What S.K. Book Would Hitchcock Film?

Hitchcock died in 1980. The first movie adapted from a Stephen King novel was Carrie, 1976. So, Hitchcock never got to try his hand at a Stephen King novel.

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Both King and Hitchcock focused on the "Johnny Smith" type character. Just the ordinary guy, caught up in a tense situation. Think Jimmy Stewart in The Man Who Knew Too Much, Cary Grant in North by Northwest -- and then consider that King almost never writes about people of great power, but intead the common fellow.

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Of course, King has talked about Hitchcock's influence on him. In Entertainment Weekly, King writes, "One night during my junior year at college, while high on considerably more than life (it was the '60s, so sue me), I took it into my head to go — by myself — to an Alfred Hitchcock retrospective playing in the Memorial Union. The film that night was Psycho, which I had seen before...but never with the entire world seeming to melt at the edges and change colors in the middle. Yet things were going along pretty well until the last 20 minutes, when I became convinced that Norman Bates' mother — in all her shriveled, eyeless glory — was sitting directly behind me and would soon reach out to stroke the back of my neck." http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20179021,00.html

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10 Books Hitchcock Would Love To Put To Film

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So which 10 books would Hitch just love to film? Well, there's no answer to my question -- so I'll happily answer it myself! (That's why it's good to ask questions that have no anser -- you get to keep talking!)

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10. Cell. For some reason this book reminds me of "the Birds." Maybe because of the break down in society.

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9. The Running Man. Well, if not Hitchcock, someone needs to try this again.

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8. Lisey's Story. You just keep finding out more about the dearly departed.

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7. Suffer The Children. Think, Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

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6. Dolores Claiborne. Tense and brilliant.

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5. Cujo. I wonder which ending Hitch would have chosen.

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4. The Shining. Come on, how can I resist a crazy hotel proprietor.

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3. Needful Things. The master of suspense would weave this together perfectly.

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2. The Stand. Hitch would have fun with that tunnel scene. Truthfully, The Stand is far more suspense and Drama than it is horror. Well, until Flagg rips his face off, and the hand of God nukes the bad guys, and. . . alright, it's horror, too.

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1. Misery. Talk about suspense! This is classic Hitchcock. Only, it's not Hitch at all! It's King at his very best.

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Now. . . which movie would King write the best novel of? Psycho, of course!