Sheesh Stephen King movies SUCK (Dreamcatcher spoilers)

[underpants]

Look I've tried to give movies based on King's books a chance and with the exception of "Stand by Me" and "Deadzone" they are just plain horrible.

My wife and I decided to watch a movie last night on in demand (LOVE it!) and for some reason we picked "Dreamcatcher". There were like 5 different movies/stories in there and he put them all together. When the retarded kid turned out to be some sort of scorpion type character my jaw almost hit the floor. The alien with an English accent and the worms and the GIANT worm was too much.

A run down of some movies based on King's books

Carrie
Nothing even remotely scary about it until the very end when SURPRISE the "bad guy" makes one more lunge (hand from the grave) at our hero/heroine, this is more than a trend.

Cujo
Same as Carrie

Christine
A car that comes to life and is evil to boot. Stupid.

Maximum Overdrive
Like Christine but it's trucks and there are lots of them. Wow. The angry appliances were beyond stupid.

The Stand
Okay some friends of mine loved that and the Alarm wrote a kick ass song about it so I'll give him a pass on that.

Pet Cemetary
I actually saw this in a theater and I was really rooting for the zombie cats. Again one last stab was made. Did they actually make a sequel of that?

Delores Claiborne
That was King right? Too long and at the end SURPRISE she was molested. :eyes:

AgonyON EDIT-I meant "Misery"
Okay that was pretty good.

Like I said "Stand by Me" was a good story and a good movie. King should write more stories like that and lay off the formula ones.

[Spider Jerusalem]

1. Umm..."The Green Mile"? "Shawshank Redemption"?

They're both based on works by King...and they definitely don't suck...

[underpants]

7. Okay "Shawshank" is a great movie one of my favorites

I forgot that it was King's. "The Green Mile" I didn't care too much for, a little to mysitc for my tastes. It was okay but that's just my opinion.

It seems no matter how many times TBS shows it I keep watching "Shawshank" but again when he gets out of the formula scary ones he does quite well IMHO.

[toddzilla]

2. luckily i downloaded it

it sucked, it was free. i was ripped off.

[matcom]

3. Dreamcatcher DID Suck

LOVED Stand By Me
LOVED Delores Clayborne
LOVED Misery
LOVED Christine (well, i was :smoke: at the time so don't shoot me)
LOVED The Shining (even though Jack couldn't act worth shit at the time)
LOVED Shawshank
LOVED The Green Mile

The rest pretty much SUCKED

:D

[underpants]

6. Sorry "Misery" not "Agony"

I guess I was just agonizing over the other ones.

[underpants]

11. I swear I thought Morgan Freeman's eyebrows were going to kill people too

Hell King could have done a whole movie about that. That makes at least 6 stories in one movie.

I had my doubts about the lunchbox for a while too.

[lefty_mcduff]

4. I had forgotten about the Alarm's 'The Stand'

Kick ass 12" vinyl EP (anyone remember them?). Luckily I was able to find a clean .mp3 online. Firing up my iPod now.

[jonnyblitz]

5. the Shining is a CLASSIC

Carrie is one of my all time favorites. I enjoyed Misery also. Its all subjective i guess

[underpants]

8. Right. I never was very big on the Shining

I just didn't see how it was so great. But that is just me.

[jonnyblitz]

10. personal taste.

I have friends/family furious with my because I despise Austin Powers movies and I have yet to be able to sit throught a Star Wars movie or a Lord of the Rings movie.

For the most part Stephen King movies (particularly the ones made for tv) DO suck and I liked Carrie because I like the fact that a girl that got picked on in high school got such good revenge.

[THUNDER HANDS]

9. Most of his movies suck

Well the tv's ones. THey start out great and peter out at the end.

The Stand, in the beginning, was awesome. It became really dumb in the second half.

Same thing with IT, started out scary, got stupid.

Steven King knows how to pace a story, but can't finish it really well. At least his tv movies.

His big-screen one's, with the exception of Thinner, were pretty good.

[eileen_d]

12. Has anyone seen the Shining made for TV?

I assume it was made-for-TV anyway. I was recovering from an operation earlier this month and saw the last two thirds. Much more faithful to the spirit of the book than Kubrick's version (I think that's why King had it filmed) but Stephen Weber (of WINGS) played Jack. That really did NOT work for me, to say the least. I think Rebecca deMornay played Wendy?

Anyway, since I was only half-watching I can't give a full review, just wondering what anyone else thought.

