[inksb]

I still haven't finished The Dark Tower. I think I dropped off around Song of Susannah. Some day I'll finish the series though. I did hear that The Wind Through the Key Hole was good.

I revisited Pet Semetery, It and Salem's Lot a few years ago and they all hold up quite well. I still particularly love Salem's Lot.

[Jimmy_Mike]

Pet Sematary might be his scariest book for me.

[ScoJo]

Pet Sematary might be his scariest book for me.

oddly don't think I have ever tried to decide which is his 'scariest'... but I reckon you may be right JM.

the film is pretty great too - both very dark and scary but also heartbreaking. it really works on all levels.

[ScoJo]

Christine came along at exactly the right point for me, was around 12/13 and became instantly weirdly obsessed with it. Re-read it over and over. Oh it spoke to me alright!

Then the film happened a year or so later and I couldn't believe how good it was. It took over from the book as my obsession, watching it dozens of times - it was a running joke in my family, 'he's watching it again! how many times is that now, thirty? Forty?!'

[Jimmy_Mike]

Pet Sematary might be his scariest book for me.

oddly don't think I have ever tried to decide which is his 'scariest'... but I reckon you may be right JM.

the film is pretty great too - both very dark and scary but also heartbreaking. it really works on all levels.

I've not seen the old or new film.

[Jimmy_Mike]

Pet Sematary might be his scariest book for me.

oddly don't think I have ever tried to decide which is his 'scariest'... but I reckon you may be right JM.

the film is pretty great too - both very dark and scary but also heartbreaking. it really works on all levels.

I've not seen the old or new film.

Also, as some of you know, I work with Native Americans. Our company has worked with the Micmacs up in Maine, but I've never been. One day I hope to go up there.

[Hatter313]

Salem's Lot is my favorite, It is a close second, but Pet Sematary is absolutely the scariest for my money.

The original film is perfect to me, heartbreaking, creepy as hell, with just a dash of EC comics camp to keep it lively.

[Mateo Sanboval]

Salem's Lot and Christine were the ones that sucked me in as a lad. Christine first, then the Lot.

Northern New England, my old stomping grounds, has loads of great folklore and much of it originated with Native Americans of that region. It's a special place.

[CrossedPete]

The Shining is the book that started not only my love for SK but my love for reading in general. Like some of you Pet Sematary scared the crap out of me as a kid, but the book that has stuck with me and I love the most is definitely Salem’s Lot. The most recent book I’ve read must of been Doctor Sleep which I thought was ok. Still haven’t watched the movie though. I’m still not sure how that’s going to work? Is it a sequel to Kubrick’s Shinning?

I can vividly remember watching the trailer for Dreamcatcher and thinking how bad it looked. I remember thinking everyone looks stoned in the movie. I just couldn’t let it go, how shitty is this movie going to be? When I went to the movie it didn’t disappoint, I thought it was terrible. I’ve rewatched it since and I feel it’s not as bad as I once thought. It’s hard to pick a favourite movie and honestly my answer changes but I think it’s gotta be Creepshow. I’m a sucker for a good anthology and you can tell it a love letter to the old EC comics something I’m also very fond of.

I think I can remember Waxwork teasing a Dead Zone release a week or two ago, but I really hope Silver Bullet gets reissued as well Jay Chattaway is the man.

[ScoJo]

The most recent book I’ve read must of been Doctor Sleep which I thought was ok. Still haven’t watched the movie though. I’m still not sure how that’s going to work? Is it a sequel to Kubrick’s Shinning?

Hey Pete - I reckon your mileage on Dr Sleep will vary depending on how much sleep you've been losing over King's beef with Kubrick - the film is one long third-party forced handshake between the two artists. I never needed it, personally, having no problem with there being two distinctly separate masterpieces that I enjoy with the same name, from two very different artists that I love.

I'm also not a big fan of Flanagan, so while there are a lot of fun or well designed individual parts to this long shaggy dog re-quel, there is too much of the writer/director's trademark slick, 2nd hand, sappy heart-on-sleeve stuff for me to ignore. In some ways, I found the appropriation and deference payed to SK (the filmmaker)'s iconic imagery as cloying and superficial as that hateful sequence in Ready Player One.
I recall enjoying it enough in the cinema with my mum, but I've tried to rewatch a couple of times at home and switched off pretty quickly in irritation. It's just not for me. The last act especially was unsatisfying, though having not read the novel it's possible the screenwriter is doing their best with one of SK's classic 'lame endings' ;)

(Of Flanagan's work fwiw, I only really liked parts of Oculus and Haunting of Hill House - the latter of which really suffers the most from his 'Wonder Years' schmaltzy tendencies in the final eps. I much preferred S2 in general, which nails it's ending).

[Mateo Sanboval]

Flanagan is the Hill House/Bligh Manor person? Ugh. Hard pass.

