The Stephen King movie adaptation he called “worst of the bunch”
Since his first published book, 1973’s Carrie, Stephen King has exhibited unprecedented talent for suspenseful storytelling. As the most prolific and universally adored fiction writer of his time, sheer volume has been rivalled only by his unbound imagination. King’s extraordinary creative drive has led to 64 published fictional novels and over 200 additional short stories so far.
Bolstering King’s success and overall popularity has been a concurrent flourish of movie adaptations. Including short story adaptations and sequels, there have been at least 92 movie and TV adaptations of King’s books.
Naturally, such a vast range of adaptations has ranged from the downright terrible, such as Children of the Corn and 2017’s It sequel, to the seminal and immortal, including The Shining, The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me.
Although King has earned a pretty penny from these adaptations and even involved himself in scriptwriting duties from time to time, he’s maintained a critical line against a few popular titles over the years.
Most famously, King was critical of Stanley Kubrick’s widely adored 1980 adaptation of The Shining. “I think The Shining is a beautiful film, and it looks terrific, and as I’ve said before, it’s like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it,” King said of the movie in a 2016 interview with Deadline. “In that sense, when it opened, a lot of the reviews weren’t very favourable, and I was one of those reviewers. I kept my mouth shut at the time, but I didn’t care for it much.”
While King could see redeeming features in Kubrick’s movie, he saved his most scathing criticism for Firestarter, the 1984 adaptation of his novel of the same name, directed by Mark L. Lester. “Firestarter is one of the worst of the bunch, even though in terms of story it’s very close to the original. But it’s flavourless; it’s like cafeteria mashed potatoes,” King said in a 1986 interview with American Film.
“There are things that happen in terms of special effects in that movie that make no sense to me whatsoever,” King continued, explaining the movie’s unfortunate sterilising nature. “Why this kid’s hair blows every time she starts fires is totally beyond my understanding. I never got a satisfactory answer when I saw the rough cut.”
As an experienced critic, King didn’t leave the movie hanging without any positive points. “The movie has great actors, with the exception of the lead, David Keith, who I didn’t feel was very good — my wife said that he has stupid eyes,” King pointed out. “The actors were allowed to do pretty much what they wanted to. Martin Sheen, who is a great actor, with no direction and nobody to tell him – and I mean there must have been literally no direction — with nobody to pull him in and say, ‘Stop what you’re doing,’ he simply reprised Greg Stillson [from The Dead Zone]”.
He added: “That’s all there is; it’s the same character exactly. But Greg Stillson should not be in charge of The Shop [secret government organisation in Firestarter]. He’s not the kind of guy who gets that job.”
Firestarter was adapted for the big screen once again in 2022. The modern update on the story was helmed by Keith Thomas and starred Zac Efron. Thomas’ attempt, too, was broadly panned by the critics.
Watch the trailer for Mark L. Lester’s infernal disaster, Firestarter, below.
