The precedence of Kings
Filmmakers have been adapting Stephen King books for decades, which means there have been some classics and some clunkers. Last month, The Dark Tower crashed and burned, but a new version of It had the biggest opening ever for a horror movie (more than $1
Ranking decades of Stephen King movie adaptations
THE HORRIBLY BAD 5 CELL (2016)
At least the concept gets an A: Cellphones turn a large percentage of the population into mindless rage monsters. Execution, though? That’s a big fail, even for a faux zombie flick.
4 GRAVEYARD SHIFT (1990)
Insane stuff happens at a reopened textile mill, people start dying and it’s all because of … a ginormous rat. Even if the monstrous rodent wasn’t a specialeffects fumble, the film is Z-grade across the board.
3 THE DARK TOWER (2017)
The biggest sin here isn’t the filmmaking — which is certainly bad — but the complete whiff on creating an expansive fantasy world. Although Idris Elba does what he can as gunslinger Roland Deschain, everything around him is a miss.
2 THE MANGLER (1995)
The late director Tobe Hooper is a horror staple, but this travesty isn’t. Hooper rounds up another genre legend, Robert Englund, for this awful movie about a possessed laundry press, which cleans up in the competition for worst King movie villain.
1 DREAMCATCHER (2003)
A good cast (Morgan Freeman, Damian Lewis and Timothy Olyphant) and ace director (Lawrence Kasdan) are completely wasted in an abhorrent mishmash of lifelong bromance, alien invasion and government conspiracy.