Two months afterThe Dark Towerstunk up the multiplex,ITcame along and reminded all of us that it’s possible to adapt aStephen Kingstory in a way that can be embraced by audiences and critics, to the tune of new box-office records, even. There are quite a few good films as you can see in ourbest Stephen King movieslist. But while that may be true, there are probably more that just haven’t hit the mark.
It’s almost hard to blame Hollywood for getting it wrong so often, simply because there have been so many attempts at adaptations from wildly diverse source material, tackled by filmmakers with wide ranging levels of talent. Stanley Kubrick, Frank Darabont, Brian De Palma. There have been some real heavy hitters who have smartly adapted the work of our favorite Maine based ultra prolific author. But for everyStand By Me, it seems like there are a dozenMaximum Overdrives. And so now, we’re forgetting the best, and looking at the rest. Whether your heart has a soft spot for them, or you really believe they’re good on some artistic level we can’t quite comprehend at the moment, we’re being open and honest in presenting the 10 worst Stephen King movies ever made.
9The Dark Tower
Rotten Tomatoes is littered with green splattered Stephen King movies, butThe Dark Towerseems like a particularly egregious entry, if for no other reason than the sheer audacity of its ambitions. After all,The Dark Toweris a beloved series and to try to delve into that mythology in a single movie, whether they intended to build a franchise around it or not, simply fell flat in this era of prestige television shows and shared cinematic universes. The New York Times saidIdris Elbawas the only thing anchoring this mess of a movie, but unfortunately, even he couldn’t redeem it.
8The Running Man
Now don’t get us wrong:The Running Manis certainly fun in a kitschy sorta way. We are fond of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s tracksuit and the performances from late game show host Richard Dawson and Arnold’s fellow ex-governor andPredatorteammate Jesse Ventura are pretty sweet. Screenwriter Steven E. de Souza commands our eternal respect and gratitude as one of the names involved withDie Hardand48 Hours, even if he was also involved withBeverly Hills Cop III. But his meddling with King’s source material just doesn’t work.The Running Manfeels hastily slapped together, rushing toward one corny villain to another, even as it attempts to deal with some pretty big themes about Big Brother and television, all of it very loosely based on one of the novels King wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.
7Sleepwalkers
We can’t always blame the screenwriter.Sleepwalkerswas actually made from an original script by Stephen King himself. Mick Garris directed the 1992 film fresh off such esteemed films asCritters 2: The Main CourseandPsycho IV: The Beginning.Sleepwalkersis terrible yet Garris kept getting called back to work on King stuff, like the TV miniseries adaptations ofThe Stand,The Shining, andBag of Bones, and the snoozefest that wasRiding the Bullet, a movie that thinks it’s profound but is not.
6Graveyard Shift
This story about a bunch of overnight mill workers picked off one by one by a giant rat is exactly the kind of thing that works as a Stephen King short story but immediately falls apart when stretched out to a feature length low-budget movie. Switching the giant rat to a giant bat didn’t doGraveyard Shiftany favors, either.
5Silver Bullet
It must’ve been difficult to mess up a Stephen King werewolf story, but by golly, they found a way! King wrote both the novella,Cycle of the Werewolf, and the much better named screenplay, but it’s all completely ruined by awful special effects and either ham-fisted or lackluster performances by the likes of Gary Busey and thelate Corey Haim, the kind of actors who were great in the right roles. Lest you think we’re being unfair to the special effects simply becauseSilver Bulletwas made in 1985, consider thatAmerican Werewolf in Londonwas released in 1981.
4Dreamcatcher
Dreamcatcheris one of several films on this list to have been the subject of our favorite movie podcast,How Did This Get Made?Like us, they sorta loved watchingThe Running Maneven ‘though they knew it was bad and like us, they foundDreamcatcherincomprehensible. Director and cowriter Lawrence Kasdan gave usThe Empire Strikes Back!Dreamcatcherstars Morgan Freeman! Thomas Jane! Timothy Olyphant! Jason Lee! But alas, as critic Richard Roeper pointed out: “…not sinceDeath to Smoochyhave so many talented people made such a mess of things.”
If you’ve watched our video about the 10 Best Stephen King movies, then you’ll know that John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson’s1408made it. Well, here they are again, but this time, on the 10 Worst list.1408is a wonderfully King-ish story about a writer staying in a supernaturally charged hotel and his descent into madness.Cellis a thriller about… Cell phones. Evil cell phones? How cell phones will turn us evil? At least King can say he wrote the book in 2006. But this movie came out in 2016.
2Maximum Overdrive
30 years beforeCell, a Stephen King movie warned us about evil devices and appliances of all sorts, from an ATM to a big semi truck emblazoned with the grinning visage of the Green Goblin, which is the only cool thing about this movie. King has nobody to blame but himself forMaximum Overdrive, because he not only wrote it, but he directed it. And he’s in the trailer! Telling audiences all about it!
1Lawnmower Man
Wait so isThe Lawnmower Manabout another machine given sentience by a passing comet and the radiation storm left in its wake? Nope. In fact,The Lawnmower Manhas nothing to do with Stephen King at all! This garbage fire shares a title and a single scene with King’s novella. This one is so bad, Stephen King successfully sued the film’s producers to have his name removed from it after they tried marketing it as Stephen King’sThe Lawnmower Man. Jeff Fahey didn’t bother to come back from this film’s presumably even worse sequel,Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace.
