10 Stephen King Movies To Watch Before It

10. The Lawnmower Man

Yes, this is the big-budget adaptation of the Stephen King story from Night Shift and no, the story didn’t feature chimps, bad science or Virtual Reality. That’s why King took the producers to court and won.

The Lawnmower Man was a big hit in 1992, when it seemed that VR would be an integral part of our lives, but a quarter of a century later the effects and ideas are outrageous enough to make this a must see for fans of “so bad it’s good” cinema. Used as a guinea pig by scientist Pierce Brosnan, Jeff Fahey develops psychic and telekinetic powers that, in a plot turn pilfered from King’s novel Firestarter, bring a shadowy organization known as The Shop after him and Brosnan.

This only angers Fahey, who takes on all-comers (including with a flying lawnmower) before entering cyberspace, where he manifests himself as a cross between Max Headroom and Freddy Krueger. Throw in Geoffrey Lewis with a hysterically unconvincing Oirish accent, a sinister cabal of bald men who plot World Domination from inside a windowless bunker plus enough cheesy effects for at least three SyFy movies and you have a movie that’s unlike any other.