5 Criminally Underrated Stephen King Movies You Probably Didn’t Watch
Have you ever heard of a Bollywood Stephen King adaptation?
Stephen King 's works and cinema have formed such a strong duo that it is sometimes difficult to understand where literature ends and filmmaking begins. Of course, quantity does not always mean quality, and among the many feature films, TV series, and even animations, there are many projects that could have been much better, to put it mildly.
But some were just unlucky – they got lost in the avalanche of other adaptations.
1. No Smoking
In 2007, the story of Quitters, Inc. was made into a movie, and not just by anyone, but by the creators of the most prolific film industry in the world, Bollywood. No Smoking was the first King adaptation to be produced in India.
The movie tells the story of a man with a passion for smoking. To get rid of his addiction, he turns to the stop smoking centre, which, of course, turns out to be full of dark secrets.
In the year of its release, the movie did not receive the most flattering reviews: in India, the movie was completely destroyed. Later on, however, it received recognition and some critics even compared it to the works of David Lynch.
2. Apt Pupil
After the success of The Usual Suspects, Bryan Singer decided to pursue a longtime dream project. He adapted Stephen King's story Apt Pupil about a boy named Todd who discovers that his elderly neighbor named Kurt is actually a former Nazi officer who narrowly escaped punishment during the Nuremberg trials.
Apt Pupil is far from a perfect movie. Its pacing leaves a lot to be desired, and Singer's ability to maintain suspense here is not as good as in The Usual Suspects. But despite all of its flaws, it is a worthy film with an amazing acting performance by Ian McKellen, and it clearly did not deserve its fate: the movie did not even make half of its budget, forcing Singer to give up making serious cinema for a long time.
3. The Mangler
A movie by the great Tobe Hooper with the equally great Robert Englund ( who played Freddy Krueger) as the villain. The main villain, however, is the possessed ironing board that grinds and devours laundry workers. Yes, the movie is as wild as it sounds, but that's why we love King.
The Mangler is a straight-up trash movie in the best sense of the word, and it retains an important feature of a good trash movie: Hooper shows even the craziest things with an extremely serious expression on the characters' faces.
4. Dolores Claiborne
In 1990, Kathy Bates played the main role in Misery and suddenly became a star. The brilliant role of an obsessed psychopath even earned her an Oscar.
But it was her role in Dolores Claiborne, also based on the Stephen King novel, that Bates considers her greatest achievement. Kathy played a quiet housekeeper suspected of murdering a wealthy widow. Dolores' daughter, Selena, comes home to investigate.
5. Creepshow
Creepshow was created by horror master George A. Romero with clear influences from The Twilight Zone and even more from Tales from the Crypt. All of the stories here straddle the line between horror, comedy and utter absurdity: there are zombies hungry for cake and monsters jumping out of a chest.
But perhaps the most striking episode is The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill, in which Stephen King himself plays a gas station owner whose body suddenly begins to grow moss.