Top 10 Stephen King Films

No living author has seen their work adapted for the screen more frequently than Stephen King. So, with Doctor Sleep currently keeping viewers awake at nights, we survey the features that have been made from the King of Horror's writings since 1976.

Forty-seven years have passed since Stephen King published his first novel. Since then, he has completed 60 more (seven under the name Richard Bachman) and nearly 250 short stories. In total, his books have sold over 350 million copies worldwide. The Internet Movie Database gives King 313 writing credits, with 29 of them being released in 2019 alone. There are another 25 in various stages of production. So, who is this one-man movie machine and why does he have such a firm grip on the global imagination?

A Bit About the Man Himself

Stephen Edwin King was born on 21 September 1947 in Portland, Maine. He and his older brother, David, were raised by their mother, Nellie, after their seaman father left home when Stephen was two. Forced to move around a lot, the family often found itself on the breadline. But the siblings were resilient types and, when David founded a homemade magazine in the early 1960s, Stephen started contributing stories.

These early offerings were largely inspired by HP Lovecraft and EC horror comics. But King has since revealed that his other major influences include Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Elmore Leonard, Joseph Payne Brennan and John D. MacDonald, whose novel, The Executioners, was filmed as Cape Fear by J. Lee Thompson (1962) and Martin Scorsese (1991). Cinema Paradiso has numerous titles bearing the signatures of Matheson, Bradbury and Leonard available to rent. Simply type their names into the Search line and take your pick.

After graduating from the University of Maine, King started teaching. However, he continued to write stories, which appeared in a range of adult magazines into the early 1970s. While living in a trailer and using a typewriter borrowed from his wife, Tabitha Spruce, he also worked on four novels before Doubleday agreed to publish Carrie in 1973. Though delighted, King was somewhat surprised, as Tabitha had retrieved the first pages from a wastepaper basket. Indeed, King later confided, 'my considered opinion was that I had written the world's all-time loser'.

In fact, the epistolary story of a tormented high-school misfit whose life in small-town Maine changes when she discovers that she has telekinetic powers quickly found an audience. It also drew detractors, however, and was banned from schools in certain parts of the United States because of its unflinching content. Naturally, this gave the book a certain cachet and its popularity increased further after Carrie was adapted for the silver screen by Brian De Palma in 1976.

Before we move on to our survey of the films and television programmes adapted from King's works, we should pause to ponder his alter ego. In 1982, King began to wonder whether fans were buying his books because of his name as opposed to the calibre of the material. He decided, therefore, to publish Different Seasons under the nom de plume Richard Bachman, a surname he chose in honour of the Canadian rock band Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Despite the ruse being rumbled by Washington, DC bookstore clerk, Steve Brown, King published a number of other tomes under his assumed name. Moreover, he has amused himself and devotees by unearthing supposedly lost manuscripts after Bachman succumbed to 'cancer of the pseudonym'. He even played a cleaner from Crescent City named Bachman in the 2010 'Caregiver' episode of the third season of Sons of Anarchy (2008-14).

In addition to the occasional cameo appearance in front of the camera, King has also dabbled in the world of cartoons. After The Shining, Time and Punishment and Nightmare Cafeteria had been parodied in the 'Treehouse of Horror V' episode of The Simpsons (1994), King himself guested at the Springfield Festival of Books in 'Insane Clown Poppy' (2000). Not to be outdone, Seth MacFarlane had the Griffins re-enact Stand By Me, Misery and The Shawshank Redemption in the 'Three Kings' episode of Family Guy (2009).

Intriguingly, one story from the Different Seasons quartet had always been ignored by film-makers, while 'The Body', 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption' and 'Apt Pupil' were adapted into hit movies. But it has been announced that 'The Breathing Method' will finally make the transition from page to screen after Scott Derrickson (whose horror credential include The Exorcism of Emily Rose, 2005) completes a second sojourn in the Marvel Cinematic Universe directing the sequel to Doctor Strange (2016).

Hollywood Latches On

Stephen King has never been shy about commenting on the films that have been made of his stories. He paid Brian De Palma's Carrie (1976) a backhanded compliment when he described it as better than the book, but 'not Casablanca, or anything'. Few pictures can match Michael Curtiz's 1942 wartime masterpiece, but De Palma channelled his inner Alfred Hitchcock to create a chilling rite of passage. Rather than spawn a King screen craze, however, the picture stood in glorious isolation for the remainder of the decade, with only Tobe Hooper's tele-adaptation of Salem's Lot (1979) for company.

