Culture
Beyond the boundaries of horror: a look at Stephen King’s non-horror adaptations
By: Gordon Briggs
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Now Playing is a column by film scholar Dr. Gordon Briggs. This installment in the series corresponds to the Now Playing column that ran on Wednesday, July 9 about The Life of Chuck.
Stephen King has long been established as a horror writer, but he isn’t just a horror writer. The recent movie The Life of Chuck is one of many adaptations of King’s stories that fall into the realm of coming-of-age stories or supernatural drama. Here are three films based on King’s novels that work just as much as dramas as his scary stories do as horror.
The first is Stand By Me (2025). This isn’t my nostalgia talking; I genuinely feel Stand By Me is an excellent movie. Firstly, apart from being a horror writer, King is skilled at writing stories about adolescence, so with this film, we get one of the best adaptations of his work, a quintessential coming-of-age film that is also a quest story and an offbeat comedy about confronting death. Here, after learning a kid was killed near their home, four Oregon boys decide to go on a journey to see the body. The adventures the group lands in range from funny (I still get a kick out of the pie-eating contest) to terrifying (two words: “d*ck leech”), and the cast of young actors is strong (especially young River Phoenix). More specifically, the work feels so confident in its tone and purpose that it perfectly captures the liminal period between the freedoms of childhood and the oncoming responsibilities of adulthood. Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★
Next is Dolores Claiborne (1994). Kings’ stories are often filled with battered wives and abused women, but rarely are they the center of the story; Dolores Claiborne is different. Jumping back and forth in time, this story follows the titular Claiborne as both an abused wife and a foul-mouthed nursemaid who has the unlucky habit of having people die around her. Are these accidents, or is Dolores just a murderer? From its opening act, what holds our interest in this mystery is another fine performance from Kathy Bates. Rather than just playing her character as another northeastern archetype, Bates infuses the role with such a combination of anger, loneliness, and vulnerability that we understand why those who cross her must meet their demise. Rating: ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Lastly is Shawshank Redemption (1994). I’m suspicious of any prison film that tries to be uplifting, so I don’t love this movie as much as others do. Having said that, I won’t deny Shawshank is both a solid adaptation of King’s story and an engaging prison drama about the power of hope. Here, Morgan Freeman’s soothing voice guides us through the brutal multi-year prison sentence of a timid banker (played memorably by Tim Robbins). Many individual scenes have power (Robbins’ rain-soaked prison escape is almost cathartic), and Freeman’s no-bullsh*t confession to the parole board is a standout scene. Yet a third-act revelation about the main character’s innocence always felt odd to me. It’s as if the torture and injustice this man suffers were wrong simply because he wasn’t a killer and not because those acts were immoral, to begin with. While I still enjoy the film, wouldn’t this have been a stronger movie if Andy Dufresne really was guilty, and we still wanted him to break free of Shawshank? Rating: ★ ★ ★