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Osgood Perkins isn’t necessarily known for his sense of humor, which is a little odd since he co-starred in “Legally Blonde,” a movie which isn’t particularly terrifying. Over the course of four ethereal, severe, haunting horror movies — most recently, last year’s acclaimed hit “Longlegs” — Perkins made a name for himself as one of the most dramatic filmmakers currently in the genre, tackling serious emotional burdens through the lens of the supernatural.

“The Monkey” is not one of those serious, dreary, though mostly brilliant films. It’s a wacky, fast-paced, mostly brilliant comedy. Adapted from a 1980 short story by Stephen King (who also wrote “The Mangler”), the film stars Theo James as identical twins, Bill and Hal, whose lives are ruined by a toy monkey they found in their absentee father’s closet as children. When you wind up the monkey, it plays a drum. When it finishes,...

Presented by Neon’s The Monkey, Bloody Disgusting is celebrating this Friday’s release of Osgood Perkins’ highly anticipated horror with Stephen King Week. Yesterday, Jenn Adams talked King’s creepy critters, and today, Luiz H. C. catalogues his cursed objects.

There’s a classic Family Guy cut-away gag where author Stephen King pitches his 307th horror book to an editor, with the writer coming up with an absurd story about a killer lamp on the spot after looking at the objects on the editor’s desk. While this joke was clearly meant to be a jab at the author’s prolific output, I think most fans would agree that, if the King of Horror ever chose to write a book about a lamp monster, it’d be one hell of a scary lamp!

After all, King’s nearly-six-decade-long career has gifted us with countless examples of seemingly inanimate items that harbor supernatural secrets.

Over the past 50 years, Stephen King has dominated the horror genre, both in books and movies, but some may be wondering which of King's short stories are the absolute scariest. Though King writes mostly horror, which is supposed to be terrifying, some of his writings are much scarier than others. Many audiences are likely desensitized to his more popular works like Carrie or The Shining, while his lesser-known stories could pack a much greater punch. Plus, scariness can be fairly subjective. However, the following ten books are those that countless King fans have labeled the scariest of all.

King may be most recognizable for his novels, but the author has written a significant number of short stories as well. King has between 60 and 70 novels under his belt, but he has written more than 200 short stories, many of which have been published in his seven short story collections. Not only are...

‘Tis the season for binge-watching Stephen King adaptations.

The King of Horror has as many horror adaptations floating around out there as he does books with his name on them. Watching a horror flick based on King’s work is a yearlong delight but getting through a bunch of them during the Halloween season just hits different.

With all the streaming services available today of course there isn’t a one stop shop for all of these adaptations, but we’ve rounded up a checklist of which films are available at the major streamers. Go hunting for the perfect King horror film for your mood or just start working your way through them all.

From “Misery” and “Salem’s Lot” to shows like “The Outsider” and “Under the Dome,” here are over 50 Stephen King horror adaptations and where to stream them.

Netflix

Film:

1922 Gerald’s Game In the Tall Grass Mr.

Just over 20 years after the movie failed to wow fans of the book and the author himself, Damian Lewis is looking back on his experience with Dreamcatcher. The movie served as an adaptation of Stephen King's sci-fi horror novel of the same name, centering on a group of childhood friends who find themselves at the center of an alien invasion while on their annual trip to a cabin in the woods. Co-written and directed by Star Wars and Indiana Jones vet Lawrence Kasdan, Dreamcatcher was both a critical and commercial bomb, grossing just shy of $75 million against its $68 million production budget.

During a recent interview with Screen Rant for his new horror-comedy The Radleys, Lewis was asked about his experience working on Dreamcatcher. The Emmy and Golden Globe winner began by recalling the "wild ride" he had while working on the King adaptation, before going on to recall the...

Stephen King isn’t just an author by this point: He’s an institution, a legacy of classic horror stories that capture our imaginations, fuel our nightmares, and speak — when he’s at his best — to our shared experiences as flawed, emotional beings. The best King stories scare so many of us that we all feel connected, and even the worst are usually pretty fun.

King’s books and short stories quickly became hit movies, many of them celebrated in their time, and some flopped so hard that hardly anybody remembers them. Cataloguing every adaptation might be a fool’s errand, so we made some tough choices and decided to focus only on his theatrical releases.

And even then, there are so many King adaptations that it gets tricky. The sequels to King’s work rarely have anything to do with the source material, so they’re all disqualified. We...

I’ve been fascinated with cursed objects ever since my mom first scared me with stories about those paintings of crying children that would supposedly survive raging fires while the house around them burned. Despite later learning that most of these yarns are nothing more than urban legends, I still find myself oddly attracted to tales about evil taking on a more abstract shape.

