those on this list). In fairness, they are difficult to adapt when so much horror is expressed from our own imaginations, I think, and the sheer scale of some of the "grand" books, like The Stand and The Talisman would be difficult to translate to screen. Favourites: The Dead Zone (with Christopher Walken); Carrie (Sissy Spacek); Shawshank Redemption; Stand By Me; Misery. Good parts, but not favourite adaptations: The Shining (but Shelley Duvall - no, nope, stop it); It (Pennywise scared the bejebus out of me); The Green Mile (I enjoyed it but it felt really cheesy at times). A lot of the TV adaptations have been a bit of a snore, like The Stand and Under the Dome. I quite enjoyed 11.22.63 that was on recently, although obviously it was pared to the bone so I still prefer the book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.