While this unsettling two-part tale of everyday vampires was playing in American living-rooms, Stanley Kubrick was preparing his version of The Shining (1980) with such meticulous mastery at Elstree Studios that Rodney Ascher made the documentary Room 237 (2012) to explain his approach. King was not a fan, however, and, in 1997, he wrote the teleplay for Mick Garris's three-part return to the Overlook Hotel, Stephen King's The Shining. Running for 260 minutes, the action was photographed at the very Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado that had given King the inspiration for his 1977 novel.

A year after making his acting debut as Hoagie Man in Knightriders (1981), an Arthurian satire on Ronald Reagan's America, King hooked up again with director George A. Romero for Creepshow (1982). Inspired by his love of EC Comics, this anthology saw King write original material for the screen for the first time. While 'Weeds' and 'The Crate' were adapted from previously published work, 'Father's Day', 'The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill' and 'Something to Tide You Over' were entirely new, as was the prologue featuring King's son Joe as a boy being upbraided by his father for wasting his time with comic-books. King himself took the role of Jordy Verrill, although the picture is best remembered for effects maestro Tom Savini's Crate Monster.

Despite his success, King was not in a good place during this period, as he battled an addiction to drink and drugs. He has been quoted as saying that he doesn't remember writing Cujo, but he has nothing but praise for Dee Wallace's performance as Donna Trenton in Lewis Teague's 1983 feature version. Settling in Castle Rock with her husband, Vic (Daniel Hugh-Kelly), and their son, Tad (Danny Pintauro), Donna's hopes of leading a wholesome small-town existence after leaving the bustle of New York are threatened by the maraudings of a St Bernard dog that has been bitten by a rabid bat.

The same New England burg provides the setting for The Dead Zone (1983), which represented a marked change of direction for 'body horror' specialist, David Cronenberg. Later that year, another film-maker with a proven horror track record took the reins for Christine. John Carpenter made an indelible mark in 1978 with Halloween, however, King wasn't entirely sure that he was the right man for the job, but he put a very American spin on the auto horror sub-genre.

King Kerching

Following this momentous year, King found himself in august company alongside John Cheever, Robert Bloch and Clive Barker in the TV series, Tales From the Darkside (1984-88), which was produced by George A. Romero. In 1990, King again rubbed shoulders with greatness in Tales From the Darkside: The Movie, as the opening segment 'Lot 249' was adapted from a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. King's contribution, 'The Cat From Hell', was directed by Romero and turns on the conviction of the wheelchair-bound Drogan (William Hickey) that he is being stalked by a black cat in revenge for the fact that his pharmaceutical company had once killed 5000 cats while testing a new drug.

There had also been a feline emphasis in Cat's Eye (1985), a triptych directed by Lewis Teague that added the original story, 'General', to the previously published 'Quitters, Inc.' and 'The Ledge', which respectively see a tabby tomcat fetch up at a smoking clinic in New York and an Atlantic City skyscraper before it faces off with an evil garden troll in Wilmington, North Carolina.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves, as, back in 1984, a franchise was about to be launched. Based on a story that had been published in Penthouse, Fritz Kiersch's Children of the Corn was produced by Roger Corman's New World Pictures and took King into the realm of screen exploitation for the first time. At its core, are Vicky Baxter (Linda Hamilton) and her boyfriend, Burt Stanton (Peter Horton), who get waylaid in Gatlin, Nebraska en route to Seattle. What follows is a state of the nation treatise presented as a slasher, as the outsiders fall foul of juvenile religious cult leader Isaac Chroner (John Franklin) and his bloodthirsty henchman, Malachai Boardman (Courtney Gains).

King wasn't entirely enamoured of the results, but it rang enough till bells for a slew of derivative sequels that included David Price's Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1992), James Hickox's Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1995), Greg Spence's Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996), Ethan Wiley's Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998), Kari Skogland's Children of the Corn 666: Isaac's Return (1999), Guy Magar's Children of the Corn: Revelation (2000) and Joel Soisson's Children of the Corn: Genesis (2011).

