“Some people say I have the heart of a child, I do, it’s in a jar on my desk.” Stephen King
The late 1970s heralded a major shift in the horror film genre. The 1974 release of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had considerably upped the shock value ante and increasingly desensitised audiences had shown that they wanted more plasma for their buck. Many US horror filmmakers had taken Tobe Hooper’s prescient ‘homicidal maniac’ baton and run with it – to varying degrees of success. In films ranging from mainstream horror, such as the Friday the 13th series and the Halloween series to the more underground horror/splatter films that would later filter into the UK market as ‘video nasties’ – such as I Spit on Your Grave, The Burning (co-written by one Harvey Weinstein) and Abel Ferrara’s Driller Killer, Wes Craven’s Last house on the left, The Hills Have Eyes and Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead.
The horror genre was to undergo a major expansion and reach an even wider movie going public. The repetitive ‘deformed psychopath dismembering naked co-eds’ formula was soon to be rendered obsolete and wouldn’t enjoy a major revival until the 1990s with Wes Craven’s Scream. A literary phenomenon was about to establish a firm grip around the throat of horror filmmaking and shake it for all the change it could.
In 1976, author Stephen King’s bestseller Carrie was brought to the screen by a young filmmaker named Brian DePalma. It told the story of Carrie White, a naive, withdrawn girl raised in isolation by her psychotically religious mother. Carrie horrifically experiences her first period in the school showers and her terrified, naive reaction causes her to become the designated subject of derision by her venal fellow students. A prank designed to humiliate her at the school prom turns into a nightmare as latent telekinetic powers within Carrie take hold with shocking consequences.
Carrie showed that horror films could be more emotional, more intelligent and a lot more disturbing than the cheap slasher thrills of yore. Filmmakers around the world took notice of King’s take on horror and the rich, screen-friendly characterisations and stories that would became the hallmark of all his works.
Television came calling shortly after Carrie and a mini series of King’s bestselling Salem’s Lot was in production by 1979, helmed by Texas Chainsaw Massacre‘s Tobe Hooper. At the same time, in Elstree Studios in London, England legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick had been busy shooting his version of The Shining (starring Jack Nicholson) since 1978. Ostensibly Kubricks’ most commercial film and arguably King’s best book, it tells the story of a former schoolteacher-turned-writer named Jack Torrence (Nicholson) and his young family who become caretakers for a remote haunted hotel in the Rocky mountains. Isolation, malevolent spirits and mental disintegration soon send Jack into a homicidal frenzy.
The film raked in a respectable $75 million at the U.S box office, making it one of Kubrick’s most commercially prosperous films. It has since justifiably gained cult status. King was an outspoken critic of Kubrick’s version, mainly because it omitted a large portion of the original novel’s plot. However the sense of palpable dread and terror created by Kubrick in The Shining remains unmatched by any other horror film before or since. King executive-produced a stunningly inferior version as a mini series for television in 1997.
King’s own desire to see his works translated to screen more accurately has led him to executive produce serialised television versions of his more popular books, all to varying degrees of success. He collaborates mainly with filmmaker Mick Garris who has directed most of the made-for-tv adaptations, with King as producer. Like the upcoming Desperation and Ride The Bullet and the made-for-television The Shining, The Stand & Quicksilver Highway – a collaboration that was instigated in 1992 when Garris directed the feature film Sleepwalkers from a screenplay penned by King.
The biggest drawbacks of King’s creative involvement in these adaptations are twofold: King is afforded indulgence, which leads to overly lengthy dramas where dynamism and originality is sacrificed in order to adhere as closely as possible to the source material. The second drawback is that King just isn’t very good as a filmmaker. His 1986 directorial debut Maximum Overdrive (based on his short story Trucks, which depicts a world where servile machines come alive and turn on humans) starred a young Emilio Estevez and fizzled at the box office.
The best King adaptations have occurred when the author turns his stories over to uniquely voiced filmmakers and screenwriters, who bring their own interpretations of the material and allow it to take on a life of it’s own.
This was first exemplified with Kubrick’s startling vision of The Shining, which some critics opined was better than the book it was based on. The next was in 1983, when a young underground filmmaker named David Cronenberg (who had just broken through with his film Scanners and the surreal Videodrome) turned his extraordinary eye and penchant for ‘body horror’ towards The Dead Zone, King’s story of a school teacher (played by the always excellent Chris topher Walken) who gains the ability to foresee the future after a car crash and five years in a coma. Despite the rather fantastic nature of the material, Cronenberg imbues the film with a sense of realism and a depth of character that renders it utterly compelling, right up until its violent denouement. It remains one of Cronenberg’s best films, fusing commercial cinematic sentiments with the scalpel blade precision of his unique eye for horror.
In 1986, comedic-actor-turned-director Rob Reiner, who had previously made two features: The Sure Thing and This Is Spinal Tap, signed on to direct Raynold Gideon’s flawless adaptation of King’s semi-autobiographical novella The Body. The result was Stand by Me, a coming-of-age drama set in 1950’s Oregon, USA.
Narrated by a reminiscing writer (Richard Dreyfuss), it tells the story of Gordie Lachance (Will Wheaton) and his three friends who set out on a journey to discover the dead body of a local missing boy. The eventual discovery forces Gordie to face the loss of his older brother Denny (John Cusack) who has been recently killed in a car crash. Alternately tender and hilarious, Stand by Me is a fine example of just how good a King adaptation can be. It is largely known for featuring a young River Phoenix in his breakout role as Chris Chambers (having previously made his feature debut in Joe Dante’s Explorers). The rest of the young cast (Wil Wheaton, Jerry O’Connell, Corey Feldman and Keifer Sutherland) give top-notch performances in a beautifully told story with an ending that, given Phoenix’s sudden demise, rings with a tragic irony.
