Stephen King Month: Introduction

Stephen King was my gateway to horror. King's novels were among the first "grown-up" books I ever read, and movies based on his work were some of the first horror films I ever saw. I don't exactly remember my first King movie (probably bits of Firestarter on TV, or something like that), but his movies were rental staples of mine from the time I was 10 or 11 years old, and his novels have been on my reading lists consistently since around that time as well. King's been adapted poorly far more often than he's been adapted well, but I'm always curious to see what filmmakers do with his material.

Even so, I've probably only seen a little more than half of the movies based on King's work, some of them not since 10 or 15 years ago. This year marks the 35th anniversary of the release of the first King movie, Brian De Palma's Carrie, but the real reason I'm spending this month writing about a different King movie each day is just because I feel like it. I'll be covering every theatrical release based directly on a King novel or story or screenplay; that means no TV works (which would take a whole separate month) and no barely related sequels. I'm also skipping four recent King movies (Dreamcatcher, 1408, Secret Window, The Mist) that I already wrote about for Las Vegas Weekly (although the Dreamcatcher review is annoyingly not online anymore). It'll be a bit of a nostalgia trip for me, which is appropriate since nostalgia is one of King's favorite themes. Will my nostalgia lead to terror or triumph? Find out this month.