Stephen Kingmay be the undisputed master of horror, but there’s no denying that more than a few of his books include moments that are simply too nonsensical to survive the translation to the screen. Adaptations of Stephen King’s work have been popular movie subjects for decades, with entire careers like that ofhorror visionary Mike Flanagan’sbeing made more-or-less solely off the success of bringing his stories to life on the big screen. However, a large portion of his stories are simply unsuitable for a visual medium due to just how silly they are.
Try asthe many Stephen King moviesmay,they aren’t able to fit the entirety of his massive tomes into a sub-three-hour runtime.Sometimes, the budgets of his adaptations simply can’t keep up with King’s ideas, leading to some unintentionally goofy moments. In other cases, what might work in a novel simply comes across as too strange when actually put to motion in a film, meaning certain scenes from King’s books were destined to end up on the cutting room floor.
10The Cat Monster Transformation
Sleepwalkers
Plenty of Stephen King stories get incredibly strange, but the premise ofSleepwalkersjust might take the cake.The film revolves around an incestuous mother-son pair of energy vampires, who roam the country in search of victims. The duo are capable of transforming into bizarre human-cat hybrid forms, and in the movie adaptation, these transformations aren’t exactly gracefully adapted.
The movie demonstrates this in a hilarious scene in which one of them spots a cat, causing his face to dramatically morph into a variety of half-human, half-cat shapes, including that of a scared little boy.
Even stranger than the film’s very premise is the fact that theSleepwalker’s monsters are afraid of cats, despite being feline creatures themselves. The movie demonstrates this in a hilarious scene in which one of them spots a cat, causing his face to dramatically morph into a variety of half-human, half-cat shapes, including that of a scared little boy.Perplexing narrative implications aside, the special effects of the moment have not aged gracefully,resulting in a truly nonsensical scene from the already unbelievable premise.
9Pennywise Melting
It Chapter Two
Though the firstItremake movie made Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise one of the most influential movie villains of the decade, there’s no denying that many of his scenes were more silly than scary.This is especially true in the second film, which wasn’t received as kindly, focusing on the adult portion of the original story.Here, Pennywise is finally defeated by the aged Losers Club, who make good on their promise to come back to slay the shapeshifting beast upon its next return.
When the gang are finally able to overpower the clown through the sheer power of belief, it’s left as a frightened puddle of its former self, whimpering and helpless. Try as theIt Chapter Twomight, it simply can’t shake of the silliness of both the way Pennywise was ultimately defeated and the pathetic final shape it takes. What’s even sillier is the way Pennywise seems almost proud of the Losers for defeating him, shedding a tear while stating that they’re now “All grown up.”
8Soda Machine Murder
Maximum Overdrive
There are bad Stephen King movie adaptations, and then there’sMaximum Overdrive, the only one of King’s films to be directed by the author himself.Clearly, filmmaking is not the literary giant’s strong suit, as evidenced byMaximum Overdrive’s ironically comedic “scary” moments. Loosely based on King’s short storyTrucks, the story follows a group of survivors in the wake of a comet that passes close by to Earth, causing all machines to become sentient with murderous intent.
Of all the malfunctioning objects that pose as threats in the film, by far the silliest is a malfunctioning soda machine, which fires its carbonated ammunition at a hapless team of kids playing little league baseball.Despite being stationary and having such a narrow field of fire, the machine is able to take out half the team, making for an utterly goofy sequence of supposedly scary deaths.It’s no wonderStephen King’s directorial debuthas gone down in infamy as one of his worst movies, even if it is ironically enjoyable.
7The Langoliers Attack
The Langoliers
A two-part made-for-TV mini-series that joins up to become a single continuous film,The Langoliersis an expectedly cheap Stephen King production. This doesn’t do it any favors, as the original story’s ambitious narrative revolves around a group of strangers aboard a commercial flight who find that everyone else on their plane has suddenly disappeared, forcing them to land at an abandoned airport where the laws of physics seem strangely warped.
Somehow, the group deduces that the flow of time itself has stopped.
This prompts a response from the titular Langoliers, strange interdimensional beings who show up to devour everything in sight within the realm of stopped time. The original novella’s description of the creatures may have been terrifying, but in practice withThe Langoliers’limited budget, they look like lumpy CGI meatballs whizzing through the sky.Perhaps director Tom Holland would’ve been better off adapting a less production-value-heavy story from King.
6Richie Is Terrified By Balloons
It (1990)
Pennywise is better known from the late 2010s horror movies today, but long before the films were conceived, the only game in town forItadaptations was the 90s miniseries starringTim Curry as the infamous killer clown.LikeThe Langoliers,the original 1990’sItsuffered from a lean budget that forced the series to get creative in imagining the book’s many horrific scenes into film.In the effort to do so, the miniseries began to over-rely on Pennywise’s love of balloons, attempting to draw every ounce of suspense from them.