Four years later, Reiner returned to King territory when he directed an adaptation of Misery – based on a screenplay penned by veteran Hollywood scribe William Goldman. The story of a writer who is imprisoned by his psychotic number one fan, Misery seems like King’s deepest fear given flight. Paul Sheldon (James Caan) has just completed the last instalment of his popular ‘Misery’ novels. On the way to see his publisher (Lauren Bacall) he crashes his car off a remote highway and, as fate would have it, is rescued by a nurse named Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), Sheldon’s self professed “number one fan”. Over the next few weeks the completely incapacitated Sheldon learns to rely on Annie for his food, pain relief and hope of eventual rescue. This hope soon fades as Sheldon begins to realise that Annie has psychopathic tendencies and is not exactly playing with a full deck.
Misery was a major hit at the box office and Bates nabbed an Oscar as Best Actress for her turn as the Liberace obsessed psychopath Annie Wilkes. Although largely true to the book, the film did have some differences, most notably the infamous ‘hobbling’ scene, which as written in the novel had Annie severing Sheldon’s feet with a blowtorch and hacksaw. Goldman’s original screenplay contained the same scene and it was only Reiner’s insistence that audiences would be too disgusted that led to it being altered and made into a ‘simple’ ankle breaking scene, which considering the traumatic finished product, was a very wise choice.
In 1994, filmmaker Frank Darabont, adapted King’s novella Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption to the screen as his follow-up to his largely forgettable first feature Buried Alive. Darabont had previously adapted a King short story called The Woman in the Room for a horror straight-to-video compilation entitled The Night Shift in 1983. The Shawshank Redemption begins as mild-mannered accountant
Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife and her lover in a drunken, jealous rage. He is sent to the infamous Shawshank Prison on a life sentence. Andy suffers terribly at first, as the designated plaything for serial rapist Bogs (Mark Rolston) but soon ingratiates himself to hard-as-nails Captain Hadley (Clancy Brown) and the unscrupulous Warden Norton (Bob Gunton) by putting his accountancy skills to good use. The protection this affords him allows Andy to set about making a life for himself inside. The film’s conclusion is perhaps the most unexpected and uplifting ending to any film ever made. So deftly plotted is the script that it defies predictability, and this is where the film’s strengths lie. The characters are so engaging, that the plot literally takes a back seat. At its heart is undoubtedly Andy’s friendship with Red (Morgan Freeman), which is rendered with such rare tenderness and feeling that the film essentially becomes a love story between these men. The Shawshank Redemption is without a doubt, the most successful transition a King story has made to screen.
There have been many competent King adaptations but few have had the right guidance behind the camera to elevate the ‘filmed novel’ to the level of great cinema. But there is one King adaptation that never really received the praise that it was due.
In 1998, after his stunning sophomore effort The Usual Suspects, filmmaker Bryan Singer set about adapting the King short story Apt Pupil from a script by Brandon Boyce (who incidentally had starred in Singer’s 1993 feature debut, Public Access). Apt Pupil tells the story of Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) a rebellious, teenage outsider with an obsession for the history of the Third Reich and a difficult relationship with his parents and school guidance counsellor, Edward French (David Schwimmer). The obsessive Todd discovers that a Nazi war criminal named Kurt Dussander (Sir Ian McKellen) is living in his neighbourhood. Todd sets about following him, collating information on his past and even lifting fingerprints from Dussander’s mailbox to confirm his identity. Once he is sure, Todd confronts the man and makes a twisted deal: that the former Nazi share his horrific secrets with him and in return, Todd will ensure that his past remains buried.
Thus begins a deformed relationship of teacher and student, Dussander is unprepared for the effects of what has remained dormant in the dark recesses of his mind and Todd is too naïve to realise that he is playing with fire. Over time, both teacher and student awaken in each other a lust for murder and a desire to touch an intangible evil. Apt Pupil is by no means easy viewing but as an adaptation of King’s work, Singer succeeds in making the film his own. The nature of the relationship between the Nazi and the boy is all too reminiscent of the James Stewart/Kim Novak relationship in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. One notable scene in the film has Todd demanding Dussander wear an SS uniform Todd has bought from a costume shop. Dussander refuses. Todd threatens to go to the police and almost sexually hisses, “I want to see you in it”. Just like Novak, Dussander relents and puts the uniform on and just like James Stewart, Todd seems to be aroused by the reality of his obsession.
Even the title Apt Pupil is a line from Vertigo: when a deranged James Stewart bellows at Kim Novak in the bell tower “You were a very apt pupil, weren’t you? You were a very apt pupil!” By using Vertigo as a thematic touchstone, Singer elevates the film’s relationship of teacher and student to a pitch-black comment on the nature of hate and the ability for evil that lies latent in the heart of every human being.
King’s books remain the most consistently adaptable work for TV and film by any living author. As prolific as always, his current output does not seem nearly as vigorous or inspired as his earlier novels. Perhaps as he gets older the spark dims or maybe he just spreads himself a little too thin. Fittingly, he himself has recently adapted the work of a filmmaker, Lars Von Trier and his Danish TV series The Kingdom. Currently airing in the US, King’s version, Kingdom Hospital, is not fairing too well in the ratings war and has fallen under the network axe. The next two Stephen King feature film adaptations to hit our screens, Secret Window and The Talisman, were originally published over a decade ago and seem to reflect the sentiment that King’s current output is far from his best. He may be on the sidelines but he’ll never be out of the game, as long as there are original filmmakers with distinct visions, King’s work looks set to go on well into the 21st century.
Jarrod Walker
About the Author