King has distanced himself from these pictures and he wanted little more to do with Mark L. Lester's Firestarter (1984), which the author deemed to be as flavourless as 'cafeteria mashed potatoes'. This seems a little harsh, however, as Drew Barrymore is genuinely disconcerting as Charlene McGee, the nine year-old whose pyrokinetic powers have a weaponised potential that prompts the government to abduct her. However, Captain James Hollister (Martin Sheen) and Dr Joseph Wanless (Freddie Jones) from the Department of Scientific Intelligence (aka 'The Shop') are desperate to keep Charlie out of the wrong hands and send Agent John Rainbird (George C. Scott) to retrieve her. In 2002, Marguerite Moreau took on the part of the adult Charlie, as she relies on prognosticating professor James Richardson (Dennis Hopper) to keep her one step ahead of the scarred Rainbird (Malcolm McDowell) in Robert Iscove's Firestarter 2: Rekindled.

Despite having won Oscars for his effects in John Guillermin's King Kong (1976), Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) and Stephen Spielberg's ET the Extraterrestrial (1982), Carlo Rimbaldi caused a huge row between King and producer Dino De Laurentiis with the lycanthrope suit he produced for Silver Bullet (1985). Caught in the crossfire, director Don Coscarelli resigned and this adaptation of Cycle of the Werewolf was completed by Dan Attias. However, he made a decent fist of showing how the residents of Tarker's Mill, Maine join paraplegic Marty Coslaw (Corey Haim) and his Uncle Red (Gary Busey) in ridding the town of howling predators. The best sequence, however, sees the Reverend Lester Lowe (Everett McGill) imagining the worst of his congregation.

Having had qualms about a number of adaptations, King decided to call the shots himself on Maximum Overdrive (1986), which he adapted from the short story, 'Trucks'. Unfortunately, he drew a Razzie nomination for Worst Director, while Emilio Estevez was cited in the Worst Actor category for his performance as Bill Robinson, a short-order cook at the Dixie Boy Truck Stop near Wilmington, North Carolina that is besieged by rampaging machinery after a rogue comet passes close to the Earth. Estevez is upstaged, however, by an 18-wheel truck with a Green Goblin mask on its grille.

Wisely, King left the directing to Rob Reiner on Stand By Me (1986), which earned Bruce A. Evans and Renold Gideon an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and made stars of its young leads, River Phoenix, Wil Wheaton, Corey Feldman and Jerry O'Connell. This is rightly regarded as one of the best adaptations of a King text, but the same can't be said for Michael Gornick's Creepshow 2 (1987). Two of the stories in this second collection, 'Old Chief Wood'nhead' and 'The Hitchhiker' were developed by George A. Romero and Lucille Fletcher from King outlines. Only 'The Raft' was adapted from a finished story and it's by far the best entry, if only for the black blob monster designed by Howard Berger that waits to pick off the four college kids who are stranded on a wooden platform in the middle of a seemingly idyllic lake. In 2007, Ana Clavell and James Dudelson paired to make Creepshow 3, but its five stories have nothing to do with either EC Comics or Stephen King.

The next King adaptation shouldn't be confused with Carol Reed's teasing Spanish thriller, The Running Man (1963), which sends insurance agent Alan Bates after grieving widow Lee Remick and her supposedly dead husband, Laurence Harvey. Directed by Paul Michael Glaser, The Running Man (1987) was a Bachman opus that imagined the United States as a totalitarian police state in 2019 after a major economic collapse. In order to entertain the masses, the ICS network has devised a game show that offers convicts their lives if they can survive being pursued by a crack team of hunters. Framed for a massacre, ex-cop Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) takes on the challenge in a game zone situated in an earthquake-stricken part of Los Angeles.

George A. Romero initially acquired the rights to Pet Sematary, but he was forced to relinquish them in order to make Monkey Shines (1988). Ultimately, King himself wrote the screenplay and Mary Lambert directed with a fine sense of the sights and sounds of Ludlow, the sleepy Maine town in which doctor Louis Creed (Dale Midkiff) settles with his wife, Rachel (Denise Crosby), and their children, Ellie (Blaze Berdahl) and Gage (Miko Hughes). They learn from neighbour Jud Crandall (Fred Gwynne) that their property abuts a pet cemetery that has been created on a Mi'kmaq tribal burial ground. Thus, when the Creeds bury Church the cat after it's run over on Thanksgiving, they unleash some unspeakably evil forces.

