Yes, I did like “Thinner”, that’s the choice I have to defend the most often. I guess I would put it with “Maximum Overdrive” on the “guilty pleasure” list. “Go away, or I curse you so bad, you think I bless you deh first time!” lol
“Children of the Corn” should probably be in there somewhere around “The Lawnmower Man”. I forgot about it, but it was a pretty forgettable film.
Well, that’s intriguing, let’s see…out of the ones I’ve watched (and only)
First and foremost, all of the adaptions I’ve watched are incomplete in terms of accuracy and I can safely assume this about this on the ones I haven’t seen nor read:
1. Carrie (by far)
.
.
.
2. Christine
3. The Shining
4. The Dead Zone
5. Misery
6. Dolores Claiborne
7. Stand By Me
8. The Shawshank Redemption
9. The Running Man
Then on to the mediocrities:
10. The Stand
11. Cujo
12. The Langoliers
13. The Green Mile
14. It
15. Apt Pupil
16. Children of the Corn
17. Thinner
18. Hearts in Atlantis
Plain bad:
19. Rose Red
20. The Mist
21. The Tommyknockers
I suspect I’ve seen a lot below average King adaptions although I do have some want to sees, mainly for their cult following:
To watch:
Salem’s Lot / Pet Sematary (and because they’re 2 on my top 5 King books I’ve read)
Creepshow
Firestarter
The Dark Half
Needful Things
Great
1) The Shining (’80)
2) Carrie
3) The Shawshank Redemption
4) The Dead Zone
Very Good
5) Creepshow
6) It
7) Misery
8) Stand by Me
9) The Green Mile
10) Christine
Okay
11) Pet Sematary
12) The Stand
13) The Shining (TV)
14) Desperation
15)The Langoliers
16) The Running Man
17) The Dark Half
Poor
18) Firestarter
19) Cujo
20) Maximum Overdrive
The Shining
The Dead Zone
Carrie
Dolores Claiborne
Misery
Creepshow
Stand by Me
The Shawshank Redemption
The Running Man
Christine
Needful Things
Apt Pupil
Firestarter
Maximum Overdrive
Salem’s Lot
Cat’s Eye
The Green Mile
Hearts in Atlantis
Cujo
Pet Sematary
The Lawnmower Man
The Dark Half
The Mist
The Night Flier
Thinner
Film
1.The Shining
2. Carrie
3. Misery
4. The Green Mile
5. Needful Things
6. The Shawshank Redemption
7. Christine
8. Secret Window
9. Creepshow
10. Pet Sematary
11. 1408
12. Stand By Me
13. Dreamcatcher
14. The Dead Zone
15. Firestarter
Television
1. It
2. Salem’s Lot
3. The Langoliers
4. The Tommyknockers
5. The Stand
6. Rose Red
Looking at the list I don’t like a single King adaptation except The Running Man and Pet Semetary
I think Sleepwalkers was also forgotten as well as The Mangler
Pet Semetary gets some props for the the Ramones song if nothing else.
I didnt include Sleepwalkers because it was written directly for the screen, not based upon one of King’s short stories or books, but I thought it was decent. I cheated a little on the list and included Creepshow, even though it was technically not based on a King story either. I wanted to keep it down to 25 choices, so I had to exclude a few things, and there are some films that I havent seen (Secret Garden, Dreamcatcher, 1408) or that I watched the first 5 minutes of and didnt want to see the rest (The Mangler), and there are a lot of the TV films that I havent seen (Rose Red) or that I flat out hated (The Stand, The Shining, It), so I excluded all of that stuff, but cheated a little on my list with Salem’s Lot since it also had a theatrical release. I did like The Langoliers, and The Tommyknockers wasnt too bad. I hope that the rumored upcoming theatrical remake of “The Stand” (in three films, like they did with LotR and Harry Potter) comes together. If done properly, that could be the only one with the potential to unseat “The Shining” from first place on my list, but it would have to be very good indeed. It couldnt be much worse than the crappy TV adaption was.
“and The Tommyknockers wasnt too bad.”
