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Whats the worst steven king movie adaptation? Not based on how faithful they are to the source material, but just as movie, whats the worst? Imo, the made for tv movies (or miniseries) seem to be the worst by nature. Theyres a lot of them and some I like inspite of their badness.

Some of my picks:

Langoliers - Im trying to be objective. I forgot about this one until RC mentioned it. Cheap CGI cocoa puffs and Balky from perfect strangers. I like it, but I know its bad.

Tommyknockers - what the hell is a tommyknocker? lots of green light and a porn star. well, I kind of like those 2 things.

Maximum overdrive - a stupid movie but at least its got Emilio!

Sleepwalkers - incestuous cat-people.

Dreamcatcher - butt worms!

The Running man - "hey christmas tree!"

I love Maximum Overdrive. Maybe its the soundtrack, but I've always had a soft spot for it.

Can't remember the name of it right now, but the worst I've seen was the one with the factory and the giant rats beneath it.

The TOMMYKNOCKERS is a great book-but the movie-? UGH!
The MANGLER (1995) was dam stupid. A possessed laundry-folding machine??? C'mon!
LAWNMOWER MAN Is pretty useless as well.

I also love MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE-and I think the soundtrack has everything to do with it.  :thumbup:
Alex-the rats one was GRAVEYARD SHIFT (1999)-and I agree-it's dam lame.

yep, Graveyard shift, lots of rats and a giant bat!

I would go with The Mangler-- it's so awful and stupid-- some short stories just do NOT translate to film.
Dreamcatchers was pretty dire.  I coined the term "analiens" while viewing that one.
I know Maximum Overdrive is purposely jokey but I still never liked it.  Though yes, AC/DC is great.
I hated Running Man.  Just terrible.  Some of the worst jokey dialogue for Arnold.  You're better off playing SMASH T.V., the awesome arcade game that was based on it.

Dreamcatcher, The Shining miniseries, Maximum Overdrive

Wasn't there some story about how Lawnmower man was the title of a Stephen King short story which is completely different to the movie? I seem to remember being some story about how the producers called it "Stephen King's Lawnmower man" and added their own random script to it just to sell it and SK sued to take his name off which he won but when the VHS/DVD came out the producers added his name back in without permission.

I guess does that count as a Stephen King film adaptation in that scenario?

There is at least one independent Stephen King movie adaptation, and it's pretty bad.  Based on the short story I Know What You Need and with a hint of Lovecraft, it's a neat story about an attractive young woman who falls in love with a guy who seems to know everything she likes.  She discovers that he's a practicing magician/sorcerer who not only can see everything she wants, but has quietly done away with obstacles to their being together, like her now deceased boyfriend.  He had a copy of the Necronomicon in his wardrobe, too.

Then someone turned it into this trash:

! No longer available (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZGGzZYLGsM#)

Not to be outdone in the badness stakes, someone else created this awfulness:

! No longer available (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dLgOHxl8z8#)

He obviously didn't think it was krap enough, so he reversed the gender roles and made this:

! No longer available (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3o9uEBi1OU#)

I second Dreamcatcher and The Shining miniseries.

Regarding the Lawnmower Man, yes I believe they pretty much just stole the name so they could say it was a King flick, when it drew more from a different story, Cyber God, or something like that. From what I understand, King's story had a satyr that ate grass or something like that.

I guess King sued them for a high amount of money per day when they were making the Lawnmower Man.

Maximum Overdrive was made jokingly, plus it's kinda creative at how some of the deaths were handled (Soda canned to death and being ran over by a steam roller) It's bad, but not the worst. Maybe Dark Castle is, but I haven't seen it.

Funny, I really enjoyed The Lawnmower Man, but at the time I was heavily into cyberpunk.

The original Lawnmower Man story was really odd.  A gardener was mowing some guy's lawn, and he noticed that the lawnmower was moving by itself, and munching up everything in its path including squirrels.  The gardener had a satyr's lower half, and a beard that looked like it was made of grass.  The satyr killed the man, sacrificing him to nature or something.  Frankly, I preferred the cyberpunk version of events!

I loved the Lawnmower Man back in 92 when it came out (I was really into Amiga and VR at the time)...now, it's just downright funny. I actually screened this at my last B-movie party and everyone loved it. I plan to queue it up on one of my upcoming podcasts. It's long gone now, but at one time I had a long write-up on it.

I have the sequel on DVD, but have yet to watch it.

The Shining for me: I actually went home in tears in 1980.

Yessss, me too!  The Lawnmower Man II is sitting on the shelf, just waiting for me to have some unadulterated movie time.  Maybe I'll watch them both, back to back, like a double feature!  :cheers:

I'm going to have to go with the Shining mini series.  Nothing in that series really worked. 

Riding the Bullet

Anything that Mick Garris touches turns to crap.  And the short story wasn't very good either.

Just wanted to let you all know this thread has inspired me to go through my Wife's stash of King movies (she has about all of them) to watch a few non-gems mentioned here.

Graveyard Shift: I remember when this was in theaters, but I had never watched it. Loved the setting and atmosphere, but overall it was a dud. I did like the s**tty portrayal of factory work and having to deal with corrupt line leaders (been there a few times). And this movie did hit on one of my biggest fears: rats...lots and lots of rats. The Wife thoroughly enjoyed me squirming as she'd never seen anything bother me in such a way before. I guess it was filmed in Harmony Maine, with one of the oldest mills in the US. But yeah, all that being said, it was still a dud. But, it does remind me of many dull and dirty nights when I used to work in similar places in the middle of Summer back in the day.

The Mangler: Tobe Hoober directed, based on Stephen King, with Freddy and Buffalo Bill and it's still s**tty? Again, it reminded me of factories I've worked in where they skirt around safety issues and people loosing limbs and all, but overall, this was not very great. The whole inanimate objects being possessed was done better in Christine. That girl was not 16, either.

Tommyknockers was pretty terrible IMO.

the absolute worst? neefdul things. nuf said.

They made a movie of The Mangler??  Holy codweasel, this looks bad.  Considering that Tobe Hooper did the rather excellent Lifeforce, this looks like campy schlock for miles.  The short story is pretty effective, though.

! No longer available (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qa-bhIuQQE#)

shout out to Storm of the Century --- predictable and takes FOREVER to end......you could take out an hour plus and nothing would be lost

Yeah, I think it's one of those short stories that just doesn't translate to film very well. Plus, it was made in the mid 90s, which was an overall bad time for most horror (music queues are too goofy, the lighting is too polished, etc.).

Hard to believe everyone that was involved in this and it didn't turn out so well.

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They made a movie of The Mangler??  Holy codweasel, this looks bad.  Considering that Tobe Hooper did the rather excellent Lifeforce, this looks like campy schlock for miles.  The short story is pretty effective, though.

! No longer available (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qa-bhIuQQE#)
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Tobe Hopper made 3 really good movies-The TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (of course),EATEN ALIVE,and POLTERGIEST-and I'm not convinced he really did much on that one-seems more Spielberg the Hooper to me.
But that's just my opinion,of course.

I agree except I'd add his 1986 remake of INVADERS FROM MARS which is typically overlooked, but really interesting... and LIFEFORCE which is good too.  
The problem with TOBE HOOPER is every film he made was compared to that one.  That memorable experience: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE which I think of as one of the greatest films ever made.