And in honor of Damian Mc Carthy’s Oddity taking the idea of cursed objects to the next level as the film unleashes horrors from its protagonist’s cabinet of curiosities, we’ve decided to come up with a list celebrating six of the spookiest cursed objects in horror media.

For the purposes of this list, we’ll be avoiding haunted dolls like Chucky and Annabelle, as I think the article will be much more entertaining if we focus on non-humanoid objects that pose more of an abstract threat.

Some Stephen King movies have fallen short of expectations, with adaptations like Needful Things missing the mark on the original story. Sleepwalkers and Thinner also failed to fully capture the essence of King's storytelling, leaving room for improvement in remakes. Dreamcatcher and The Mangler struggled to engage audiences despite star-studded casts, showcasing the need for better execution.

Stephen King may be the King of Horror writing, but some of the movies adapted from his stories failed to hit the mark, and they deserve another shot at success. Over the decades, the beloved stories of Stephen King have been frequently adapted for TV and film dozens of times. In fact, some of his stories have even received multiple adaptations expanding the original story, or bringing an older story up to date for modern audiences and horror fans to enjoy.

However, with so many of King's stories receiving adaptations over the years,...

Stars: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Gavin Warren, Amélie Hoeferle, Jodi Long, Eddie Martinez, Elijah J. Roberts, Rahnuma Panthaky, Ben Sinclair, Ellie Araiza | Written by Bryce McGuire, Rod Blackhurst | Directed by Bryce McGuire

Released in 2014, Bryce McGuire and Rod Blackhurst made a proof-of-concept short film called Night Swim. Citing inspirations such as Jaws, Christine, and Poltergeist, the ensuing four minutes play with the uncanny feeling of being watched by somebody, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. It was an impressive enough debut that Blumhouse picked it up for a feature-length adaptation, also entitled Night Swim, although the results are more sink than swim.

After a degenerative illness forces him into early retirement, former baseball player Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell) moves into a new house with his wife, Eve Waller (Kerry Condon), and their two children. With a backyard swimming pool offering fun for the kids and physical therapy for the dad,...

Buckle up, horror fiends and cinephiles, for a ride through the wackiest, wonkiest, and downright weirdest territories of the Stephen King cinematic universe. If you thought haunted hotels and telekinetic teenagers were the peak of King’s oddities, prepare to have your minds delightfully boggled. We’re venturing into a realm where machines develop murderous intentions and laundry presses harbor demonic spirits. Yes, you read that right.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the “Kooky King: 6 of the Weirdest Stephen King Film Adaptations,” ranked by their sheer ability to make you say, “What the King?”

New Line Cinema 6. The Lawnmower Man (1992)

Kicking things off with The Lawnmower Man, a film so out there, Stephen King wanted his name off the marquee. Imagine virtual reality mixed with a splash of mad scientist vibes courtesy of Pierce Brosnan, leading to a cybernetic spree that’s more trippy than terrifying. This flick...

Autopsy Room Four: A delirious survival horror story that deserves a full-length movie adaptation. Uncle Otto's Truck: A grim and surreal chiller that could make a great psychological thriller. The Man in the Black Suit: A period horror tale that serves as a throwback to Mark Twain's writing.

There are a plethora of great Stephen King short stories that still don’t have movie adaptations, but absolutely need one. While Stephen King’s back catalog includes a lot of great novels, many of the horror legend’s best movie adaptations come from his short stories. The Shawshank Redemption was adapted from a novella featured in the collection Different Seasons, while the author’s debut collection Night Shift included the stories that inspired Salem’s Lot, Graveyard Shift, The Mangler, The Boogeyman, Sometimes They Come Back, and the 11-movie Children of the Corn franchise.

However, although all 66 Stephen King books have their good and bad moments,...

Stars: Wyatt Russell, Kerry Condon, Gavin Warren, Amélie Hoeferle, Jodi Long, Eddie Martinez, Elijah J. Roberts, Rahnuma Panthaky, Ben Sinclair, Ellie Araiza | Written by Bryce McGuire, Rod Blackhurst | Directed by Bryce McGuire

Released in 2014, Bryce McGuire and Rod Blackhurst made a proof-of-concept short film called Night Swim. Citing inspirations such as Jaws, Christine, and Poltergeist, the ensuing four minutes play with the uncanny feeling of being watched by somebody, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary. It was an impressive enough debut that Blumhouse picked it up for a feature-length adaptation, also entitled Night Swim, although the results are more sink than swim.

After a degenerative illness forces him into early retirement, former baseball player Ray Waller (Wyatt Russell) moves into a new house with his wife, Eve Waller (Kerry Condon), and their two children. With a backyard swimming pool offering fun for the kids and physical therapy for the dad,...

