Which King Film Actually Scares?

art credit: Glenn Chadbourne

I enjoyed Giles Hardie looks at Stephen King's most famous screen adaptations posted at The Sydney Morning Herald.  He suggests that all King movies don't work, citing Dreamcatcher and Secret Window.  Sigh -- I liked Secret Window because I thought it actually enhanced  the novel quite a bit.

So what King films does Hardie think are worth mentioning?  Well, Carrie, of course, and The Shining.
Hardie's note on Stand By Me is interesting.  He writes, "This movie would deserve a mention just for featuring probably the best example of future star casting ever to grace one movie - Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Gerry O'Connell and Corey Feldman (pictured) are the four heroes, Kiefer Sutherland their nemesis and John Cusack the dead brother in this tale of four boys' journey to see a dead body."

Oddly enough, Hardie then cites The Running Man.  Huh?  Seriously?  I think this movie is getting more attention these days because of the Hunger Games, which Hardie cites.

Pet Sematary and Misery make Hardie's list, as does -- drum roll -- The Lawnmower Man.  In fact, it makes Hardie's list just because it's so bad!

This film is, to be fair, schlockingly awful in many ways. For a brief moment in the early '90s virtual reality was going to take over the world, and this film gave us Jobe, a man who cuts the lawn who has an unspecified learning disability. Through the magic of virtual reality, Jobe is transformed into a genius, then an evil telekinetic, and then a megalomaniac computer virus. It gets a spot here because it is so amusingly awful and also because King won multiple lawsuits to have his name removed from the title, which was the only thing that the film and his short story had in common.

Hardie rounds out his list with The Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil and The Green Mile before giving special mention to a Stephen King mini-seires -- IT!  Hardie writes, "Tim Curry's Pennywise the Clown is arguably King's most terrifying screen-based character, yet as a mini-series It doesn't qualify for this list."  I would agree with that thought.

The article leads me to a question -- what Stephen King films do you actually find scary?  

My list:
1. Pet Sematary.
2. The Shining.
3. The Mist.
4. Christine.
5. Bag of Bones had moments.