The Mixed Bag Decade

The 1990s saw some of the most memorable Stephen King adaptations, as well as some of the more forgettable. But one viewer's classic is another's turkey and Cinema Paradiso wouldn't have it any other way. For example, there are those who regard Ralph S. Singleton's Graveyard Shift (1990) as a formulaic creature feature, while others see it as a biting satire on capitalism. The setting is the Bachman Mill in a small town in Maine (it was actually filmed in Harmony - nice touch), where John Hall (David Andrews) and Jane Wisconsky (Kelly Wolf) find themselves dealing with a rat infestation in the basement. It may not be the most complex premise, but it does boast some phobia-inducing rodents and Brad Dourif as scenery-gnawing exterminator, Tucker Cleveland.

While fanboys were debating the merits of King's opus, the Academy was awarding the Oscar for Best Actress to Kathy Bates for her performance as superfan Annie Wilkes in Rob Reiner's darkly comic and fiendishly perturbing, Misery (1990). The year's final adaptation took King back to the small screen for Tommy Lee Wallace's two-part take on It, which featured a terrifying turn by Tim Curry as Pennywise the clown. Staying on the small screen, Tom McLoughlin's underrated version of Sometimes They Come Back (1991) was based on a story that King had published in Cavalier magazine. Five years later, Adam Grossman concocted a variation on this plot in Sometimes They Come Back... Again, but King had nothing to do with it.

While the original Sometimes has its adherents, Brett Leonard's The Lawnmower Man (1992) incurred a powerful enemy in King himself, who sued to have his name removed from the title. In fact, Leonard and producer Gimmel Everett had set out to make a film called Cyber God. But they were persuaded by New Line Cinema to incorporate elements of King's story because the company held the rights. Future James Bond Pierce Brosnan stars as Dr Lawrence Angelo, who coaxes gardener Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey) into having his mental capacity increased by 400%. Three decades ago, the Virtual Reality effects were state of the art. Now they look creakily quaint, although techsploitation aficionados will still be enchanted.

While he was trying to ignore this creature over which he had lost all control, King set about writing his first original screenplay. Directed by Mick Garris, Sleepwalkers (1992) follows werecats Mary (Alice Krige) and Charles Brady (Brian Krause) to the small Indiana town, where they hope to find some virginal victims. However, Charles's classmate, Tanya Robertson (Mädchen Amick), proves to have a tenacious hold on her life force. Moreover, she has also discovered that the bloodsucking Bradys are fatally susceptible to cats.

The following year saw the release of George A. Romero's The Dark Half. In fact, this teasing treatise on pseudonyms had been completed in 1990 and was left on the shelf while Orion Pictures wrestled with some cash flow issues. Timothy Hutton excels in the dual role of literary novelist Thad Beaumont and George Stark, the pulp-penning alter ego who takes on a life of his own after his creator decides to kill him off. Michael Rooker co-stars as Alan Pangborn, the Castle Rock sheriff called in to investigate when Beaumont's associates start dying in sinister circumstances.

In a neat twist, this law-enforcing role would pass in Fraser C. Heston's Needful Things (1993) to Ed Harris, who is married to Amy Madigan, who had played Beaumont's imperilled wife, Liz. This was another project that suffered from teething problems, as the current feature was edited down from a four-hour miniseries. But, while the excisions disrupted the flow of the storylines, there's still much to intrigue, as Pangborn and fiancée Polly Chambers (Bonnie Bedelia) cross swords with Leland Gaunt (Max von Sydow), the owner of a curiosity shop who sells people treasured items in return for them pranking one of their neighbours. The insidiously imposing Von Sydow is one fine form, while Amanda Plummer proves edgily sharp as Nettie Cobb. Devotees, however, would love another glimpse at the lost original.

The Poster Boy of Horror

There is a clutch of contenders for the best adaptation of a Stephen King story and Frank Darabont's The Shawshank Redemption (1994) is among the front runners. Darabont had famously bought the rights to 'The Woman in the Room' for $1 in 1983 and King had been so taken with the resulting short and its neophyte director that he opted not to cash the $5000 cheque that Darabont wrote for 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption'. The rest, as they say, is history. King himself thought the script was too wordy. But his pleasure at its success can be summed up by the fact that he had Darabont's original cheque framed and returned as a seal of approval.