Rob Savage makes scary movies.

After smashing his way into the horror scene with the pandemic chiller "Host" and the divisive horror comedy "Dashcam," Savage made his first major studio movie earlier this year with "The Boogeyman," an adaptation of the Stephen King story of the same name. And while it was a sleeper hit at the box office, the most exciting aspect of the film was that it proved Savage could take on a much bigger movie without losing his edge. This is a frightening film, one coated in dread and literal darkness, with a story just as interested in its shattered characters as its unsettling monster. Some horror directors abandon their spark when they work on a bigger, more expensive studio project. It looks like Savage thrives. 

"The Boogeyman" is now available on home video, and to mark the occasion, I sat down with Savage over Zoom to talk about the film,...

A Nightmare on Elm Street's success can be attributed to its thought-provoking premise, skilled use of horror tropes, and a star-studded cast that helped make it one of the most engaging horror films ever. The film served as a career launching pad for its younger actors like Johnny Depp, who went on to achieve immense success in both independent and blockbuster films. The cast, including Heather Langenkamp, Robert Englund, Ronee Blakley, and John Saxon, continued to have diverse and accomplished careers in the film industry, solidifying their status as talented actors beyond their roles in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the most iconic horror films ever made, and its fantastic cast has gone on to do great things since the film's release in 1984. A Nightmare on Elm Street is a defining movie in the modern horror genre, and its incredible success...

Stephen King remakes have had varying levels of success, with some successfully updating storytelling techniques and visual effects. While there are solid remakes like "It" and "Pet Sematary," there are also ones that fail to capture the atmosphere of the original films. The best Stephen King remakes showcase strong performances, updated visuals, and stay true to the essence of his stories. "It Chapter One" is considered the best remake so far.

Most of the prolific adaptations of horror author Stephen King came out in the '80s and are considered classics, but several modern Stephen King movie and TV remakes have debuted in recent years. Hollywood rarely gets Stephen King right, and many of King's movies and series have been of varying quality over the decades, and recent adaptations have provided the opportunity for updated storytelling techniques and improved visual effects. While horror heavy-hitters like Universal and Blumhouse are making solid Stephen King remakes,...

Robert Englund, the star of A Nightmare on Elm Street, recommends a mix of popular and lesser-known horror movies for the Halloween season. Englund's suggestions, such as The Witch and Get Out, reflect his decades of experience in the genre and his love for horror movies. His diverse recommendations, including Sisters and May, show his extensive knowledge and passion for horror films beyond his own iconic role in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Robert Englund, star of the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies, has offered up a smattering of horror film suggestions for the Halloween season. Englund is best known for playing Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven's classic slasher franchise, having taken up the role in eight different films. He has been involved in other horror movies as well, such as Wishmaster and The Mangler, underscoring his love for the genre.

Now, Bloody Disgusting reports that, at Terror Con in Marlborough,...

It’s the summer of screams on Screambox!

This June was absolutely jam-packed with several horror gems hitting our Screambox streaming service, including the hotly anticipated must-see definitive documentary Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, not to mention Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street, Tobe Hooper’s classic 1995 adaptation of The Mangler (also starring Robert Englund), George A. Romero’s zombie classic Day of the Dead, the supernatural festival hit Jethica, the Screambox Original body horror thriller New Religion, and the entire Subspecies franchise!

We’re ending the month with a bang, also dropping both Marcus Dunstan’s cult slasher The Collector and The Haunting of Molly Hartley, which are now streaming on Screambox.

In The Collector, “Desperate for money to pay off a debt, a man targets a wealthy family’s home and plans to break in and steal a valuable gem. He soon learns...

It’s the summer of screams on Screambox!

This June was absolutely jam-packed with several horror gems hitting our Screambox streaming service, including the hotly anticipated must-see definitive documentary Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, not to mention Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street, Tobe Hooper’s classic 1995 adaptation of The Mangler (also starring Robert Englund), George A. Romero’s zombie classic Day of the Dead, Marcus Dunstan’s slasher The Collector, the supernatural festival hit Jethica, the Screambox Original body horror thriller New Religion, and the entire Subspecies franchise!

We’re ending the month with a bang, also dropping both David Cronenberg and the Soska Sisters’ Rabid, which are now streaming on Screambox.

Interestingly, David Cronenberg’s 1977 masterpiece is actually a Christmas-set horror film. In the film, surgery leaves a Montreal motorcyclist with a bloodsucking appendage in her armpit. Soon she has an insatiable thirst for human blood.

Fans of David Cronenberg and body horror get ready for the stunning sci-fi horror New Religion, now streaming on the Bloody Disgusting-powered Screambox!

New Religion is a Japanese surrealist body horror film written and directed by Keishi Kondo.

