The Two Stephen King Movie Adaptations That Bored The Legendary Author

Prolific horror author Stephen King has written a vast number of novels and short stories, many of which have been made into film and TV adaptations. There are some truly great ones, like Mike Flanagan's "Gerald's Game" and "Doctor Sleep," and then there are the not-so-great ones, like the awful cell-phone zombie movie "Cell" and the critically panned but mostly forgettable "Graveyard Shift." 

One has to wonder how King himself feels about all of these adaptations. Well, except maybe for "The Shining," because King has made his feelings about Stanley Kubrick's adaptation crystal clear. (He hates it. Like really, really hates it.) 

While promoting the film adaptation of "Dreamcatcher" in 2003, King revealed that he also wasn't so hot on another film version of one of his books, even though it was directed by master of horror John Carpenter. The 1983 movie "Christine" apparently "bored" King just as much as "The Shining" did, and that's saying something given his vocal distaste for Kubrick's stylish and horrific film. It's hard to imagine someone being bored by either film, honestly, since one is a masterpiece set in a haunted hotel and the other is a twisted love story about a killer car, but maybe they hit different when they're your own stories.

While promoting "Dreamcatcher," which itself is kind of a stinker, King had some rather harsh words for both "Christine" and "The Shining," saying: 

"I may just be the most adapted novelist in modern times ... and I don't say that with pride so much as with a kind of stunned bemusement. Several honorable adaptations have come from this 30-year spew of celluloid ... and the best of those have had few of the elements I'm best known for: science fiction, fantasy, the supernatural, and pure gross-out moments ... The books that do have those elements have, by and large, become films that are either forgettable or outright embarrassing. Others — I'm thinking chiefly of 'Christine' and Stanley Kubrick's take on 'The Shining' — should have been good but just ... well, they just aren't. They're actually sort of boring. Speaking for myself, I'd rather have bad than boring."

Ouch. King's not wrong about preferring bad movies to boring ones, but his take on these adaptations of his films doesn't entirely match with audience or critical reception. Although King would have preferred "Dirty Harry" director Don Siegel instead of Kubrick, "The Shining" has become a horror classic. As for "Christine"? It's a solid little horror gem despite the fact that neither King nor Carpenter are really fans.

While Carpenter wasn't nearly as harsh as King, he doesn't have any sentimental feelings about "Christine" and has been honest about the fact that he made it for the paycheck, not any kind of real love for the story. However, "Christine" is honestly a lot of fun, featuring a stellar lead performance by Keith Gordon as Arnie, a teenage loner who ends up falling in love with a possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury that he names (you guessed it) Christine. Obscenely talented character actor Harry Dean Stanton also appears as a cop investigating the murders committed by Christine (and Arnie), and Carpenter is firing on all cylinders even if he was just trying to earn a paycheck. Seriously, watch the scenes where the car rebuilds itself after being destroyed or where it drives itself down the street, on fire, set to George Thorogood & The Destroyers song "Bad to the Bone," and tell me those aren't ridiculously cool for 1983.  

"Christine" may be a lesser Stephen King film, but it's still a pretty darn good one and definitely not "boring." There are plenty of worse King adaptations than "Christine" (and that's without even getting into the television adaptations). It's been nearly 20 years since King made that comment, so maybe he's changed his tune. If not, this killer car movie still has at least one fan: me.