[nuxvomica]

16. I was excited to hear about the miniseries

Because I had read the book when it was first published in paperback and saw the Kubrick movie when it was first released and was disappointed. The book seemed remarkably unlike King's others in style and I read it in one creepy night, so effortless, or should I say "urgent", was the reading. The movie seemed too cold and abstract and I especially disliked the conversion of the topiary animals to a maze.
But the miniseries, though faithful, was disappointing and poorly cast. The child actor was the worst. And the Kubrick movie has grown on me considerably over the years so that that's the Shining I think of. Kubrick was a genius.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

13. I disagree ...and must say he is an execllent writer

his books are great

[Nikia]

14. The books are great

I just think that it is sometimes difficult to turn a good book into a good movie, especially when the book is rather long. I haven't read the Shawshank Redemption or Stand by Me in written form, but I read that they were much shorter works, which allowed the complete story to be expressed in film. Long novels must have parts omitted from the film in order for the film to be of a reasonable length. The story often isn't as good without those parts. For the most part, the novel is superior to the film, but watching a film requires less effort. For some genres like corny comedy and heavyily actioned films, the film works better but most of these films are not based upon an already good novel.

[gate of the sun]

15. hearts in atlantis

was pretty good I thought. I do wonder why some of these movies are so terrible. I read Dreamcatcher and even though the movie kinda followed the storyline pretty well the director in no way caught the tone of the book. I am a Stephen King Fan.It's what I like to read when I just want a break and his books are long so I can hang out with them for more than a day or so. I also like the way he weaves some of them together. THE gunslinger series is my favorite.

[nuxvomica]

17. Here's my take:

Carrie -- terrific. Mostly because of the two female leads.
Cujo -- depressing. Poor doggy.
Christine -- well done. Haunted cars are creepy from the get-go.
Deadzone -- I watched this in the theater when I was coming down with the flu. Some parts were chilling, others feverish. Nonetheless, I thought it was a well-done movie.
Maximum Overdrive -- not great but fun. Didn't King direct this one?
The Stand -- faithful to the book. Both were tiresome and overlong. I could've walked to Las Vegas myself in the time it took to read the book.
Pet Cemetery -- Read the book, saw the movie. Why did I do either?
Misery -- creepy, painful fun.
Stand By Me, Dolores Claiborne, Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile -- atypical King and excellent.
The Shining -- great film loosely based on a great book.
Rose Red -- stupid.
The Shining miniseries -- did that kid have the mumps?
Dreamcatcher -- may be the worst. Even Freeman gave a bad performance and I didn't think that was possible.

edit: I forgot:
Apt Pupil -- well done but disturbing as hell. The story was more disturbing, though.
Hearts in Atlantis -- not great but well done and worth watching.

[underpants]

18. But what about the killer clown???

"IT" my wife tells me.

I think Freeman's eyebrows through of his stage presence and timing.

[nuxvomica]

19. "IT" was OK largely because of Tim what's-his-Frankenfurter

I hate forgetting names and I won't look it up. :-) And there was that one about the green glowing stuff from aliens. I forget that too.
But I just remembered the dullest King movie ever:
"Needful Things"

edit: Curry. Tim Curry. And I kept thinking "Tim Rice". OMG, my memory is indexed by food!

[underpants]

20. Classic line in that though

Ed Harris asks MAx Van Sydow where he is from and Max pauses and says "Ohio". The cracked me up.

[CanuckAmok]

22. "It wasn't me, it was the BAPTISTS!"

Some good lines in Needful Things.

I quite liked The Green Mile (even though when I saw it, there was some half-wit talking LOUDLY through the whole movie, giving away what was about to happen because he'd seen it onece before).

"IT" was good fun, with Tim Curry, and Tim (Venus Flytrap) Reid. I think Harry Anderson was in it, too. Sadly, the original story was fun because it was such a comprehensive record of the history of "Derry"--the movie would have been 45 hours long to come close to the original story.

And I have a soft-spot for "The Running Man", mainly because of the asshole performance by Richard Dawson.

The rest of the films? Meh.

One note about the terribly mis-cast TV version of The Shining: The animated topiary was spectacular!!



I wonder what King will do with his remake of Lars von Trier's "The Kingdom". That 15 hour miniseries is currently shooting in Vancouver.

[Uzybone]

21. Dreamcatcher

had no chance to be good. The story was just waaaaayyy to out there.