In the film, “After her daughter’s death, divorced Miyabi begins working as a call girl. One day, she meets an unsettling customer who wants to take pictures of her body parts. Soon, she realizes that every time she allows her body to be photographed her daughter’s spirit gets closer. She must decide how far she is willing to go to connect with her daughter once again.”

New Religion stars Kaho Seto, Daiki Nunami, Satoshi Oka and Saionji Ryuseigun.

The film had its North American premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival and was nominated for Best Narrative Feature. It previously screened at festivals around the world to rave reviews with Horror...

Fans of David Cronenberg and body horror get ready for the stunning sci-fi horror New Religion, streaming next Tuesday, June 20, only on Screambox!

New Religion is a Japanese surrealist body horror film written and directed by Keishi Kondo.

In the film, “After her daughter’s death, divorced Miyabi begins working as a call girl. One day, she meets an unsettling customer who wants to take pictures of her body parts. Soon, she realizes that every time she allows her body to be photographed her daughter’s spirit gets closer. She must decide how far she is willing to go to connect with her daughter once again.”

New Religion stars Kaho Seto, Daiki Nunami, Satoshi Oka and Saionji Ryuseigun.

The film had its North American premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival and was nominated for Best Narrative Feature. It previously screened at festivals around the world to rave reviews with Horror...

Happiest of birthdays to Robert Englund, and Happy #RobertEnglundDay!

Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story is now on Screambox, coinciding with the horror mainstay’s 76th birthday. The documentary was shot over the course of two years, highlighting the life and career of the classically trained actor and director.

Featuring interviews with Robert Englund and his wife Nancy, as well as fellow genre icons Lin Shaye, Eli Roth, Kane Hodder, Tony Todd, Adam Green, Bill Moseley, Heather Langenkamp & more, the documentary follows Englund’s career from his early days in Buster and Billie and Stay Hungry (starring with Arnold Schwarzenegger) to his big break in the 1980s as Freddy Krueger to his directorial debut with the 1988 horror film 976-evil to his iconic acting status in current roles such as Netflix’s hit series “Stranger Things.”

To celebrate, here are eight of the prolific actor’s best roles in the genre…...

Stephen King’s short story “The Mangler” really shouldn’t work as well as it does. The fifth tale in his first collection, Night Shift, follows an industrial laundry press that somehow becomes possessed by a demon and begins flattening laundry workers like king-sized sheets. First published in a 1972 issue of Cavalier, the story contains the kind of grisly gore and fast scares that would keep readers turning the pages even when running alongside ads for edible panties and sex hotlines. With a gory premise and loose occult references, “The Mangler” may not be the most high-brow story King has ever published, but it is 19 pages of sheer horror perfection. Part urban legend, part splatterpunk lite, the story reads like a procedural cop drama from hell as Detective John Hunton (Ted Levine in the film) tries to stop a series of grisly deaths at the hands (er… gears) of a sinister machine.

Let’s all wish horror legend Robert Englund a very happy birthday as we celebrate the icon with the definitive documentary, Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, now streaming on the Bloody Disgusting-powered Screambox!

The documentary was shot over the course of two years, highlighting the life and career of the classically trained actor and director. Featuring interviews with Robert Englund and his wife Nancy, as well as fellow genre icons Lin Shaye, Eli Roth, Kane Hodder, Tony Todd, Adam Green, Bill Moseley, Heather Langenkamp & more, the documentary follows Englund’s career from his early days in Buster and Billie and Stay Hungry (starring with Arnold Schwarzenegger) to his big break in the 1980s as Freddy Krueger, his directorial debut with the 1988 horror film 976-evil, and his current roles such as Netflix’s hit series “Stranger Things”.

Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story looks beyond the film credits...

Clockwise from left: The Shining (Warner Bros. Television), The Dark Tower (Sony Pictures), Carrie (Sony Pictures), Firestarter (Universal Pictures)Graphic: AVClub

If you sometimes wonder if there are more movies and miniseries based on Stephen King novels and short stories than there are Stephen King novels and short stories, we don’t blame you.

Bloody Disgusting is celebrating the 76th birthday of horror legend Robert Englund tomorrow with the release of the definitive documentary, Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story. And the party has already started over on Screambox.

The Bloody Disgusting-powered horror streaming service just added Three classic Robert Englund films to the lineup, and that’s only the beginning of our epic celebration.

Over on Screambox, you can now stream A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), plus Tobe Hooper movies Night Terrors (1993) and The Mangler (1995)!

The arrival of these three Robert Englund films on Screambox is paving the way for Screambox Original documentary Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, which will premiere only on Screambox for Englund’s birthday on June 6!

