Stephen King at the Movies

A Complete History of the Film and Television Adaptations from the Master of Fiction

Ian Nathan Palazzo, 2019 Hb, 224pp, illus, bib, £25, ISBN 9781786750815

Stephen King may be the biggest name in horror writing, but as he has admitted – in his own survey of the genre, Danse Macabre , for example – his early influences came as often from cinema as literature. A book examining the film adaptations of his work – a sizeable corpus, made up of 65 movies and 30 television shows – would appear to be a useful addition to the King bookshelf; a shame that Ian Nathan’s handsomely produced and nicely illustrated effort falls short of what it promises. There’s certainly little “fresh critical analysis” – this is a handy companion, not a substantial study – and the interviews and “behind the scenes revelations” offer nothing particularly new, deriving from existing sources. The book works better as what Nathan calls a “biography by stealth”, tracing King’s life and career through the screen works that bear his name and tracking the thematic links between the books and movies. It’s worth remembering that for every Shining (and King hated Kubrick’s masterpiece) or Shawshank Redemption there’s a Silver Bullet ora Dreamcatcher; the dance between book and film is not always a predictable or happy one. This is useful as an overview, but the lack of index or notes doesn’t help, and the whole thing would have benefitted from a firmer editorial hand.