A Personal History of My Stephen King Obsession
A Personal History of My Stephen King Obsession
by Karenna Umshcied
photograph: IMDB
My love for Stephen King and all his works began not with any of the iconic film adaptations, but rather with the thrilling, disturbing novel Misery. My parents had talked about the film adaptation for years, the iconic hobbling scene and the horrifying glow of Kathy Bates’ obsessed face, as she hovers over a helpless Paul Sheldon (James Caan).
In my more literate years, I resigned to always reading the book before I watched the movie adaptation. And so I read Misery in all its heart-pounding, thrilling, gag-worthy gore delight, and subsequently watched the film adaptation. The pairing was entrancing. There’s something memorable not just in a Stephen King work and a screen adaptation separately, but their intersection, the points that match up perfectly, and the novel subplots cut short. The dichotomy is so fascinating, and all of King’s novels on their own are so rich with history and lore that I find myself constantly yearning for more of his work, feeling some sort of literary emptiness when it’s been too long since reading one of his tales.
The Shining is one of the more controversial adaptations, the film has infamous behind-the-scenes lore, and iconic lines and visuals, that have cemented the film as one of the greatest horror films of all time. Though, in a multitude of ways, it is an entirely different story than the novel King wrote. The novel, and the sequel Doctor Sleep, are pretty essential reads in King’s bibliography, and though the films aren’t always so faithful to his writing, each one holds a powerful place in popular culture. Despite being such a devoted movie gal (what else could this blog be about, after all!), when it comes to Stephen King, I will almost always prefer the book.
The film adaptations for It are often scary enough with so much opportunity for creativity in the stylistic aspects specifically, but none can fully encompass the historical weight that we embedded into the town of Derry that King wrote. No film adaptation of Carrie truly depicts all the horrors King elicits in the book, his twisted creativity constantly causing me to wince and nauseate. Perhaps the only adaptation that was both faithful to the story and a really fantastic film was The Shawshank Redemption, also known as the greatest movie ever made; I think about it nearly every day. King provides not just rich stories, but fascinating characters with depth that translate so brilliantly and creatively with on-screen performances. Even when the film adaptations fall short, there is always something there worth watching.
All of this is to say that I don’t care that King can rarely stick the ending; that a lot of his stuff veers far too weird and off-kilter in ways that the narrative doesn’t require, and it’s a little bit unnecessarily sexual and slightly misogynistic at times – there is something about his writing that I will always crave. It’s melancholic and beautiful as much as it is disturbing and vomit-inducing. The original book version of The Shining is a really stunning and powerful tale of alcoholism and abuse, and though the film adaptation fails to capture the terrors and nuances King spun, I have to admit, it’s the tiniest bit scarier.
The Shining screens at the Coolidge Corner Theater on Tuesday, April 30.
Until next Wednesday,
Karenna
