10 Horrifyingly Underrated Stephen King Adaptations

7. Needful Things

Tommyknockers Stephen King
Columbia Pictures

What The Critics Said:

Roger Ebert wasn’t buying Needful Things, saying ‘it’s not funny and it's not scary and it's all sort of depressing" in his 1991 review.

Why It’s Worth A Watch:

King’s slow-burning nineties doorstop novel begins innocently enough – the devil in disguise opens up a cursed artefact store in Castle Rock, slowly infecting the residents with his must-own items – and ends in one of the author’s maddest of finales, where events go all Gangs Of New York on us constant readers.

The film is largely faithful to what was at the time a well-received novel and there’s no denying that Max Von Sydow was something of a casting coup as shady proprietor Leland Gaunt. Chuck an awards-worthy supporting turn from Amanda Plummer into the deal and this stands as a solid adaptation. Better still though, the finale is suitably crazy and that alone is worth a watch.

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Shaun is a former contributor for a number of Future Publishing titles and more recently worked as a staffer at Imagine Publishing. He can now be found banking in the daytime and writing a variety of articles for What Culture, namely around his favourite topics of film, retro gaming, music, TV and, when he's feeling clever, literature.