George A. Romero had markedly less luck in 1990 when he tried to persuade King to part with the rights to The Stand, as the author had ambitious plans of his own for this chilling tale of a pandemic that wipes out all but 6% of the global population. Consequently, he entrusted Mick Garris with directing the four-part saga that clocks in at six hours. This may not be the best time to watch such an apocalyptic vision, but its study of selfishness and sacrifice might just offer some hope in these bleak days.

If you're more in the mood for bloody mayhem, then you need to add Tobe Hooper's The Mangler (1995) to your Cinema Paradiso wishlist. Yet another story to be culled from the fabled Night Shift collection, this is more of a gorefest than other King adaptations and it all begins when Sherry (Vanessa Pike) cuts herself and some blood falls on to the folding machine at the Blue Ribbon Laundry owned by her uncle, Bill Gartley (Robert Englund). A series of mysterious deaths follows, however, and Detective John Hunton (Ted Levie) arrives to investigate as the body count rises.

Back in 1995, writer-director Tom Holland took a crack at turning 'Four Past Midnight' into The Langoliers. The tone is very different in the last King adaptation released in 1995, as Taylor Hackford's Dolores Claiborne is more of a psychological thriller than a nail-chewing chiller. Switching between the present and 1975, Tony Gilroy's potent screenplay centres on the relationship between Dolores Claiborne (Kathy Bates) and her estranged journalist daughter, Selena St George (Jennifer Jason Leigh). She hasn't spoken to her mother in years. But, when Dolores is accused of killing her wealthy employer, Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt), the locals on Little Tall Island reach their verdict before any trial can begin because rumours start circulating that Dolores already has blood on her hands after having killed her husband, Joe (David Strathairn) two decades earlier.

Christopher Plummer's veteran cop reinforces the quality of the performances and the acting is also the strong suit of Tom Holland's Thinner (1996), a body horrific take on a 1984 Richard Bachman bestseller. But the bleak humour of the source also comes through in Holland and Michael McDowell's screenplay, as obese lawyer Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke) accidentally runs into a pedestrian while celebrating the acquittal of gangland boss, Richie 'The Hammer' Ginelli (Joe Mantegna). Calling in favours from his friends in the legal establishment, Halleck walks free from court. However, 109 year-old Gypsy, Tadzu Lempke (Michael Constantine), wants justice for his dead daughter and places a curse on Halleck that causes him to shed weight with alarming rapidity.

There's an old-fashioned feel about the set-up in Mark Pavia's The Night Flier (1997), which could have come from any 1940s Hollywood crime B. However, cynical Inside View reporter Richard Dees (Miguel Ferrer) doesn't head to an airfield in Wilmington to track down a crook in a fedora and trenchcoat. He's on the tail of Dwight Renfield (Michael H.Moss), a murderous pilot who also happens to be a vampire. Julie Entwisle plays scoop-seeking rookie reporter Katherine Blair in this low-budget HBO offering, which genre specialists will recognise owes a debt to Tod Browning's Dracula (1931), as the character of Renfield was played by Dwight Frye.

In 1998, King was hired by series creator Chris Carter to write the 'Chinga' episode for the fifth season of The X-Files (1993-2018). However, his sojourn in cult television failed to find critical favour and King returned to the surer ground with Bryan Singer's Apt Pupil (1998). That said, bringing this novella from the Different Seasons collection to the screen had been anything but easy. In the early 1980s, both James Mason and Richard Burton had died shortly after being approached to play Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander. Moreover, a shortage of funding had caused Alan Bridges to stop filming after 10 weeks in 1987, despite Nicole Williamson co-starring effectively with Rick Schroeder as Todd Bowden, the California high school student who discovers that kindly neighbour Arthur Denker was once an SS Sturmbannführer. When Singer contacted King with a speculative script and a print of his unreleased sophomore outing, The Usual Suspects (1995), the author was so impressed that he sold the rights for $1. Ultimately, Ian McKellen and Brad Renfro took the leading roles and their efforts were widely lauded. Not everyone bought the ending, however.

As the millennium drew closer, King teamed with director Craig R. Baxley on Storm of the Century (1999), an original three-part miniseries that takes viewers back to Little Tall Island for a tale of invidious demons. Possession also plays a part in Katt Shea's The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999), which takes us back to the Bates High School, where Sue Snell (Amy Irving) is now working as a counsellor after witnessing the shocking events involving classmate Carrie White. What she doesn't know, however, is that outcast Rachel Lang (Emily Bergl) is Carrie's paternal half-sister and this can only mean trouble for Eric Stark (Zachery Ty Bryan), the jock who drove Rachel's best friend to suicide. Given that Shea had only a week to prepare after predecessor Robert Mandel quit over creative differences, this is a more than a passable sequel.