Compare it to the book and yes, it IS that bad!!!
Moreover, The Mist, the film is borderline tragic too because it completely changes the novella’s philosophy by the end. YES, the end alone destroys the film.
Not to the mention that Darabont’s other two adaptions aren’t anything worthwhile since that talentless “director” films like he’s drawn an amateur treasure map, it baffles me that people actually think that Shawshank simplicity is a masterpiece or something and it only goes that high on my list because well….because it’s obvious that there aren’t that many great King adaptations…and when we mean great, we mean 4 stars at least.
Best: The Shining
Worst: Graveyard Shift.
Graveyard shift has made me skeptical of King adaptations, but I’ve seen very few.
I have to pipe up to defend Graveyard Shift, the story and the movie. “Workplace horror” is a genre with few entries, especially that deal experientially with work and not just with it as setting (Alien? The Machinist? Having done some holiday retail, I’d add Silent Night, Deadly Night.) The story exaggerates a shitty work experience and does a nihilistic “revenge on the boss” thing, but the movies “giant rat-thing picks off a cast” plot and equally cartoonish charaters and setting elevate (or degenerate) this into some kind of grimy, sweaty, trailer park satire; it’s like Phillip Dick’s Ubik sans metaphysics.
“Compare it to the book and yes, it IS that bad!!!”
The book was shit too! ;-)
and why are people mentioning Creepshow? he didn’t write it correct? although he does star in it. Dim, Creepshow is a hoot. you should watch it!
ok, i’m just going to rearrange Dim’s list:
1.The Shining
2. Carrie
3. Christine
4.Misery
5.The Dead Zone
6.Pet Cemetary
6.Stand By Me
7. The Shawshank Redemption
8. Dolores Claiborne
9. The Running Man
Can’t be assed with the rest, although i remember thinking that Thinner had a great sense of humour even if iti wasn’t a particularly good film.
damn, screwedthe list:
6.Pet Cemetary
7.Salem’s Lot
8.Stand By Me…
………….
Stephen King did write Creepshow, some of it was written especially for the film, and some of it came from King’s short stories. I liked what they did with “The Raft” in “Creepshow 2”.
^^Creepshow 2=false!@ ;-0
1. The Dead Zone
2. The Shining
3. The Shawshank Redemption
4. The Green Mile
5. Carrie
6. Stand By Me
7. Cujo
8. The Mist
9. IT (TV, but still pretty scary)
10. Pet Semetary (hands down, the best title song)
Creepshow 2 is crap. Not a shred of what made the original work. No heart.
Subterranean Cinema
25 films that were based upon Stephen King stories that I have seen, from Best to Worst. Im not including sequels like “Pet Sematary 2” or “Creepshow 2”, even though I thought C2 was better than the first “Creepshow”. Also, Im not including television adaptions, only theatrical ones, but if I did, there would be several of them at the bottom of the list, especially “The Stand” and King’s “redux” of “The Shining”, both directed by Mick Garris. The last film that I can say I actually enjoyed watching on this list was #17 “The Running Man”, so from 18+ are films that I pretty much disliked, that were either bad adaptions of good stories, or bad stories in badly created films. And yes, I do think that “Stand by Me” (or as I call it, “Bland by Me”) is THE worst King adaption of all. I dont care how many people like it, I hated it.
http://mubi.com/lists/the-cinematic-adaptions-of-stephen-king-best-to-worst
01 – The Shining
02 – The Dead Zone
03 – Christine
04 – Dolores Claiborne
05 – Pet Sematary
06 – The Mist
07 – Thinner
08 – Carrie
09 – Misery
10 – The Shawshank Redemption
11 – Firestarter
12 – The Night Flier
13 – Maximum Overdrive
14 – Salem’s Lot
15 – Creepshow
16 – Cat’s Eye
17 – The Running Man
18 – The Green Mile
19 – Hearts in Atlantis
20 – The Lawnmower Man
21 – Cujo
22 – Apt Pupil
23 – Needful Things
24 – The Dark Half
25 – Stand by Me