The documentary was shot over the course of two years, highlighting the life and career of the classically trained actor and director. Featuring interviews with Robert Englund and his wife Nancy,...

One of my first encounters with the iconic Stephen King was through a collection of short stories from the 1978 novel "Night Shift." Within the terror-filled pages lies an assortment of King's early efforts, nightmare-inducing encounters with various creatures, terrible humans, and anomalies of nature. Many of these stories have been adapted for television, "Sometimes They Come Back," and film, "Children of the Corn" and "The Mangler." Director Rob Savage, who helmed the ingenious pandemic-influenced entity story "Host," tackles King's tale of Lester Billings and his encounter with a monster-in-the-closet with "The Boogeyman."

"The Boogeyman" opens with a scary scene of old-school horror filmmaking; it proves that familiar tropes, when organized with the proper care and attention, can still induce terror and the fear of the dark. The film focuses on the Harper family, teenager Sadie (Sophie Thatcher), younger sister Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair), and their therapist father, Will (Chris Messina...

This week brings the release of Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story on Screambox, coinciding with the horror mainstay’s 76th birthday on June 6. And we’re celebrating accordingly. That means you’ll find plenty of Englund-starring horror on Screambox, including recent additions like The Mangler and Night Terrors, as well as articles on Bloody Disgusting spotlighting the prolific actor’s work. Of course, this means that this week’s streaming picks are dedicated to some of Englund’s most unforgettable roles.

Here’s where you can stream these five titles this week.

And don’t forget.. we’re celebrating #RobertEnglundDay all day long on June 6!

For more Stay Home, Watch Horror picks, click here.

A Nightmare on Elm Street – Screambox

No tour through Robert Englund’s filmography would be complete without the seminal slasher that spawned seven sequels, a remake, a television series, in-depth documentaries and novels, a ton of merchandise,...

You’ve been asking for it and we’re thrilled to announce today that Cinedigm and Bloody Disgusting’s Screambox streaming service is now available on Apple TV devices!

You can download the Screambox app onto your Apple TV device right now, and start streaming all the original, exclusive, and catalogue content we’ve loaded onto the service in the past year. That includes big screen hits like Terrifier 2 and The Outwaters, plus award-winning documentary films including Pennywise: The Story of It and Living With Chucky.

You also won’t want to miss #RobertEnglundDay on Tuesday, June 6, which will mark the premiere of Screambox Original documentary Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story. Additionally, we just added A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), plus Tobe Hooper movies Night Terrors (1993) and The Mangler (1995)!

Other new arrivals for June 2023 include the entire five-film Subspecies franchise – and yes, that includes brand new...

It’s the summer of screams on Screambox!

This June is absolutely jam-packed with several horror gems hitting our Screambox streaming service, including the hotly anticipated must-see definitive documentary Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, not to mention Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street, Tobe Hooper’s classic 1995 adaptation of The Mangler (also starring Robert Englund), George A. Romero’s zombie classic Day of the Dead, both David Cronenberg and the Soska Sisters’ Rabid, Marcus Dunstan’s slasher The Collector, the supernatural festival hit Jethica, the Screambox Original body horror thriller New Religion, and the entire Subspecies franchise!

Screambox’s month-long celebration of horror icon Robert Englund kicks off today with the addition of Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, Tobe Hooper’s The Mangler, and Night Terrors. Other Englund films currently streaming include Galaxy of Terror and The Funhouse Massacre.

The evil vampire...

Written by Gary Smart, Neil Morris | Directed by Christopher Griffiths, Gary Smart

Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story picks up with a 12-year-old Robert being sent to theatre camp getting attention from girls and being complimented by talk show host Steve Allen. That, especially the female attention, pointed him toward his career. And really, what better motivation can a young man have?

Best known for playing Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Robert Englund already had a long history in the genre. dating back to Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive in 1976. Who could forget his entrance announcing “My name’s Buck, and I’m here to fuck!” and the criminally underrated Dead and Buried in 1981 as well as Galaxy of Terror and a host of others. And it’s continued well past his time as Freddy, most recently doing voice acting in the bizarre puppet film Abruptio.

Bloody Disgusting is celebrating the 76th birthday of horror legend Robert Englund on Tuesday, June 6, 2023, and in fact, the party has already begun over on Screambox!

The Bloody Disgusting-powered horror streaming service just added Three classic Robert Englund films to the lineup, and that’s only the beginning of our epic celebration.

Over on Screambox, beginning today, you can now stream A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), plus Tobe Hooper movies Night Terrors (1993) and The Mangler (1995)!

Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street is of course the original horror classic that introduced audiences to Freddy Krueger, the dream demon that Robert Englund became a household name through playing across multiple films. Night Terrors, almost a full decade later, saw Englund playing the Marquis de Sade for director Tobe Hooper, while Hooper’s The Mangler brought Englund into the world of Stephen King. The Mangler is one of Englund’s personal...