If King's century seemed in danger of petering out, Frank Darabont salvaged the situation with his three-hour adaptation of The Green Mile (1999), which was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay. Michael Clarke Duncan also earned a Best Supporting Actor nod for his moving portrayal of John Coffey, a child murderer awaiting execution at the Cold Mountain Penitentiary in 1930s Louisiana, whose healing powers change the lives of those awaiting the end and those guarding them. King teased Darabont that he had created a feel-good Death Row weepie, but admitted to having no problem with his approach because 'I am a sentimentalist at heart.'

Old Themes For a New Century

While the rest of the world was busy looking forward, the first Stephen King adaptation of the new millennium, Scott Hicks's Hearts in Atlantis (2001), harked back to 1960 for a little discomfiting nostalgia. Taking his cues from the short stories, 'Low Men in Yellow Coats' and 'Heavenly Shades of Night are Falling', screenwriter William Goldman takes photographer Bobby Garfield (David Morse) back to his hometown of Harwich, Connecticut for a friend's funeral. But he's soon thinking back to his childhood when Bobby (Anton Yelchin) had lived with his self-absorbed mother, Liz (Hope Davis), who rents a room to Ted Brautigan (Anthony Hopkins), who confides in the 11 year-old that he has psychic powers that make him a target for the mysterious 'Low Men'.

While Craig R. Baxley's Rose Red (2002) and its prequel, The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer (2003), were joined on the small screen by Michael and Shawn Piller's spin-off series, The Dead Zone (2002-05), which cast Anthony Michael Hall as Johnny Smith, cinemagoers were trying to make heads or tails of Lawrence Kasdan's Dreamcatcher (2003). Co-scripted by William Goldman, the alien-infested action flips between a childhood act of heroism that saw four Maine kids bestowed with telepathic powers and a hunting trip that reunites teacher Gary Jones (Damian Lewis), psychiatrist Henry Devlin (Thomas Jane), car salesman Pete Moore (Timothy Olyphant) and slacker Beaver Reece (Jason Lee) with Duddits Cavell (Donnie Wahlberg), whom they had once rescued from bullies.

King considered the film to be 'a train wreck', but it has acquired a cult following over the years, as has David Koepp's Secret Window (2004), which was adapted from the novella, Secret Window, Secret Garden. Of course, it helps to have Johnny Depp playing Mort Rainey, a blocked writer who seeks solace from his imminent divorce from Amy (Maria Bello) in a remote cabin beside Tashmore Lake in upstate New York. However, he soon finds himself under attack from John Shooter (John Turturro), who has come from Mississippi to accuse Rainey of plagiarising his short story, 'Sowing Season'.

In addition to Mikael Solomon's remake of Salem's Lot, 2004 also saw King create Kingdom Hospital for television. Nodding in the direction of Lars von Trier's The Kingdom (1994), this series was directed by Craig R. Baxley. And another trusted old hand, Mick Garris, returned for Riding the Bullet, which is set in 1969 and was based on the 2000 novella that was the first that King had published online. Having survived a suicide bid, Alan Parker (Jonathan Jackson) turns down the chance to see John Lennon live - the very gig recorded by DA Pennebaker in John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band: Sweet Toronto (1969) - Parker decides to hitchhike back to Lewiston, Maine after hearing that his mother is unwell. However, accepting a lift from the seemingly resurrected George Staub (David Arquette) quickly comes to seem like a bad idea.

Garris also helmed the 2006 teleplay, Stephen King's Desperation, while divers hands were responsible for the eight episodes in Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King (both 2006). The following year saw a return to the big screen with Mikael Håfström's 1408 (2007), which derives from an audiobook story and follows paranormal investigator Mike Enslin (John Cusack) to the Dolphin Hotel on New York's Lexington Avenue. He has been warned not to enter Room 1408 and manager Gerard Olin (Samuel L. Jackson) confirms that 56 people have committed suicide within its walls. But the sceptical Enslin is determined to shatter the myth and he refuses to be intimidated, in spite of the eerie repeated playings of 'We've Only Just Begun' by The Carpenters.

