Cheat Sheet Offers Their 5 Favorite SK Screen Adaptations

I like articles  that rank Stephen King works.  Not sure why -- except that I think it has something to do with the fact that this is completely subjective.  No one can actually say what the "best" are -- so everyone's opinion is good.

It's so random, list makers don't even have to be consistent with previous lists they've made.  That is my way of saying -- I'm sure I've listed what I think are the five best  adaptations, and so when I make the list again it might be different.

Wallstreet Cheat Sheet has a list of the 5 Best Stephen King Film Adaptations, by Thomas Mentel.  Yep, they choose five goodies!

5. Carrie.  

"In recent years, the film has continued to rank as one of the greatest horror movies of all time; director Quentin Tarantino has named the film among his favorites as recently as 2008. The consistent critical acclaim the film has received has led many to wonder why a second adaptation was necessary in the first place."   

Do we know why they remade it yet?  I'm still not sure.  I liked the remake -- but I'd rather they remake Needful Things.

4. Misery.  

"Bates would later go on to win both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Actress, while her turn as Wilkes placed the character at No. 17 on AFI’s list of the top 50 villains in the past 100 years. The scene in which Wilkes takes a sledgehammer to Sheldon’s ankles will forever be burned into the memories of moviegoers who were able to keep their eyes open."   

That's true, we will remember that moment forever.  However, the book was even better (of course.)  

This is from my MISERY Journal: (There are spoilers)

Now, for the worst part: The famous scene in which Annie breaks Paul's legs. . . that's not in the book.  No sir.  No leg breaking here.  It's worse -- fantastically worse.  Instead of breaking is legs,  she chops off his foot with an ax and cauterizes with a blowtorch.

What King is really good at is build up.  Annie doesn't just swing and ax and ouchie. . . Paul has a new boo-boo.  No, King builds  up to this.  It is painful as he watches Annie set up shop and prepare to do the deed.  More than that, there is a lot of dialogue here as Annie talks on and on.  And, she just happens to mention she gave him a pre-op shop.  As she rambles, the reader and Paul both wonder the same thing -- why did a serial killer just give Paul a pre-op shop?  What kind of operation is Mr. Sheldon in for? 

I would have thought so much talking without action would be a writing no-no. . . but it actually builds incredible suspense.  As a reader, you connect deeply with Paul because you are wondering, "Where's she going with this?  What's that crazy lady about to do?"
Once Annie has decided what she is going to do, and has explained to Paul why she's going to do it -- she drops into something like a trance.  She's no longer just crazy Annie, she is now deadly Annie. "he understood that when this was over, she would have only the vaguest memories of what she had done, as she had only the vaguest memories of killing the children and the old people and the terminal patients and Andrew Pomeroy."

3. Stand  By Me

"Stand By Me has garnered universal critical acclaim in the years since its release, and it was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 1986 Academy Awards. The film has notably left a sizable pop culture imprint, with references in all manners of entertainment, including an episode in The Simpsons in which Homer discovers a dead body."

 2. The Shawshank Redemption

"Although The Shawshank Redemption now firmly holds a spot in movie history, the film was not always the success it is today. Despite highly favorable reviews from critics and a slew of Oscar nominations — including Best Picture, Best Actor (Freeman), and Best Adapted Screenplay — the film’s box office performance of $28 million barely recouped the film’s budget, leading the film to be labeled a financial disappointment at the time of release. However, The Shawshank Redemption experienced an impressive resurgence on home video. Cable television, VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray have consistency lead to the film being one of the highest performers at home."

1. The Shining

Part of me sighs deeply at this point.  Does every list of Stephen King movies have to place the Shining on top?  Is it really the best of the best?  And do we always have to talk about King's dislike for this particular film?  You all tell me -- is The Shining the best?  Really?  I actually like the film a lot, but I don't find it terrifying.  

My five favorite:
1. Pet Sematary
2. Cujo
3. Carrie
4. The Green Mile
5. Stand By Me
And an honorable mention to The Shining.  But let's face it, it wasn't really much of an "adaptation" of the King novel.

Your turn. . . 

Misery Journal #5: Conclusion

What a ride!  Misery was a huge surprise to me.  I did not expect to like it.  How, I wondered, could King carry the story of a trapped writer for so many pages?  Of course, my opinion was based solely on the movie.  Having read the book, I now fully understand what Bev Vincent meant  when he wrote, "Misery will get under your skin."