Like many Stephen King fans, I found the Master of Horror as a child. I grew up staring in awe at my dad’s paperbacks lining a high shelf and pondered the haunting images emblazoned on their spines: a hand covered with eyes and bandages (Night Shift); green claws poking through a sewer grate (It); a crow man fighting a man I assumed to be Luke Skywalker (The Stand). When I finally gathered the courage to read one, I chose Night Shift. At just 326 pages, it seemed more manageable than the 1,000 page epics I would later fall in love with. The table of contents included evocative but familiar titles like “Sometimes They Come Back” and “Children of the Corn” and most of the stories were short, clocking in around 10-20 pages. How scary could they be?

I would soon learn that King saves some of his darkest work for short story collections.

One of horror author Stephen King’s worst movie adaptations gets an honest defense from its star. The list of successful horror films made from the works of best-selling writer King includes such classics as Carrie, The Shining, The Dead Zone, Christine and many more. But King’s books and short stories have also received some notoriously terrible movie versions over the years, resulting in a list of turkeys that includes titles like Children of the Corn, Maximum Overdrive, The Lawnmower Man, Dreamcatcher and Cell.

But another film that is often listed among the worst King adaptations, 1995’s The Mangler, has now received a little unexpected love via its own star Robert Englund. Speaking to /film ahead of the release of the new documentary Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, the Freddy Krueger actor insisted that despite its reputation as a huge disaster, The Mangler may deserve a little reappraisal.

Even if you only have a passing interest in horror films, chances are you've been terrified by Robert Englund. The man who brought Freddy Krueger to life in the "A Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise is a living legend, and fans are soon going to be able to peek behind the striped sweater and razor gloves in the new documentary, "Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story." Directed by Gary Smart and Chris Griffiths, who recently won the morbid statue for Best Documentary for "Pennywise: The Story of It" at Fangoria's Chainsaw Awards, the documentary follows the life and career of one of horror's most recognizable and prolific performers.

Ahead of the film's release on the Screambox streaming platform and VOD, I was honored to speak with Englund about the staying power of Freddy Krueger and how one becomes a horror icon. I wore a yellow button-up with black crosses on it,...

Stephen King’s short story “The Children of the Corn” has been catnip to horror filmmakers for nearly fifty years. Originally published in the March 1977 issue of Penthouse, the tale of a quarreling couple who stumble onto a murderous cult of children in a Nebraska cornfield was included the following year in King’s first short story collection Night Shift and subsequently adapted into a 1984 feature film directed by Fritz Kiersch. Night Shift also contains the source material for King classics such as The Mangler, Sometimes They Come Back, Maximum Overdrive, and the upcoming The Boogeyman, but none of the collection’s other 19 stories have had the staying power of “Children of the Corn.” Perhaps due to its evocative title implying barbaric pagan rituals or the eerie juxtaposition between childlike innocence and brutal murder, the original film has spawned eight sequels and two remakes over the course of four decades.

It's a tragedy that Stephen King and Steven Spielberg have yet to work on a movie together, though the duo had three projects they came close to making. Spielberg's name would never be listed alongside the likes of John Carpenter or Wes Craven as a horror movie master - though he probably should. He showed time and again with the likes of Jaws, Duel or Jurassic Park that he's capable of creating unforgettable horror moments within crowd-pleasing blockbusters. Even E.T. began as a horror screenplay dubbed Night Skies.

Stephen King, on the other hand, has had his work adapted by Carpenter, David Cronenberg, George A. Romero, Tobe Hooper and most of the "masters." While mostly focused on his own prolific novel output, King has penned the screenplays to some of these films too, including Creepshow and 1989's Pet Sematary. While King and Spielberg have always been on good terms,...

The trope of cursed objects is a unique corner of horror. Not to be confused with killer dolls and mannequins (that's a whole other niche), we're talking about your ordinary household objects come to life to wreck people's lives (and sometimes murder them) in the most bonkers, off-the-wall, and outrageous ways. Perhaps a comet or asteroid crashes into earth, causing a strange transference of energy, or an experiment goes horribly wrong. Sometimes, it's a phenomenon with no logical explanation, so it's even more difficult to defeat.

Cursed and killer objects in the movies ebb and flow with time. The 1970s and '80s were a particularly hot time for the subgenre, featuring a slew of deadly inanimate objects like a killer bed (more on that later), a killer car ("Christine"), a killer elevator ("The Lift"), and a killer lamp ("Amityville 4: The Evil Escapes"). Cursed objects were less prevalent in the '90s,...