There are those who can't believe that 13 years have passed since Frank Darabont last directed a Stephen King picture. He has the rights to both 'The Monkey' and The Long Walk. But, for now, we shall have to make do with the memory of The Mist (2007), another film that will strike some as essential viewing during the current crisis and others as something to put by for another day.

The story is set in Bridgton, Maine and accompanies painter David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his eight year-old son, Billy, to the local supermarket after their house is damaged during a storm. They notice a mist rolling in and think nothing of it until they realise it has enveloped the store and is providing cover for some hideously predatory monsters. Amidst hints of an accident relating to Project Arrowhead at the nearby military base, the shoppers begin to make increasingly rash decisions, as the ultra-religious Mrs Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) begins to attract a fanatical following and teacher Amanda Dumfries (Laurie Holden) and assistant shop manager Ollie Weeks (Toby Jones) inform Drayton of their firearms expertise.

Imagine Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) with Pterodactyl-like creatures and you get something of the gist of this pessimistic apocalyptic parable. King applauded Darabont for his reworked ending to the 1980 novella, but he has kept his counsel where Jeff Beesley's Dolan's Cadillac (2009) is concerned. This take on a short story from the Nightmares and Dreamscapes collection was released directly to disc and one suspects that only King completists will feel compelled to see what happens when Las Vegas history teacher Tom Robinson (Wes Bentley) seeks revenge on gangster Jimmy Dolan (Christian Slater) after he murders Robinson's wife, Elizabeth (Emmanuelle Vaugier), for witnessing a desert execution.

The King Renaissance

King's 2005 novel, The Colorado Kid, provided the inspiration for the TV series, Haven (2010-15), while a 1998 tome lured Pierce Brosnan into the Kingdom for Mick Garris's two-parter, Bag of Bones (2010). Staying on the small screen, the Maine town of Chester's Mill goes into involuntary lockdown in Under the Dome, which ran for 39 episodes over three seasons between 2013-15. But we finally return to the cinema screen for Kimberly Peirce's 2013 reboot of Carrie, which eventually pitted Chloë Grace Moretz in the title role after King had suggested Lindsay Lohan. Julianne Moore was cast as her fearsome mother, Margaret, while Portia Doubleday (Chris Hargensen), Alex Russell (Billy Nolan) and Gabriella Wilde (Sue Snell) completed the line-up alongside Judy Greer, who plays teacher Rita Desjardin, who had been renamed Miss Collins when Betty Buckley had played her in Brian De Palma's 1976 original.

A quarter of a century had passed since King had written his last film script and he drew on a story from the 2010 Full Dark, No Stars collection for Peter Askin's A Good Marriage (2014). Darcy (Joan Allen) has been married to Portland accountant Bob Anderson (Anthony LaPaglia) for 27 years and has always considered him to be a doting husband and father. However, she discovers that rare coins are not his only vice when she finds an S&M magazine among his belongings. Moreover, she makes a shocking discovery that casts doubt over how well she actually knows the man with whom she has shared her life.

Notwithstanding the simmering premise, the film failed to find critical favour and, despite the fact that it was produced by Jason Blum for his emerging Blumhouse company, Peter Cornwell's Mercy (2014) was also unfavourably compared to 'Gramma', which had been directed by Bradford May for a 1986 episode of The Twilight Zone (1985-88). The story is pretty much the same, as single mother Rebecca McCoy (Frances O'Connor) comes to stay in Castle Rock with sons Buddy (Joel Courtney) and George (Chandler Riggs) and the latter forges a disconcertingly close bond with Mercy (Shirley Knight), the grandmother he suspects is a witch.

Those in the know reckon that King has been better served by television than film in recent times. Among the shows available from Cinema Paradiso are Mikael Solomon's Big Driver (2014) and 11.22.63 (2016-17), which was produced by star James Franco and executive produced by JJ Abrams. The latter was also behind Castle Rock (2018-) but as the 2010s ebbed away, the big screen started to see something of a King renaissance.

In truth, the first step forward was more of a step back and a stumble. Soon after King's novel was published in 2006, Eli Roth had been announced as the director of Cell. However, the project lingered in limbo for seven years after he left citing creative differences and it was only after Tod Williams signed up to direct that 1408 co-stars Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack agreed to reunite as train driver Tom McCourt and artist Clay Riddell, who join forces after a freak pulse turns the world's mobile phone users into rabid killers. Conscious of the criticism of his original ending, King and co-scenarist Adam Alleca devised a new denouement. But, despite praising the tense set-up, reviewers of the VOD release were largely unimpressed by the way this zombie rampage panned out, as Riddell picks his way across New England to reach his estranged wife, Alice (Isabelle Fuhrman).