[deafmetal]

The first books I read as a young lad were the Night Shift and Skeleton Crew anthologies. For film adaptations, I caught broadcast TV edits of Carrie, Cujo, and Christine (which all start with "C"!). There was also a secret viewing of a Children of the Corn VHS at a party that scared us young folk that grew up surrounded by corn fields on all sides of our small town. As a young lad, Carrie probably had the most impact overall in both forms.

Decades later now, for both original text and film adaptation, for me it's The Shining, and that is praise for both King and Kubrick. My other favorite novels are The Stand and The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger along with the rest of the series. I grew up in the upper Midwest and have never been to New England, so I do not have the close connection that some of you have to the area. I have to say that I also felt that Maximum Overdrive was a guilty pleasure viewing as a teenager, but I don't think I have seen in over twenty years. I would much prefer to watch Creepshow again or The Running Man.

[ScoJo]

Flanagan is the Hill House/Bligh Manor person? Ugh. Hard pass.

He wasn't as involved with Bligh - whole team of
writers/director's on that series. Think Flanagan just directed first ep?

[inksb]

Flanagan is the Hill House/Bligh Manor person? Ugh. Hard pass.

He wasn't as involved with Bligh - whole team of
writers/director's on that series. Think Flanagan just directed first ep?

Correct. Flanagan had a "showrunner" type role on Bligh and it was much better for it. We discussed this in the Now Watching thread but I think @mateo was on sabbatical at that time. I think most of us enjoyed Bligh much more than Hill House (which I hated)

[CrossedPete]

Flanagan is the Hill House/Bligh Manor person? Ugh. Hard pass.

He wasn't as involved with Bligh - whole team of
writers/director's on that series. Think Flanagan just directed first ep?

Correct. Flanagan had a "showrunner" type role on Bligh and it was much better for it. We discussed this in the Now Watching thread but I think @mateo was on sabbatical at that time. I think most of us enjoyed Bligh much more than Hill House (which I hated)

I thought Hill House started off fairly decent but yeah by the end i didn’t really care. I still haven’t watched Bligh Manor, I will but just haven’t got around to it yet.

@ScoJo you told me all I need to know about Doctor Sleep. Hard pass and way to remind me about that garbage in Ready Player One I almost forgot.

[Mateo Sanboval]

The first books I read as a young lad were the Night Shift and Skeleton Crew anthologies. For film adaptations, I caught broadcast TV edits of Carrie, Cujo, and Christine (which all start with "C"!). There was also a secret viewing of a Children of the Corn VHS at a party that scared us young folk that grew up surrounded by corn fields on all sides of our small town. As a young lad, Carrie probably had the most impact overall in both forms.

Decades later now, for both original text and film adaptation, for me it's The Shining, and that is praise for both King and Kubrick. My other favorite novels are The Stand and The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger along with the rest of the series. I grew up in the upper Midwest and have never been to New England, so I do not have the close connection that some of you have to the area. I have to say that I also felt that Maximum Overdrive was a guilty pleasure viewing as a teenager, but I don't think I have seen in over twenty years. I would much prefer to watch Creepshow again or The Running Man.

I'd just like to take a moment to say that I love reading all of these SK origin stories. Like, I truly love it. It warms the cockles.

[ScoJo]

He wasn't as involved with Bligh - whole team of
writers/director's on that series. Think Flanagan just directed first ep?

Correct. Flanagan had a "showrunner" type role on Bligh and it was much better for it. We discussed this in the Now Watching thread but I think @mateo was on sabbatical at that time. I think most of us enjoyed Bligh much more than Hill House (which I hated)

I thought Hill House started off fairly decent but yeah by the end i didn’t really care. I still haven’t watched Bligh Manor, I will but just haven’t got around to it yet.

@ScoJo you told me all I need to know about Doctor Sleep. Hard pass and way to remind me about that garbage in Ready Player One I almost forgot.

Erk. My intention wasn't to completely put you off, as I was clear my response to the film was amongst other factors coloured by my not having embibed of the horror community's 'Flanagan Kool Aid'. But on balance, Id say fuckit - you're really not missing anything essential in your life by skipping it.

I had much more fun with 80% of In The Tall Grass tbh, can happily rec'd that! And as Hatter has been saying- The Outsider is really pretty great. Shit, I even enjoyed much of Mr Mercedes, in a throwaway, pulpy fashion. (hint hint- I had no baggage at all with any of those adaptations ;)

[ScoJo]

I'd just like to take a moment to say that I love reading all of these SK origin stories. Like, I truly love it. It warms the cockles.

Ditto! :)

[Mateo Sanboval]

He wasn't as involved with Bligh - whole team of
writers/director's on that series. Think Flanagan just directed first ep?