Do you have a question for the Nightmare on Elm Street actor, who became the star of many actual nightmares? Let us know and we’ll put it to him

It’s hard to think of a horror movie character more iconic than Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger. He stars in Wes Craven’s 1984 film A Nightmare on Elm Street and in sequels all the way up to (count ’em!) A Nightmare on Elm Street 6, Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, and features in 44 episodes of the 80s TV series Freddy’s Nightmares. In 1994’s Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, Englund played a fictitious version of himself who is being stalked by his own character. He brought Freddy back one last time in 2003 for Freddy vs Jason, where Krueger and fellow horror icon Jason Voorhees (Ken Kirzinger) from Friday the 13th are both resurrected and sent to hell. Best place for them.

Exclusive: Sophie Thatcher, who is coming off her breakout role in the hit Showtime series Yellowjackets, and Chris Messina are set to star in the 20th Century Studios adaptation of the Stephen King short story The Boogeyman, with 21 Laps producing.

The film will debut on Hulu, with Rob Savage set to direct. 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy, Dan Levine & Dan Cohen are producing. Production is expected to start next month.

Mark Heyman has been writing the script after Scott Beck & Bryan Woods and Akela Cooper wrote the original drafts. It originally was developed by 21 Laps as a Fox film and now finds new life through Hulu. They’ll begin prep and casting quickly to start early next year. Beck and Woods are exec producers.

The Boogeyman was published in 1978 as part of The Night Shift collection of short stories that King wrote over the years for magazines. It was collected in...

Exclusive: 20th/Hulu are moving forward with The Boogeyman, a two hour film based on the Stephen King short story. Production will be this winter/spring in New Orleans. Rob Savage (Host and Dashcam) is set to direct. 21 Laps’ Shawn Levy, Dan Levine & Dan Cohen are producing.

Mark Heyman (Black Swan) has been writing the script which Scott Beck & Bryan Woods (A Quiet Place) and Akela Cooper (Malignant) wrote the original drafts. It was originally developed by 21 Laps as a Fox film and now will find new life through Hulu. They’ll begin prep and casting quickly to start early next year.

The Boogeyman was first published in 1978 as part of The Night Shift collection of short stories that King wrote over the years for magazines. It was collected in a bestselling anthology and published the year after The Shining became a huge bestseller for the author. This will be...

Another quality month of releases awaits cult film fans this coming January from Arrow Video. First up for the US/UK/Can territories is a long awaited Blu-ray of Mario Bava's final feature, Shock, along with Michael Venus' Sleep, and Masumura Yasuzo's Red Angel. Only in the UK, fans will see Warren Oates in John Milius's Dillinger and Tobe Hooper's The Mangler. All of these releases are stuffed with bonus materials and defintiely worth checking out. You can read the full details of each set in the gallery below...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

For his book Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Form of Tobe Hooper, author Scout Tafoya is looking to finally put Hooper in the spotlight he deserved, but eluded the Master of Horror throughout most of his career. And while fans can definitely expect to read about so many of Hooper’s more well-known projects, like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Poltergeist, The Mangler, Invaders From Mars, and one of this writer’s personal favorites—Salem’s Lot—Tafoya also digs into Tobe’s work pre-tcm, his many forays into television, and more.

Daily Dead recently caught up with Tafoya to talk about Cinemaphagy, celebrating one of the genre’s more unsung directors, the challenges he faced with the book along the way, and more.

If you want to learn more about Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Form of Tobe Hooper and/or order your own copy, you can find it on Amazon Here.

Restless spirits can be sneaky little devils, sometimes literally, and find the most unlikely of places to hide out and show themselves when least expected. Nowhere is safe, not in bed, at a museum or even a seaside arcade. Here are a few examples of inanimate objects that became the host for the undead.

The Possession (2012)

Dybbuk Box • Unlike many fictional haunted objects in horror movies, the infamous dybbuk box really exists. Jewish folklore says the wine box – which originally belonged to a Holocaust survivor in Poland — contains an evil spirit that has the power to possess humans.

Big (1988)

Zoltar • “Your wish is granted.” That was the simple message 12-year-old Josh received after guiding a coin into the mouth of Zoltar, the red-eyed mechanical fortune teller in an arcade at Cliffside Park, New Jersey. Josh’s wish? To be “big.” And because the pubescent boy “grew up” to be Tom Hanks,...

When you think of horror movie icons, a few names come to mind. Jason, Michael Myers and Jigsaw are just a few. But perhaps the best of all of them is Freddy Krueger. He certainly has more personality than all of the other killers I just mentioned and he might just be the most iconic, too. Of course, the man responsible for Krueger’s lasting legacy is Robert Englund, who’s played the role eight times, and today he’s celebrating his 73rd birthday.

