You might know Stephen King for his incredible list of amazing books that have been turned into some of the most successful and highly regarded films of all time. These are often in the horror genre—The Shining, It, Carrie—but also move into the world of straight-up cinematic excellence—Stand By Me, The Green Mile, and, of course, The Shawshank Redemption.
Obviously, it isn’t all good news for King. Some of his work, the short stories, in particular, have had less than impressive big-screen adaptations. We’ve used IMDb to rank the worst adaptations of Stephen King's stories around.
A Good Marriage
The original version of A Good Marriage is a relatively recent work from King. It appears in his 2010 collection of novella, Full Dark, No Stars, and tells the story of a "good marriage." Of course, in true Stephen King style, there is a twist very early on. Darcy soon finds out her husband is obsessed with sadomasochism and may well be a serial killer.
It’s an interesting basis for a film, but King himself took on the challenge of writing the screenplay, which rarely goes well. The film ended up a disappointment in comparison to the novella.
Mercy
Another recent film, but this time digging deep into the recesses of Stephen King’s output. Mercy is an adaptation of King’s 1984 short story Gramma, though it takes its themes with a grain of salt and allows itself to explore them freely without too much commitment. The general premise of a grandmother with sinister witch powers is there, but not a lot else is retained.
Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea in the world, because the film has been regarded pretty poorly ever since its direct-to-DVD release. Its got Carl from The Walking Dead in it, though.
Quicksilver Highway
This is an interesting adaptation because it merges the work of two authors into one film. His short story Chattery Teeth is merged into The Body Politic by Clive Barker, and, in turn, made into a comedy horror by director Mick Garris. The resultant film stars Christopher Lloyd as a showman who first tells the story of Chattery Teeth, then The Body Politic. As such, the film is basically three strangely unrelated separated shorts, and none of them have much of an impact.
Graveyard Shift
You can’t really expect a film that starts off with a pun to be particularly impressive. Can you think of one? Does Shaun Of The Dead count? Anyway, this 1990 adaptation is based on Stephen King’s 1970 short story of the same name and follows the escapades of a strange, unseen murderous creature.
Despite somehow bringing in a rather okay box office performance, the film was a critical failure and has been panned pretty much across the board.
The Lawnmower Man
While most adaptations of King’s work are done with his blessing—and sometimes even involvement—The Lawnmower Man doesn’t quite have the same friendly vibe. Brett Leonard stole King’s story, a sci-fi horror about a gardener who is experimented on, and even tried to name the film Stephen King’s The Lawnmower Man before King successfully sued and had his name removed from the venture. This was probably a wise move because the film performed dreadfully.
The Mangler
For any writer, having just one story from your collection turned into a film must be a dream come true. For Stephen King, it’s just another day at the office. The Mangler is based on the short story of the same name, taken from his collection The Night Shift, which is where Graveyard Shift was also published.
Critics regarded the film as ludicrous, both disregarding the film itself and the story of King’s original work. Despite this, it somehow managed to spawn two sequels, which were somehow even worse.
Cell
It’s impressive for a film starring Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack to land this high up on a list of the "worst" of anything, but Cell manages it. The premise is pretty insane to begin with, effectively turning everyone with a cell phone into a killer. However, the terrible direction of Todd Williams combined with the curse of the King-penned screenplay combine to create a film that even its co-stars can’t fix.
Trucks
Maximum Overdrive? The only film Stephen King ever directed and the film that made him vow to never direct again. For some reason, he decided that the story he wanted to bring to the big screen was about murderous trucks. Okay...
The 1997 film Trucks decided to adapt that same story, this time leaving King out of the creative process and AC/DC off of the soundtrack. As you may expect, the results were basically the same, with critics and audiences panning the lunacy of the story and its execution across the board.
Children Of The Corn
Despite being known as pretty much the worst Stephen King adaptation of all time, Children Of The Corn spawned a franchise of ten films. Ten. For your information, all ten of those appeared in the IMDb list of worst Stephen King adaptations, but only the first one is based on actual King material, so, here we are. The basic premise of the film and the short story that inspired it is that a non-physical entity forces children to murder all of the adults in their town in order to get a good corn harvest. Sounds strange, is strange. Sounds bad, is bad.
The Devil’s Gift
The Devil’s Gift tops our list of worst Stephen King adaptations by quite a wide margin. Interestingly, the film doesn’t attach the name of King to its existence in any way whatsoever, and, considering how poorly it was received, he is probably rather glad. What it does do, however, is steal his story The Monkey almost note-for-note.
Every now and again, a story might end up being similar to one that already exists through a genuine accident. This one is far too similar to be a coincidence, so we’re counting it.