Misery Origins:

In The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, Bev Vincent says that Misery was  inspired  in part by John Fowles's The Collector and the Evelyn Waugh short story "The Man Who  Loved  Dickens."  Vincent writes:

After reading the latter, King wondered what would happen if Dickens himself were held captive.  He reflected in an interview, "Halfway  through. . . I realized I was trying to express some of my own deepest fear-feelings: the sense of being trapped, the sense of having come from someplace like Africa and knowing I would never be  able  to get home, and trying to figure out what  it was I was doing, why I was  doing it, and why people were  responding to it."  (p.96) 

Vincent further explains that the novel was the result of a dream King had while flying to England.  "He dreamed about a woman who held a writer prisoner and killed him, skinned him, fed  the remains to her pig, and bound his novel  in human skin."

The Stephen King Universe notes that due to its realistic themes and dark ending, King originally intended Misery to be published  as a Richard Bachman novel.

Number One Fan:

Autograph hunter Mark Chapman gets a signature from John Lennon
outside his elegant Dakota apartment building in New York
where hours later he gunned down the former Beatle
(photo credit HERE)

King fans can be obsessive.  One guy broke into King's house claiming to have a bomb.  He is mobbed for autographs, and sometimes the fans turn out to be flat out scary! The Stephen King Universe says, "Misery was clearly inspired by events in King's own life."  It relates this frightening account:

In 1980,  he reportedly signed one of his books for a stranger  who literally did call himself King's 'number one fan.'  That lost soul was Mark Chapman, who would later earn his palce in history by shooting and killing John Lennon shortly thereafter." (SK Universe, p.335)

The encounter with Mark Chapman is elaborated on for a full page in the original edition of The Stephen King Companion (p.248) which is quoting form King's September 22, 1986 Virginia Beach lecture.

The book is dedicated to "Stephanie and Jim Leonard, who know why.  Boy, do they."  George Beahm offers this insight in the original Stephen King Companion, "Stephanie Leonard, for many years King's secretary and the editor/publisher of Castle Rock, knows firsthand what it's like to deal  with the fans -- the good, the bad and the ugly."

Here are my final notes for the present Misery Journal:

1. Suspense: As Paul finishes the novel, King builds intensity.  What is going to happen when he finishes writing?  The pages left to write become something like a clock running down, like in Running Man.

The novel employs Hitchcock levels of suspense at the end as the reader (and Paul) wnder if Annie is really dead.  She is discovered, not laying dead with wads of paper coming from her mouth -- but outside Misery's pig stall, with one hand wrapped around the handle of a chainsaw.  

2. There are rats here!  King has a way of sending rats racing through a story at moments I do not expect them.  Who would have expected to find rats in Misery?  I didn't!  But rats there are!  They are down in Annie's cellar.  Of course, Paul can't move, so the horror builds all the more as he  contends with rats staring at him.

3. ESCAPE: As with any novel where an escape is required, the reader is left thinking how they might execute an escape in a similar situation.  What the reader is likely to forget is just how weak and dependent on Annie Paul really is.

4. King takes us inside the writers mind as he works through problems.  Misery is really about the art of writing.

The Stephen King Companion, by George Beahm, notes that the August 1987 edition of The Castle Rock included an article by Tabitha King in which she reminded readers that Stephen King was not Paul Sheldon.  More importantly, she made the point that Annie Wilkes is a "metaphor for the creative drive itself." Beahm writes (quoting Tabitha King):

Beyond merely a tale of torture and murder, "Misery is far more concerned with the way in which a creative person can be tortured by his own powers, addicted to the act  of creation, damaged by it.  At the end, Paul Sheldon has not freed himself from Annie Wilkes; she holds him captive still, emotionally and creatively." (The Stephen King Companion, Revised Edition, 269)

I like the insight that a novel never turns out quite the way an author first imagines it.

He felt as he always did when he finished a book— queerly empty, let down, aware that for each little success he had paid a toll of absurdity. -- Misery, p. 287

Not  only is it about writing, but it is about writing being an act of creation (as discussed above by Tabitha King),

Still, it was good to be done— always good to be done. Good to have produced, to have caused a thing to be. In a numb sort of way he understood and appreciated the bravery of the act, of making little lives that weren’t, creating the appearance of motion and the illusion of warmth." -- Misery,  p.288

5. Disgusting!  Stephen King almost made me gag.  I don't normally have any physical reaction to books.  I don't cry, I don't get grossed out, I don't get scared.  Sometimes I talk back to a book -- but I'm actually pretty passive.   But I was driving to work listening to Misery as King described the final fight with Annie.  Paul shoved the novel down her throat -- while it was on fire!  The description was so powerful, I stopped the CD because I was gagging. 

