It
really says a lot about a person when they are their own genre of storytelling.
Think about that: Stephen King is one of those very rare—as in, maybe four or
five authors, tops—who have such consistent draw that they are household names.
Not just any household, either, but every household. Try this: next time you’re
at your grandparents’ house and they are regaling you with the saga of the
latest bunion on their foot, wait for them to finish and then say, “Jeez,
Grams, that was more horrifying than a Stephen King story,” and see if they
don’t immediately know what you mean by that.
King’s
prodigious output also accounts for a list of movies nearly as long, and while
the quality of the aforementioned movies and books varies greatly, both
subjectively and objectively, there are a number of great Stephen King movies
that have been accidentally made out of their literary counterparts. Granted,
there are also some god-awful ones, too, but we’re not here to talk about Maximum Overdrive…or Firestarter…or The Tommyknockers…or…you get the idea. For the purposes of this
list, we’ll focus on the ones that cleaved most closely to the books and were
also scary or horrific in some way. That’s why you won’t see Stand By Me or The Shawshank Redemption on this list, as great as they are.
