Stephen King is behind a mᴀssive quanтιтy of movies, some of which bear only a pᴀssing resemblance to his original works. One of the greatest authors of all time, Stephen King’s bibliography is simply mᴀssive in its number of stories, many of which have been reimagined in a variety of movie and TV adaptations. While some of the best Stephen King movies follow the script of their source material quite closely, many of them do a terrible job translating King’s work to the screen.
Stephen King has allowed his name to be attached to a great number of projects running a wide gamut of quality, from cheap made-for-TV specials to major blockbuster films. Many of the best Stephen King movies use his original writing as a close guide, but others are more apt to start almost from scratch, merely using King’s name to increase their own notoriety. Regardless of how good or bad they are, many films crediting Stephen King for inspiration fail to live up to their literary counterparts.
9
The Running Man
Totally Transforms Its Lead Protagonist
Far from one of the best Arnold Schwarzenegger action movies, The Running Man is a dimly-remembered sci-fi romp outclassed by peers like Total Recall and Commando. The 1987 film posits Arnold as an ex-soldier who is forced to partake in a dystopian reality TV show in which condemned criminals, called “Runners”, have to escape death at the hands of state-sanctioned ᴀssᴀssins. The movie is quite groundbreaking for its time, ironically walking so that future films like The Hunger Games could run.
As an adaptation, however, the film falls very short. While both stories use the same basic premise, the book’s protagonist has a much more wholesome reason for participating in the games, and is far from the muscular action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger presents as. Instead, the novel’s scrappy hero relies far more on his brains than his brawn, and the mistranslation of this crucial element of the story leaves 1987’s The Running Man feeling distinctly not like a Stephen King story.
8
Graveyard Shift
Openly Disliked By King Himself
It says a lot that King’s work is so prolific that even his short stories are worthy of movie adaptations in their own right, even if they aren’t usually done justice. Enter Graveyard Shift, a 1990 film based on the short story of the same name from King’s classic collection of tall tales, Night Shift.
Openly disliked by King as an adaptation, Graveyard Shift is perhaps proof that not every story with King’s name on it necessarily needs its own movie.
The film concerns a group of blue-collar workers who are sent to eliminate a vicious rat problem at an old textile mill, only to encounter a bat-like monster behind the infestation. In the original story, the monstrous mutant rats are given a far wider variety of frightening forms, explained to have a more eusocial quality to their primitive society that the film glosses over.
The movie spends more time attempting to develop the names King briefly mentions, but their attempts fall flat, resulting in cardboard-thin clichés that only exist to die one at a time. Openly disliked by King as an adaptation, Graveyard Shift is perhaps proof that not every story with King’s name on it necessarily needs its own movie.
7
The Lawnmower Man
Is Unrecognizable From Its Source Material
If there’s one movie infamous for its utterly alien relationship to its supposed inspiration, it’s The Lawnmower Man. Stephen King’s original short story is a bizarre little saga, telling a brief campfire tale of a man who is killed by a literal lawnmower after witnessing a bizarre human incarnation of an ancient forest spirit. Meanwhile, the film centers on an intellectually disabled gardener who is experimented on with virtual reality by a mad scientist, inflicting all sorts of man-man horrors beyond comprehension on him.
Because of the mᴀssive disparity between the original story and the film, Stephen King infamously sued The Lawnmower Man to have his name struck from the credits, wanting nothing to do with the movie. Considering its horrible early usage of CGI and nonsensical plot, this was a smart career move by King, who was successful in his lawsuit. There’s no doubt that The Lawnmower Man takes the crown as the single most unfaithful Stephen King “adaptation”.
6
Maximum Overdrive
A Hilarious Failure Helmed By King Himself
Stephen King himself has only directed a single film based on his own work, the disastrously bad Maximum Overdrive. While King is undisputedly a brilliant writer, this single directorial effort was enough to ensure he never sat in a director’s chair again. The plot very loosely follows that of his short story Trucks, in which a gas station full of people are held hostage by a group of sentient semi-trucks. The film expands the idea further, explaining that all artificial technology on the planet is coming to murderous life due to the effects of a mysterious comet.
Maximum Overdrive is completely removed from Trucks in tone, the latter being quite a bleak and depressing short. Meanwhile, Maximum Overdrive is clearly the result of a drug-fueled bender that has relentless energy, from the hilarious deaths to the blaring AC/DC soundtrack to the sudden appearance of a young Giancarlo Esposito before he became famous. Even if it is a ton of fun to watch, Maximum Overdrive is undeniably terrible as both an adaptation and as a film in general.