These efforts hilariously backfire in the scene in which an adult Richie spots Pennywise hamming it up on a balcony at the library.Soon, his vision is flooded with balloons, which the soundtrack seems to imply should be terrifying enough on their own. One-by-one, the balloons pop, covering unsuspecting library patrons in blood. The crowd’s lack of response to the supposedly scary moment and the strange menacing weightItseems to think the balloons have make for some undoubtedly silly imagery.
5The Toilet Scene
Dreamcatcher
A strange adaptation befitting one of Stephen King’s weirdest books,Dreamcatchersfamously tried to do for the toilet what Alfred Hitchcock’sPsychodid for the shower,or whatJawsdid for going swimming. In an attempt to make audiences fear the porcelain throne, the film only succeeds in supplying King fans with some of the most absurd imagery ever put to film. It doesn’t help that the unhinged narrative revolving around alien possession is strikingly convoluted.
The film’s all-time silliest scene is when Jonesy and Beaver encounter an alien worm, lovingly referred to as a “Sh*t weasel,” exiting the bowels of their late rescuee, Rick. In a jaw-droppingly weird action scene, Beaver tries to trap the writhing creature in the toilet by sitting on the lid, only to predictably meet his fate at the razor-sharp teeth of the fecally-fixated invader.It’s safe to say that King failed to make audiences afraid of the toilet with the release ofDreamcatcher.
4The Werewolf Transformation
Silver Bullet
Despite Stephen King being the all-time master of literary horror, the movie adaptation of his classic tale of lycanthropy doesn’t hold up as one of the best werewolf movies out there. In fact,Silver Bullet, starring Gary Busey, falls laughably short of any true scares, venturing into the realm of pure silliness.This is largely due once more to a limited production budget, resulting in some unbearably cheap special effects for the film’s most overt werewolf transformation.
The way the werewolf’s eyes dart back and forth from behind their prosthetic snarl is particularly obvious, sapping all the potential horror from the scene and leaving only unintentional comedy.
Silver Bullet’s makeup and costume department sadly fell short of the task, resulting in awerewolf transformation sequencethat relies on quick cuts and cheap rubber masks in lieu of grotesque body horror. The way the werewolf’s eyes dart back and forth from behind their prosthetic snarl is particularly obvious, sapping all the potential horror from the scene and leaving only unintentional comedy.Busey’s intense over-acting later on doesn’t help matters much, making the entirety ofSilver Bulletone adaptation that didn’t survive the translation to movies well.
3The Cat From Hell
Tales from the Darkside
As strange as his feature-length books can get, time and time again, Stephen King presents some of his most absurd ideas in his short stories.One of the most alarming is titledThe Cat from Hell, and was adapted for film in the horror anthology film based on King’s work,Tales from the Darkside.In the segment of the same name, a hitman is hired to take out a crucial target, only to learn that his mark is a seemingly-ordinary housecat.
Soon, the assassin finds himself in a fight for his life against the domestic shorthair, who hilariously pounces on him in obvious puppet form.But the true climax to the absurdity is a moment lifted straight from the original story,in which the cat ultimately slays its attacker by burrowing into his throat and bursting out of his stomach like a Xenomorph from theAlienfranchise. It’s hard to say this scene works in literary form, let alone on-screen in a low-budget anthology film.
2The Industrial Workplace Accident
The Mangler
Considering how many iconic horror villains Stephen King has dreamed up over the years, it’s a shame the talents of Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, were wasted on a project likeThe Mangler.Based on King’s short story of the same name, the film revolves around, of all things, a haunted laundry press. Possessed with a demonic mind of its own, the massive machine ends up taking the life of several victims in harrowing workplace “accidents.” Somehow,The Manglermanaged to spawn an entire franchise.
There are some true neck-and-neck contenders for the silliest moment in a film centered around such a strange antagonist, including the chase sequence in which The Mangler manages to become mobile through sheer force of will. However, it’s the scene in which the poor overworked Mrs.Frawley spills some medication into the machine, only to get sucked in by her arms, which truly takes the cake.From Mrs. Frawley’s unconvincing screams to Englund’s hilarious reaction, the supposedly scary death scene is unquestionably silly.
1Warwick Fights The Giant Bat
Graveyard Shift
Another of King’s lesser-known film adaptations, the plot toGraveyard Shiftis refreshingly straightforward. A group of employees at a textile mill infested with rats have to do battle with a massive, demonic bat (technically, a bat-like rat). Given the rights to King’s short story of the same name for peanuts, the creators ofGraveyard Shiftclearly had little in the way of production value, and this shines spectacularly during the worker Warwick’s encounter with the leathery-winged beast.
Admittedly, the giant bat looks quite impressive in certain shots, dripping with saliva and moving with murderous intent. However, when the effect meets an actual actor, all illusions of terror immediately crumble away into silliness, as Warwick ineffectually wrestles with the creature despite the seemingly loose grip of its wings. Add in some awkward editing choices and stiff movement from the bat puppet, andGraveyard Shiftpresents one of the most preposterous scenes of anyStephen Kingmovie.
