King-athon Recap

Creepy Cinema 3: King-athon Recap

October is over already—it seems to go away as quickly as it arrives these days. Hope you all enjoyed my coverage of 31 Stephen King films (technically 30 since I split the review of The Stand in half), and I hope to continue on the tradition with Clayton’s Creepy Cinema 4 next year. I think next year it’ll be more like year one, just a straight-forward no-particular-theme kind of year, but we’ll just wait and see.

If you missed a number of reviews over the month, or found it just too much content to take in, fear not. I’ve compiled a list of all the Stephen King movies I’ve seen, beyond just the ones I reviewed last month, and ranked them either as 1) Good: definitely see them, 2) Okay: not must-see but varying in levels of quality, and 3) Bad: not recommended, or possibly recommended but not actually well-made movies. And if you want more insight into any of these movies, of course you can check out the reviews.

Here we go, in no particular order, starting with Good.

-The Shawshank Redemption: one of the best movies ever made

-The Green Mile: another excellent prison drama

-Stand by Me: one of the best coming-of-age films

-Cujo: tense thriller, one of the best in the killer animal genre

-Misery: great adaptation of the novel, terrifying psychological thriller

-Dolores Claiborne: intriguing mystery, stand-out performances

-Pet Sematary: old-school scares and visceral thrills

-The Dead Zone: strong characters, excellent directing, another effective adaptation

-Carrie: 70’s horror classic, still holds up very well

-The Shining: unfaithful adaptation, but still an 80’s horror classic, also holds up incredibly well

-Creepshow: among the best horror anthologies, a mix of fun and fright

-Christine: makes a silly premise work, memorable scenes and scares

-Salem’s Lot: one of the best vampire stories of the 70’s, high-quality for TV production 

-Tales from the Darkside: The Movie: another great horror anthology, lots of twists and turns 

-1408: effective psychological thriller, good performances and mystery 

Now for the movies I thought were Okay, and this varies from almost being good, to being right in the middle, to being almost not recommended. Again, in no particular order.

-Silver Bullet: solid werewolf film, a bit dated and silly 

-The Mist: well-made creature feature, often included as best by most fans, for me it wasn’t anything special

-Dreamcatcher: uneven but mostly entertaining alien invasion story

-The Stand: slow-paced and dated, but one of the better TV mini-series

-The Dark Half: decent premise, good execution, but nothing exceptional  

-IT: great premise, strong first half, weaker second half, overall doesn’t hold up that well 

-Cat’s Eye: decent horror anthology, not as good as Creepshow or Tales from the Darkside

-Creepshow 2: quality throughout varies, not on-par with greatest horror anthologies 

-Firestarter: familiar story elements and uneven pacing, but good performances and 80’s feel make it entertaining

-Bag of Bones: well-suited for entry-level Stephen King fans, too familiar and watered down for long-time fans

-Riding the Bullet: a mix of many story elements from King, ranges from bad to great, overall watchable

And now for the Bad, these are also unranked, but seem to get worse as the list goes on.

-Needful Things: silly premise, fun for the most part, not re-watchable

-Maximum Overdrive: silly and poorly executed, but sporadically fun in a so-bad-its-good way

-Children of the Corn: for fans who saw it in the 80’s only, goofy instead of scary, doesn’t hold up today

-Sleepwalkers: a couple entertaining aspects, mostly weak and forgettable

-Graveyard Shift: monotonous, disappointing monster, unlikable characters, predictable, and boring. 

-Sometimes They Come Back: characters and story are too familiar for long-time fans, horror elements   are toned-down

-Thinner: comes off as silly rather than scary, concept’s potential wasted with bad acting, writing, and directing

-Dolan’s Cadillac: stretches source material way too far, bad acting, uninteresting story, annoying

-Cell: one of the most incomprehensible and incompetent Stephen King adaptations ever 

So there you have it, a full rundown of a whole bunch of Stephen King movies. Stay tuned for a couple new CCC lists based on my findings this past month, as I officially put a cap on this King-athon.