King brilliantly drags that part out, letting you suffer with Annie as more  and more pages are jammed down her throat.  Even though she is getting what she deserves, the reader hurts with her.  That is a sign of good writing!

6. Irony: The novel employs a lot of irony.  For instance, Annie supplies Paul with the instruments that will be used  to bring about her own demise.  Both the typewriter and the pages of Paul's novel are weapons he will use in the final struggle.  

King himself points all  this out, writing,

So in a way she had been killed by the very typewriter Paul had hated so much. -- Misery, p.307

Misery Journal #4: Annie and the Overlook Hotel

Misery is scary.  I mean, it is messed  up scary.

The Shining

Know what it's a lot like?  The Shining.  Think about it: A man trapped (as Danny was trapped) while he watches the person who controls his life go steadily more and more insane.

It turns out that Paul is not Annie's first captive.  Discussing a photographer she murdered, Annie tells Paul:

He was going to go up to the old hotel and sketch the ruins. His pictures were going to be with an article they were doing. It was a famous old hotel called the Overlook. It burned down ten years ago. The caretaker burned it down. He was crazy. Everybody in town said so. But never mind; he’s dead.

That's pretty neat!

Sledgehammer or AX ?

Now, for the worst part: The famous scene in which Annie breaks Paul's legs. . . that's not in the book.  No sir.  No leg breaking here.  It's worse -- fantastically worse.  Instead of breaking is legs,  she chops off his foot with an ax and cauterizes with a blowtorch.

What King is really good at is build up.  Annie doesn't just swing and ax and ouchie. . . Paul has a new boo-boo.  No, King builds  up to this.  It is painful as he watches Annie set up shop and prepare to do the deed.  More than that, there is a lot of dialogue here as Annie talks on and on.  And, she just happens to mention she gave him a pre-op shop.  As she rambles, the reader and Paul both wonder the same thing -- why did a serial killer just give Paul a pre-op shop?  What kind of operation is Mr. Sheldon in for?

I would have thought so much talking without action would be a writing no-no. . . but it actually builds incredible suspense.  As a reader, you connect deeply with Paul because you are wondering, "Where's she going with this?  What's that crazy lady about to do?"

Once Annie has decided what she is going to do, and has explained to Paul why she's going to do it -- she drops into something like a trance.  She's no longer just crazy Annie, she is now deadly Annie.

he understood that when this was over, she would have only the vaguest memories of what she had done, as she had only the vaguest memories of killing the children and the old people and the terminal patients and Andrew Pomeroy.

The careful buildup doesn't mean King cheats the reader for a moment once the chopping begins.  I'd offer  up some  quotes here. .  .  but I won't.  The writing at this point is unusually vivid -- and should be read in context.

Misery Journal #3: Journal Of A Serial Killer

I’m loving the book.  I’ve assumed I had a good grasp on Misery because the movie was so very faithful.  Fans could not ask for a better adaptation of the book. That said, no screen adaptation could reproduce what King has done on the page.

Writing:

“Over the years Paul had grown more and more resigned to the fact that he could not read stories as he had when he was a kid; by becoming a writer of them himself, he had condemned himself to a life of dissection.” – Misery, p.151

When you do something often, it can become difficult to enjoy the art itself.  Misery touches on a period in Paul’s life when he found it difficult to enjoy other people’s writing without being a critic.  Makes sense – dancers each think they can do better than the person on stage; writers can be tempted to think they can write a better book than another writer.  Even preachers can struggle to listen to someone else preach, because they sit there thinking, “I wouldn’t have done that with  that text. . .” or “I would have said that much better.”

It is a sad thought – because a person perticipates in a form of art, they can reach a point where they no longer enjoy other people’s finished product.  I wonder if movie directors find it difficult to watch movies; or if cooks have trouble eating someone elses food.  Don’t laugh, just watch food network.

Journal Of A Serial Killer

Misery is nerve racking throughout; but mid novel, King really ups the anti.  While Annie is out, Paul leaves his room.  First, obviously, he wants to see if there is a way to escape the house.  Second, he needs to steal food and meds, since Annie is not there to care for him.  What Paul finds on his journey through Annie’s house is at first just flat out disgusting.  Annie loves food, and does not love cleaning.  So her house is pretty trashed.