Correct. Flanagan had a "showrunner" type role on Bligh and it was much better for it. We discussed this in the Now Watching thread but I think @mateo was on sabbatical at that time. I think most of us enjoyed Bligh much more than Hill House (which I hated)

I thought Hill House started off fairly decent but yeah by the end i didn’t really care. I still haven’t watched Bligh Manor, I will but just haven’t got around to it yet.

@ScoJo you told me all I need to know about Doctor Sleep. Hard pass and way to remind me about that garbage in Ready Player One I almost forgot.

This. All of this.

[inksb]

Doctor Sleep was not good, well the film wasn't, I haven't read the book because well the story sound like it wasn't my cup of tea, the film confirmed it. It has a few "interesting" moments but I just didn't understand the almost universal praise it received.

I will say again though, Bligh is good. It's a pleasant love story with a ghost angle. The characters are all likeable unlike Hill House which I loathed every one except the one who offed her self fairly early to my dismay. I know it's just a retelling of another story that's been adapted in the past but it's worth watching imo. The first two episodes may be iffy to some but once everything starts coming together around ep 3 it hooks you and there are two very particular episodes with some great stuff in it.


As for my first exposure to King, I'll share the story. I'm younger than most on here I think but close to a few of you. My best friend when I was younger would show me all of his mom's & step dad's King books when I came over to hangout. What started as a fascination with the covers quickly turned into the two of us consuming a bunch of books at an age far too young to understand parts of it but still scared the ever living shit out me. I had a book case in my room where I would hide the book behind other books and pretend it wasn't there when it scared me too much. I can't quite remember which book was my first read, it was either Cujo or Salem's Lot but they were very close to each other. We also read IT way too young as well. As a child I was considered an advanced reader due to my ability to read and comprehend much larger books than the kids around me, I consumed a lot stuff above my "level" for quite a few years. Revisiting them always blows me away with how much stuff that just went over my head or maybe confused me as a kid but I have no memory of. Unfortunately for some reason they didn't have any of the short stories which I would have loved when I was younger, I didn't find my way to them until my teen's and early 20's. I'm definitely not as big of a King fan as many of you here, he had a lasting effect on me very early on but it took me many years to return to his writing and it's been pretty fun to revisit. It's funny I have a different friend now who is obsessed with King and has a bookcase very similar to @Hatters

Oh yeah and for those that haven't watched The Outsider. Do it. Also the book is pretty enjoyable too.

[Bezulsqy]

When I think of SK (and I have read only a handful of his books a long long time ago) I always think of IT, Misery and Christine.
For me The Shining is Kubrick. And The Running Man is Arnold :-)

[deafmetal]

Doctor Sleep - enjoyed the book, an interesting follow-up tale that did not detract from the original story for me. While I'm not going to say it's on the same level as the original (how could it be, really?), I felt it was good read. Decided to skip the film based on advice from friends here.

[NathanLurker]

I read Doctor Sleep too, and didn't watch the movie. I would watch it, but I just have other stuff I want to watch more ( these days I'm going through Gamera boxset, Godzilla boxsetand Jackie Chan collection from 88 films). Doctor Sleep is more of a dark fantasy book than a Horror/haunting book, so that was never going to please everyone I think. But if you're doing dark fantasy, Flanagan seems like a good choice to adapt that. It's just not gonna be the same as Shining. Expectations were always going to be a burden on Doctor Sleep.

[ScoJo]

I read Doctor Sleep too, and didn't watch the movie. I would watch it, but I just have other stuff I want to watch more ( these days I'm going through Gamera boxset, Godzilla boxsetand Jackie Chan collection from 88 films). Doctor Sleep is more of a dark fantasy book than a Horror/haunting book, so that was never going to please everyone I think. But if you're doing dark fantasy, Flanagan seems like a good choice to adapt that. It's just not gonna be the same as Shining. Expectations were always going to be a burden on Doctor Sleep.

That's very true @Nate, though my own issue with the film was not that it wasn't straight horror (though there are plenty of genuinely horrific things in it!) but primarily it was because of how much it kept reminding you about Kubrick's film, rather than doing it's own thing.

[tim28212]

I read Doctor Sleep too, and didn't watch the movie. I would watch it, but I just have other stuff I want to watch more ( these days I'm going through Gamera boxset, Godzilla boxsetand Jackie Chan collection from 88 films). Doctor Sleep is more of a dark fantasy book than a Horror/haunting book, so that was never going to please everyone I think. But if you're doing dark fantasy, Flanagan seems like a good choice to adapt that. It's just not gonna be the same as Shining. Expectations were always going to be a burden on Doctor Sleep.

That's very true @Nate, though my own issue with the film was not that it wasn't straight horror (though there are plenty of genuinely horrific things in it!) but primarily it was because of how much it kept reminding you about Kubrick's film, rather than doing it's own thing.

Agree with @Scojo on this. I thought it was a pretty good film until the last third where so much of it was referencing back to Kubrick movie.