The consensus on The Dark Tower (2017) was that a TV distillation of the eight-strong novel series might have worked better than this continuation feature. Once again, the project had been entangled in development hell after JJ Abrams and Ron Howard had tried to mount adaptations in 2007 and 2010 respectively. The latter stayed on in a producing capacity, while Danish director Nikolaj Arcel revised the concept with veteran screenwriter Akiva Goldsman to pit Last Gunslinger Roland Deschain (Idris Elba) and his sidekick, Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), against The Man in Black, Walter Padick (Matthew McConaughey), who is intent on toppling the eponymous edifice that sustains the universe. Few were convinced by the shuttlings between Mid-World and modern-day New York, but rumours abound that a tele-prequel is in the pipeline.

Just as Kingophiles were beginning to wonder where the next worthwhile movie adaptation was going to come from, however, Argentinian director Andrès Muschietti delivered It (2017). He was busy making his feature debut, Mama (2013) when screenwriter David Kajganich started work on précising the 1100-page novel in 2010. But his efforts proved in vain, although successor Cary Fukunaga managed to retain a credit alongside Chase Palmer and Gary Dauberman on the finished film, which still harks back to the late 1980s, but departs significantly from Tommy Lee Wallace's 1990 mini-series by suggesting that the adult inhabitants of Derry, Maine have the same potential for evil as Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgård), who is able to confront people with their deepest fears. Moreover, Muschietti places a Stand By Me-like emphasis on the bond that unites the members of The Losers' Club.

He also packs in the shriek-inducing jolts that saw the picture gross $700 million worldwide in becoming the most commercially successful horror film of all time. Despite the odd grumble about the CGI effects, the critical response was also positive and it came as no surprise that Muschietti was entrusted with It: Chapter Two (2019). Some big names were corralled to play the Losers: Jessica Chastain (Beverly), James McAvoy (Bill), Bill Hader (Richie), James Ransone (Eddie), Isaiah Mustafa (Mike), Jay Ryan (Ben) and Andy Bean (Stan). But, in ramping everything up to blockbuster proportions, the sequel set in 2016 misses some of the intimacy of its predecessor. It still demands to be seen, however, and you won't rest easily until you know how it all ends.

That's what Cinema Paradiso is for, of course. So, while you're adding this landmark duology to your wishlist, why not click on Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer's Pet Sematary (2019), which will transport you to a sleepy corner of Maine for a bold variation on the original novel that sees screenwriter Jeff Buhler depart from the King template to reduce the pathos and crank up the terror. That said, the focus still falls on doctor Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), who settles in Ludlow with his wife, Rachel (Amy Seimetz), and their children, Ellie (Jeté Laurence) and Gage (Hugo and Lucas Lavoie). They learn from neighbour Jud Crandall (John Lithgow) that their property abuts a pet cemetery that has been created on a Mi'kmaq tribal burial ground. Thus, when the Creeds bury Church the cat after it's run over on Thanksgiving, they unleash some unspeakably evil forces. With Alyssa Brooke Levine playing Rachel's tragic sister, Zelda, this makes for a fascinating contrast with Mary Lambert's 1989 King-scripted version.

'This is a scary movie,' King told his Twitter followers. 'Be warned. You might consider skipping this movie if you have heart trouble.' He didn't issue a health warning when tweeting about Mike Flanagan's Doctor Sleep (2019), but he did call it 'immersive' and recommended it to all fans of The Shining and The Shawshank Redemption. The former provides the starting point for the plotline, which Flanagan concocted after Warner Bros had failed to find funding for either Akiva Goldsman's take on King's 2013 novel or Mark Romanek's prequel, Overlook Hotel, which had been due to recycle 'Beyond the Play', a prologue that had been cut from the 1977 edition of The Shining. Critics extolled the way in which Flanagan reconciled King and Kubrick's conceptions of the material, while also fashioning a chilling story of his own. He was indebted to some exceptional production values and a fine cast led by Ewan McGregor. But, most crucially. Flanagan has set the bar high for the 17 King adaptations currently in various stages of development.