As Paul explores, he finds something deeply disturbing: A journal.  It is full of news paper clippings, neatly organized in chronlogical order.  They include articles about Annie’s family – her father and husband – and their deaths.  Paul discovers the entire scrap book is a book of death!

Annie, a Nurse, is a serial killer.  She killed her family, killed old people in the hospital, and then moved on to kill babies.  At one point, Paul has the body count at thirty.

• Here are some of the headings he thumbs through: 
• Five Die In Apartment House Fire
• Bakersfield Accountant Dies In Freak Fall
• USC Student Dies In Freak Fall
• Head Maternity Nurse Questioned In Infant Deaths
• Three More Infant Deaths In Boulder Hospital

As Paul goes through the notebook, the reader begins to sense his dread.  He is trapped in the home of a serial killer.  I love the way this turns the tables!  Usually it is a woman who is helplessly left in the clutches of a man, tied up or blindfolded so she cannot escape.  But King has a man, bound to a wheelchair – in excruciating pain – at the mercy of a very wicked and sick woman.

I was wondering if it is realistic for a serial killer to keep such neat, clean notes of their crimes.  Actually, I think it’s very realistic!  Criminals seem to have a need to document and remember their crimes.  Ted Bundy revisited his crime scenes.  The book is a way for Annie to keep her victims near her.

Whining:

I’ve been reading Misery as I also press through several frustrations . . . like my computer going to Blue screen.  It’s fixed, but I lost a sermon – which represents 10-15 hours of work.  I’ve been telling everyone that the lost sermon is the “greatest sermon ever.”  After all, no one will ever know, right?!  Reproducing a sermon already written is impossible.  Have to just assume God had another plan and struggle with the text again.

And, as I fight with a computer – I’m listening to Misery.  How appropriate!

Misery Journal #2: Prequel To On Writing

I am about half way through the Stephen King novel Misery.  Originally slated to be a Bachman novel, Misery was ultimately published under King’s own name.  This is because the big secret was uncovered. . . Stephen King was indeed Richard Bachman.  Misery is an unrelentingly painful book, with very few spots of sunshine.  I like the book very much.

Some observations as I’ve been reading:

1.  The writing.

The book itself revolves almost completely, thus far at least, around the two central characters of Paul and Annie.  Further, King never switches view points.  The reader receives all information from Paul Sheldon’s point of view.  This means that the reader is immersed in Paul’s internal thought processes and perspective.  When he blacks out, the narrative blacks out with him.  When Paul suffers, believe me, King is a skilled enough writer to carry the reader right into his suffering.

In one scene, as Paul explores the house, King brilliantly breaks up the intensity of the Paul’s thoughts and the action sequence by bringing in the voice of a sports caster.  Of course, that voice is in Paul’s head!  In another scene, the typewriter itself becomes a character and talks to Mr. Sheldon!

I thought you were supposed to be good, the typewriter said— his mind had invested it with a sneering and yet callow voice: the voice of a teen-age gunslinger in a Hollywood western, a kid intent on making a fast reputation here in Deadwood. You’re not so good. Hell, you can’t even please one crazy overweight ex-nurse. Maybe you broke your writing bone in that crash, too ... only that bone isn’t healing.

At another point he hears the Red Queen lecturing Alice.

To the reader, these scenes (the sportscaster, the typewriter, the Red Queen) help break up the long sections of monologue running through Paul’s head.

The movie opened Misery up quite a bit by adding the character of the Sherif and his wife.  This broke up the long scenes between Annie and Paul.

2. Annie's many tortures

Annie has many ways of torturing Paul.  This is mostly because she herself is a tortured soul. (Hurt people. . . hurt people.)  Here are a few ways thus far that Annie has tortured Paul:

• She left him without food or care for several days.
• She messes with his meds.  In particular, she gets him addicted and then refuses access to medication.
• She beats him at times.
• She forced him to burn his book, Fast Cars.  This was probably one of the most painful things!
• She reminds him often of his hopeless situation.  She encourages him to scream, because no one is coming.
• . . . and don’t I know, there is so much more to come!

3. Prequel to On Writing

Since "prequel" talk is in the air. . . I think Misery serves as a prequel to King’s book, “On Writing.”  Or it is the novelized version.  I know this is not intentional, but in Misery, King takes the reader deep inside the writing process.

