Some people are considered great story tellers.... while others tell tales that give nightmares from the book to the movie.
Stephen King is a kind of Horror author that is one of them. From his book series to novellas and much more, Stephen King has been scaring everyone ever since the 70's. Fifty years later, he's still at it.
Stephen King was born on September 21st, 1947. With his birthday just around the corner, I want to talk about his life as well as his stories that changed many people from actors that portrayed his characters to people who read over 600 pgs. of his stories.
Stephen King has written over two hundred short stories and over hundreds of Novellas.
Most of his stories he has written became movies or TV Miniseries. Starting out with Carrie and giving us movies like: "Shawshank Redemption" (which is one of my favorites), "It" "Misery", "The Stand', "The Mist", "Dreamcatcher" and so much more.
Besides Shawshank Redemption, another one of my favorites was "Stand by Me" which had a young Wil Wheaton portraying a young boy who lost his brother and hangs out with three other guys.
They find...a dead body.
In 1999, Stephen King's life was almost cut short when he ended up in an accident that broke his leg and injured his ribs. The guy driving did not see him walking in the dark and ended up arrested. Stephen decided to drop the charges.
He came up with 'Dreamcatcher' right after that accident and it shows with the movie that came out afterwards.
Most of his stories are not considered well adapted into a miniseries depending on what it is. With Langeliers, Golden Years, Tommyknockers and much more.... you might get an 'egh' kind of performance.
It's not because of the actors or the story...it's just a lack of interest involving the direction it took.
Some of them, like 'The Stand', which took six hours and four episodes, it worked. The acting, the story itself, the 1994 version was well liked.
Stanley Kubrick, God rest his soul, did his own version of Stephen King's Shining. Staring the late Shelly Duvall and Jack Nicholson. Stephen...despised this movie and decided to create his own version which is longer and pointless.
He also likes to guest star in almost every movie or miniseries based on his book.
I loved this version of the Shining and wasn't a fan of his.
Recently, during COVID, they decided to update "The Stand' with different actors and making it longer. What do I think about this? "Egh', Never seeing either version, I felt the original might be the superior one.
They have good actors like Bill Sarskgard portraying the evil Randall Flagg and Whoppi Goldberg portraying Mother Abigail.
After the Sandy Hook tragedy, Stephen King swore that he would never make a miniseries or movie out of that was titled "Charlie"
He is anit-Trump (thank God) and considers him the source of evil.
He has other books that are pretty long. Some over 700pg. The book 'It', about a killer clown in Maine, is also over 1,000, has two versions of its story. First, a miniseries in the nineties that was over three hours long.
The new version, 'It one' and "It two' were pretty long as well, one of them, the second one, is over four hours. What did I think about it? The miniseries was hit and miss while the two movies were ok.
Today, Stephen King is still writing some short stories and Novellas with the help of his son Joe Hill. He also has another son named Owen, but it seems Joe is the one with the writing bug in the family.
Stephen King is still active with certain views considering politics and gun violence today has he has before. It seems some of his new works might become movies for future generations to enjoy and be frightened of.
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