The horror movie that made ‘Psycho’ look tame, according to Stephen King
If anyone knows a thing or two about horror, it’s Stephen King. The prolific writer has penned many classic scary stories that readers across the world have devoured, helping to shape modern horror. His influence has extended across cinema, with many of his stories receiving Hollywood treatment, taking on another life in celluloid.
Brian De Palma adapted King’s novel Carrie in 1976, which proved to be incredibly successful. Focusing on a timid high schooler whose first menstrual cycle coincides with the discovery of her supernatural powers, the movie features one of horror’s most iconic and enduring images – a prom queen being doused in litres of pig’s blood. Following the popularity of Carrie, Salem’s Lot was made into a miniseries in 1979 before one of the most recognisable King adaptations emerged the following year – The Shining.
Directed by Stanley Kubrick, the movie soon became known as a horror staple – even if King wasn’t a fan of the way the director had adapted his work. For decades since, many of King’s stories have been made into movies with differing levels of success. From IT to Stand By Me, Misery and even The Shawshank Redemption, he’s one of the most adapted authors – a title whose crown is currently worn by William Shakespeare.
It’s hardly surprising that King is also a movie expert, particularly when it comes to the horror genre. The filmmaker once selected an underrated film that he believes is far scarier than other horror classics: Dementia 13. Helmed by Francis Ford Coppola, the movie was his first attempt at directing. It looks strikingly different to anything else the filmmaker has made, but it paved the way for his future career as one of Hollywood’s most celebrated creatives.
Coppola had been working with Roger Corman, the indie movie maverick, who agreed to let the budding filmmaker direct a movie with the money left over from his own project, The Young Racers. King wrote in Entertainment Weekly, “It’s said that in the ’60s, when Francis Ford Coppola was but a lad, he found himself working on one of Roger Corman’s pictures,” adding, “According to legend, Coppola convinced Corman, a low-budget junkie, to let him make his own film on the side using Corman’s equipment and crew.”
Certainly, this is what happened, with Coppola writing a script inspired by other pre-existing horror and exploitation films. “The film Coppola then made (in nine days) was Dementia 13,” explains King.
“For mood, atmosphere, and plain old gut-churning horror, 13 makes Psycho and Night of the Living Dead look tame. Dementia 13 is a movie that matters,” the author concluded. Psycho and Night of the Living Dead are incredibly “tame” in comparison to the standards we have today due to the fact that censorship was much more stringent in the ‘60s. Still, they were groundbreaking films, with Psycho showing some of the most gory and explicit scenes that mainstream cinema had ever witnessed at that point in time.
However, King thinks Dementia 13, which came just three years after Psycho and five years before Night of the Living Dead, deserves its due for being even scarier.