When Paul agrees to write a sequel to his latest Misery novel, Annie is not pleased with the first few pages.  She calls the new work a “cheat.”  She clarifies that she has no problem with a writer using plot lines that might seem unlikely – so long as they are consistent within the confines of the work.  What is unfair is to just pretend something didn’t happen!

This is from Paul’s head:

deus ex machina, the god from the machine, first used in Greek amphitheaters. When the playwright got his hero into an impossible jam, this chair decked with flowers came down from overhead. The hero sat down in it and was drawn up and out of harm’s way. Even the stupidest swain could grasp the symbolism-the hero had been saved by God. But the deus ex machina— sometimes known in the technical jargon as “the old parachute-under-the-airplane-seat trick,” finally went out of vogue around the year 1700. Except, of course, for such arcana as the Rocket Man serials and the Nancy Drew books. I guess you missed the news, Annie. 

Annie explains the problem with an illustration from the Rocketman short films she used to watch every week as a kid.  She was upset one week when the story picked up, but made changes to the previous week.  Annie tells Paul, “The car went over the cliff, and all the kids in the theater were cheering because Rocket Man got out, but I wasn’t cheering, Paul. I was mad! I started yelling, ‘That isn’t what happened last week! That isn’t what happened last week!’” and, ““He didn’t get out of the cockadoodie car! It went over the edge and he was still inside it! Do you understand that?”

Paul realizes that he can’t just write a quick book to please Annie, he is going to have to put real thought into this novel – because if he doesn’t bring Misery back to life somehow, Paul knows Annie is going to kill him.

Can a writer write for his life?  That was also a theme of The Dark Half.  Not just his dinner or his house. . . can he write if his life depends on it?  You betcha! But not joyfully.  Writing done at gun point is not the result of the overflow of the heart.  It’s mechanical and painful.

The typewriter sat there, smirking at him. “I hate you,” Paul said morosely, and looked out the window. (Misery)

And

TRYING TO HAVE AN IDEA wasn’t the same thing as GETTING AN IDEA. GETTING AN IDEA was a more humble way of saying I am inspired, or Eureka! My muse has spoken! (Misery)

4. What Annoys Me
Thus far, I only have one major complaint: I do not enjoy reading Mr. Sheldon’s writing.  I enjoy Stephen King very much!  But King feels the need to take us inside the novel Sheldon is writing. . . page by page, thus far!  I honestly don’t care about Ian, Geoffrey, or the doctor or the rest of them!  Very naughty of me, I know.

King doesn’t just give us a taste of Misery’s Return – he gives us full chapters.  If I were not listening to the book, I would be tempted to scan at this point.

MISERY JOURNAL #1

I've never read Misery.  I saw the movie, many many many times.  It is supposed to be so faithful to the book, that I think I kind of felt like I knew the matereal.  But, alas, I have jumped in to this neat little book.  Originally Misery was slated to be a Bachman book, but King was exposed before that could come to fruition.

Just a few initial observations:

1. As Paul comes into consciousness, thoughts from Genesis flood his mind.  "Let there be light, and there was light."  Thus Misery opens much the same way the the creation account begins.  Misery will be the story of a creator -- writer -- struggeling for his life.  Cast into a dark place, Paul will have to fight to really find the Light.  And, like Adam and Eve, Paul Sheldon quickly meets the devil!  King wastes no time letting us meet Annie Wilkes.  King is even kind enough to inform us early on that she is crazy.

2. King makes mouth to mouth resuscutation delivered by Annie Wilkes seem like something close to respiratory rape.  You just have to read it -- but it is sickening and powerful.  Strong writing, because it evokes disgust.  And this isn't King going for gross out -- it is a powerful picture of being helpless as another person tries to breath life into you.  (By the way, there is another creation refernce in the breath of life stuff.  But that one is not intended by Mr. King, so I will not press it.)

3. In the early pages of Misery, Kings writing has some of the dreamy quality I associate with Ray Bradbury.  I like it very much.

4. Annie expresses frustrationt hat Pual doesn't write Misery novel's fast enough.  She has to re-read the novels she already has, and anxiously awaits each new novel.  In hindsight, the Constant Reader is left wondering if there is a little Dark Tower resentment on Kings part here!  Fans would express frustration at the pace of the Tower novels release.

5. Lindsay Crouse, the reader of theaudiobook transitions smoothly between narration and the voice of Annie Wilkes.  The voice of Annie is so familiar the listener is left wondering if the reader is purposefully mimicking Kathy Bates performance -- or is there is only one way to read Annie Wilkes?