10 Horrifyingly Underrated Stephen King Adaptations
Unloved and in need of a reappraisal.
Check Reddit or an entertainment site for a top ten list of the best Stephen King adaptations ever and the chances are 2017's I.T. has floated to the top. Soon to be usurped by what is shaping up to be a chilling looking sequel. Before that, the usual suspects were The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. All good movies, for sure, but where's all the pulpy goodness?
Stephen King is an author renowned for grimy, scary and gory horror novels. So the best takes on his works should follow the same aesthetic, right? This is where this list comes in.
We're here to celebrate the B-movie brilliance of King's lesser-loved adaptations, ones that got a critical mauling at the time and, in the case of many entries on this upcoming list, some that the author has washed his hands of completely.
These are the movies that take you back to the dimly-lit video sections at the back of your local Spar store, where box art with a ghoul on the cover was enough to make you part with a quid. They may not all be pretty, and some may boast unbelievable special effects (not in the good sense), but by golly these are the King movies that will take you in a ghost train-like journey that's well worth the price of admission.
10. Maximum Overdrive
What The Critics Said:
The New York Times called this ‘one long car-crunch movie and, come Razzie nomination time, both King and Emilio Estevez received nominations in Worst Director and Actor categories, respectively.
Why It’s Worth A Watch:
King has since advised that he has no recollections of making Maximum Overdrive, so hectic was his cocaine habit at the time the shoot whizzed by in a blur and the finished result was a genre flick deemed a car crash by critics.
But where the plot may be lacking in horsepower – it’s very, very loosely based on Night Shift’s ‘Trucks’ – you’ve got a cracking cameo from King and his wife to kick off proceedings, a creepy ice cream van and lots of vehicle on vehicle smash-ups to break up the plot.
Credit where credit’s due, it’s a near miracle a single reel of film was shot for this movie so for every breakneck turn in plot or iffy performance try and forget the flaws and revel in the carnage.