5
The Dark Tower
Butchered An Epic Saga Into A Pathetic Single Film
Perhaps the magnum opus of Stephen King’s bibliography, the Dark Tower series is an expansive fantasy masterpiece that spans a hefty nine novels, which only get longer as the series continues. The books follow the gunslinger Roland and his allies on their quest for the тιтular Dark Tower, a mysterious obelisk at the center of existence.
To truly do the series justice, an adaptation of the Dark Tower books would either have to be a sprawling multi-film series on the level of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or simply a long-running TV show. Sadly, the disastrously bad 2017 movie attempted to squeeze the entire story into a single feature-length film.
As if the piecemeal representation and reshuffled events of the film weren’t bad enough, The Dark Tower is rated PG-13, totally undermining many of the series more adult and often horrific chapters. Hopefully, the upcoming Dark Tower TV series helmed by experienced King adaptation director Mike Flanagan can finally do the series justice in live-action.
4
The Langoliers
Was Too Cheap For Its Ambitious Source Material
One of the many made-for-TV two-part movies made in Stephen King’s name, The Langoliers is an infamous example of a film that bit off more than it could chew. Based on the excerpt of the same name from another of King’s short story novellas, Four Past Midnight, The Langoliers tells the story of a plane full of people who land at an airport only to find it mysteriously abandoned. They soon realize they’ve somehow arrived at a point outside the flow of time, and face being devoured by the monstrous Langoliers.
The Langoliers is one of the most ambitious and esoteric Stephen King stories to ever be adapted. While the film actually does follow the plot of the original story somewhat closely, the made-for-TV budget simply doesn’t have the firepower to make the тιтular beasts anything close to frightening. As a result, the Langoliers appear as a flying horde of meatball-shaped blobs that crudely hover through the air in one of the roughest examples of early digital effects around.
3
Cell
Fumbled A Great Concept
Cell is one of the most creative and chilling ideas for an apocalypse Stephen King has ever had, ripe for an adaptation that could have made it one of the best zombie movies ever. The story unfolds when a mysterious signal broadcast across the world suddenly turns everyone who happened to be using a cellphone at the time into a vicious animalistic killer devoid of human thought.
The events of the story differ quite heavily in the movie, showing protagonist Clay go on a much shorter journey compared to the cross-country trek of Clay from the book.
Other than sharing this basic premise, the 2016 film has little in common with the book. The events of the story differ quite heavily in the movie, showing protagonist Clay go on a much shorter journey compared to the cross-country trek of Clay from the book.
The film also settles on a much more grim downer ending compared to the more vague resolution of the books, doing even less to explain the behavior or properties of the infected swathes of humanity. Stripped of most book-accuracy, Cell is simply left with two tired performances from John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson that fail to spur any interest.
2
The Boogeyman
Dumbed Down Its Nightmarish Creature
The concept of the boogeyman is an almost ancient ritual that exists in many cultures, being a blanket term for any kind of unseen monster that terrorizes children specifically. Stephen King’s short story The Boogeyman expands on the mythos, following a couple whose two previous children died under mysterious circumstances after yelping the phrase “Boogeyman!”. As their third child comes home, the couple are once again plagued by the seemingly cursed spirit set on destroying their family.
A film based on the book released without much fanfare in 2023, having little to do with the supposed source material. 2023’s The Boogeyman only references the events of the book in pᴀssing as the history of the monster is unraveled for a whole new set of characters. Yet this boogeyman is an entirely different creature with a whole other M.O. compared to the short story, a generic jumpscare monster that doesn’t hold a candle to the chilling intelligence of the creature described in Stephen King’s work.
1
The Shining
Proof That King’s Work Is Sometimes Better With Some Adjustments
The Shining perhaps proves that being a good movie and a good adaptation are two very different things, being one of the best horror movies of all time while deviating quite heavily from Stephen King’s original book. Both stories follow the Torrance family as they spend winter in the profanely haunted Overlook H๏τel, which eventually causes husband Jack Torrance to attempt to murder his family. Visionary director Stanley Kubrick leaves out a few odd details from the book, such as hedge sculptures that come to life.
However, the biggest deviation is the source of the horror itself. The book posits that Jack is a good man with issues who is taken advantage of and possessed by the Overlook H๏τel, whereas the movie suggests that the haunting was a mere excuse for the man to live out his true twisted fantasies. Famously, Stephen King hates Kubrick’s The Shining for this change, clearly identifying with Jack as a self-insert. Regardless, there’s no denying that The Shining is one of the greatest films based on Stephen King‘s work, even if it is only loosely.
