Stephen King has ruled horror literature for over 50 years, so why are his horror film adaptations a mixed bag of nightmares and snoozescapes?
King is an author who is easy to take for granted. He’s cranked out a novel or short story collection (sometimes more) almost every year since Carrie (first published in 1974) scored a box office hit film adaptation by Brian de Palma in 1976, which made the paperback a best seller.
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Yes, Carrie made King a go-to for film adaptations right out of the gate. However, it’s only one of a handful of the seemingly endless King film adaptations that’s both a critical hit (it still enjoys a 94 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and box office success (earning more than classics like Logan’s Run and Network that year).
After Carrie‘s success, other solid King film adaptations followed, helmed by auteurs with Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone, and John Carpenter’s Christine (both 1983).
King Adaptations: Faltering since 1984
Still, even then, adaptations of Uncle Steve’s work began to falter. While the 1983 Cujo film adaptation helped make the titular rabid St. Bernard part of the lexicon when referring to out-of-control animals, it was hardly a critical darling (sitting at a 59 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Then 1984 brought two adaptations stinking up Castle Rock, Children of the Corn and Firestarter, both with 38 percent Rotten Tomatoes ratings.
Even collaborations with master horror director George Romero (of Night of the Living Dead fame) were mixed. Their loving homage to 4 color horror comics of the 1950s, Creepshow (1982) is a blast for fans, while The Dark Half (1993) feels more peculiar than scary.
Of course, that’s not even touching sequels not at all based on original King stories or adaptations in name only (like the infamous The Lawnmower Man).
Why Stephen King’s Stories Sometimes Lose Their Scare Factor From Page to Screen
King adaptations should translate well to the screen, especially given his nearly unmatched skill for writing dialogue.
“He’s one of the first people to talk about real Americans and how they live, to capture real American dialogue,” none other than David Foster Wallace told the New Yorker of King back in 1998. Wallace even went so far as to assign both Carrie and The Stand as required reading in courses he taught at Illinois State University.
Yes, King’s dialogue is always strong. Many of his lines adapted to film, like “we all float down here,” and “sometimes dead is better” have even entered the pantheon of great film quotes.
Still, his stories often revel in melodrama, a trait that, in the hands of the wrong director, could feel shallow—or worse, unintentionally comedic.
Pet Sematary: a case study in king adaptations gone wrong
“This is King’s best book and one of the best horror novels ever written,” legendary author William Gay wrote of Pet Sematary back in 2007. “Go back as far as you want: Lovecraft, Stoker, Shelley, it doesn’t matter. This is the top-of-the-line deluxe monster model,” Gay added of King’s 1983 novel.
And Gay is dead on.
Pet Sematary is chock full of harrowing, butt-clenching moments set against a central, dreadful theme of when “dead is better.” Still, King never shies away from scenes straight out of a soap opera, like when the lead character engages in a fist fight with his father-in-law over the coffin of his dead toddler son, eventually tipping the coffin over.
The sort of scenes that are at once heartbreaking and so over the top they nearly become camp.
Sometimes that alchemy is tough to translate for the screen, maybe. Mary Lambert’s 1989 film adaptation of Pet Sematary has plenty of thrills (perhaps most infamously with the scene involving the physically and mentally deranged Zelda which certainly scarred all of Generation X for life).
However, the film is dripping with so much melodrama (characters unironically fall to their knees and bellow “noooooo!” to the sky in slow motion, for instance) that it might come across as a comedy to modern audiences.
Even Stephen King himself didn’t exactly have a steady hand when directing his own material. The only film he has directed to date, 1986’s Maximum Overdrive (adapted from his short story, “Trucks”) enjoys a cult status now.
Upon its release, however, it was critically panned, earning King a Golden Raspberry award nomination for Worst Director and his leading man, Emilio Estevez, a nod for worst actor.
A Fresh Face for Pennywise Sparks a Killer Comeback for Stephen King Films
Still, despite the hit-and-miss quality of King’s horror adaptations, there was a massive success that renewed interest in all things Stephen King. It (2017), the second adaptation of his 1986 novel after the 1990 TV miniseries, became one of the highest-grossing R-rated movies of all time, raking in over $700 million at the box office. It also enjoys an 85 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
It printing so much cash meant the King movie machine shuddered back to life and more film and TV adaptations of his work rolled out. New adaptations of Pet Sematary (2019), Children of the Corn (2020), and Firestarter (2022) were all instant misfires.
Is the 2017 version of It something of an outlier? Maybe the film managed to ride the final wave of 80s nostalgia. It surely benefited from the concurrent success of the King-influenced Netflix hit Stranger Things. Perhaps 80s kids on film enjoyed their last popular hurrah with It.
The 2019 follow-up, It: Chapter Two, with its modern setting and adult cast, fared far less well. The film managed to scrape together just over $400 million (still respectable, but far from the juggernaut of the first film) and squeaked by with a 62 percent critic approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Heck, the latest Salem’s Lot adaptation (dumped on MAX just last fall) only managed a 46 percent score.
Indeed, 2025 is stacked with all things Stephen King. His latest novel, Never Flinch, drops in May. Meanwhile, an It TV prequel, Welcome to Derry, with Bill Skarsgård reprising the killer clown Pennywise, also drops on MAX later this year.
‘The Monkey’ Could Be the Rare Stephen King Adaptation to bang at Both the Box Office and among Critics
Despite the failures of the recent past, a fresh Stephen King adaptation is shaping up to be a return to full-fledged cinematic glory for the horror master, and it drops later this month. An adaptation that captures King’s crisp dialogue and sardonic wit, and understands how his drama and scares sometimes need a dash of camp to go over the right way.
The Monkey, from screenwriter and director Osgood Perkins, is adapted from the short story of the same name from King’s 1985 short story collection, Skeleton Crew.
The Monkey tells the story of twin brothers who discover a mysterious wind-up monkey, leading to a series of shocking deaths (think Final Destination vibes) that tear their family apart.
Twenty-five years later, the monkey returns, triggering a new wave of killings and forcing the estranged brothers to face the cursed toy. The film stars Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, and Sarah Levy, with Adam Scott and Elijah Wood.
The trailer for the film brilliantly showcases jump scares, the creepy as hell wind up monkey, and punches out with Shirley and Lee’s feel-good classic “Let The Good Times Roll” set against scenes of over-the-top gore.
Osgood Perkins gets it.
Perkins, who himself took after his father Anthony Perkins by playing a young Norman Bates in Psycho II, has built a solid career directing near art house scare flicks like 2015’s The Blackcoat’s Daughter, 2016’s I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, and 2024’s acclaimed Longlegs.
Plus, Osgood even suffered as an actor, appearing as the orphan-deworming “loser” David in Legally Blonde.
He’s the steady hand that takes King’s short story, cranks up the crazy, dials in the scares, and sneaks in laughs that hit you right in the gut.
The Monkey chimes into theaters February 21st.
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