The actor has a special relationship with horror and it goes all the way back to when he was a child, with Englund once saying:

“When I was 9, I went to a birthday party. We were supposed to see a cowboy movie, but the programming got screwed up and we saw The Bad Seed instead. Horrifying. For years I was frightened of girls with pigtails.”

It...

Ryan Lambie Oct 24, 2019

From killer sofas to murderous clocks, cinema’s full of evil in unexpected places. Here are a few of our favorites…

Note: The following contains spoilers.

As several decades of cinema have informed us, evil takes many forms. Aside from all the serial killers and ancient demons waiting to either leap out of the shadows and murder us, or simply scare us into a weeping ruin, movies are also full of killer cars, malevolent dolls and rampaging animals to contend with.

Given that entire lists could be generated from those menaces outlined above, we’ll be dealing with more obscure manifestations of evil here. The sort of demonic objects you might win on The Generation Game if it were presented by the Devil, or the kind of unlikely scenarios you'd encounter if you were the star of a horror film directed by Benny Hill.

Here is our...

The work of Stephen King has a long history of making its way to the big screen with wildly different results. Some land Academy Awards (“Misery”) or become classics (“The Shawshank Redemption”) while others disappear into the film ether But when great material merges with a wonderful adaptation, the result can be a $91 million dollar opening weekend, as was the case with “It: Chapter Two.”

Every adaptation comes with its challenges and even with two movies, you can’t fit all of King’s 1,138 pages onto the big screen. Screenwriter Gary Dauberman, who co-wrote the first chapter and also penned all the of “Annabelle” films, was faced with a dream job that could have become a nightmare: how to update the characters of King’s lovable “Losers Club” for the big screen. We spoke to him about the differences between book and movie, and the things that got lost along the way.

Tony Sokol Apr 10, 2019

Nightmare on Elm Street's Robert Englund will scare up historical tales of terror in Travel Channel's new series Shadows of History.

A man of our dreams will bring haunted history to life. The new Travel Channel series, Shadows of History promises to rip the most "frightening, odd and creepiest stories" from the "headlines of yesteryear." Veteran actor and horror movie icon Robert Englund, best known as Freddy Krueger from the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, will host each one-hour episode.

Shadows of History culled newspapers from America’s past to find documentation of "bizarre, mysterious accounts that seem too incredible to be true," reads the advance press. "With the help of historians and scholars, Englund makes every an immersive experience designed to raise goose bumps and quicken pulses. And every thrill ride is all the more terrifying because it isn’t the work of a science fiction writer,...

Outside of John Carpenter, there may be no director whose filmography has been better served by Scream Factory than Tobe Hooper. Though his post-Texas Chain Saw career has rarely gotten much respect in the past, Scream Factory’s special edition Blu-ray releases of titles like The Funhouse, Lifeforce, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, and his remake of Invaders from Mars have gone a long way towards making horror fans revisit and reconsider a number of his other films, hopefully learning to appreciate his talent and his genius in the process. The label’s imprint is something of a seal of approval, and giving that seal to those Hooper films previously dismissed as schlock has improved the reputation of the late, great Master of Horror arguably more than any of his ’70s and ’80s contemporaries.

One Hooper film still in need of a widespread critical reappraisal is 1995’s The Mangler, his...

On tap today are my reviews for two recent films that Scream Factory is celebrating with new Blu-ray releases: the 2000 sequel Urban Legends: Final Cut and Tobe Hooper’s The Mangler. And rather than waste any time, I’m just going to dive right in instead.

Urban Legends: Final Cut: When Urban Legends: Final Cut was released, I could not have been more excited heading into the theater that opening weekend. Sure, in many cases, horror sequels often end up being an experience of diminishing returns, but considering how strong the concept of the original Urban Legend was, I was just excited to see what other legends would get explored this time around. And, as it turns out, not very many at all. Which only makes up just part of my disappointment when it comes to Urban Legends: Final Cut.

The sequel opens like a cheesy slasher-y version of Final Destination,...

Ooh, it’s a great week for horror fans, as this Tuesday’s Blu-ray and DVD releases are a stellar bunch of films that will make for great additions to your personal collection of movies to enjoy from the comfort of your own home. Because it is the holiday season, I’m stoked to see Scream Factory show a little love to Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 with their Collector’s Edition Blu that hits shelves tomorrow, and for those of you who enjoy your horror movies with a side of sleaze, William Lustig’s Maniac has been given the 4K treatment by Blue Underground (and the film has never looked better).

The Mangler is also getting a brand new Blu-ray this week, and Scorpion Releasing is resurrecting Death Ship with their new Special Edition release as well. Vinegar Syndrome is keeping busy with both Ice Cream Man and Beware My Brethren,...