worst Steven King movie adaptation?

[kakihara]

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!"

[Alex]

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.

[RCMerchant]

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. 
Alex-the rats one was GRAVEYARD SHIFT (1999)-and I agree-it's dam lame.

[kakihara]

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

[retrorussell]

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.

[bob]

Dreamcatcher, The Shining miniseries, Maximum Overdrive

[dean]

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?

[Archivist]

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:

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

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

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[clockworkcanary]

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.

[Leah]

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.

[Archivist]

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.

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!

[clockworkcanary]

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.

[Trevor]

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

[Archivist]

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.

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! 

[Chainsawmidget]

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