Stephen King’s Most Hated Horror Adaptation Officially Gets a New Streaming Home
Ryan O'Rourke is a Senior News Writer at Collider with a specific interest in all things adult animation, video game adaptations, and the work of Mike Flanagan. He is also an experienced baseball writer with over six years of articles between multiple outlets, most notably FanSided's CubbiesCrib. Whether it's taking in a baseball game, a new season of Futurama or Castlevania: Nocturne, or playing the latest From Software title, he is always finding ways to show his fandom. When it comes to gaming and anything that takes inspiration from it, he is deeply opinionated on what's going on. Outside of entertainment, he's a graduate of Eureka College with a Bachelor's in Communication where he honed his craft as a writer. Between The IV Leader at Illinois Valley Community College and The Pegasus at Eureka, he spent the majority of his college career publishing articles on everything from politics to campus happenings and, of course, entertainment for the student body. Those principles he learned covering the 2020 election, Palestine, and so much more are brought here to Collider, where he has gleefully written on everything from the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes to Nathan Lane baby-birding sewer boys.
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Stephen King's massive library of stories continues to be translated to film and television at a rapid pace, and for the most part, the results have been positive lately. Last year saw three new high-profile adaptations of his work hit the big screen — Oz Perkins' The Monkey, Francis Lawrence's The Long Walk, and Edgar Wright's The Running Man — all of which were mostly met with acclaim from critics and audiences. However, they also earned high praise from the author himself, solidifying the year as an all-around great one for fans of his novels, especially with Mike Flanagan's much-lauded The Life of Chuck also hitting theaters following its festival circuit premiere in 2024. It's a notable feat considering how much each of the three sides can disagree with one another.
Case in point: Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. Released in 1980 with Jack Nicholson in the leading role as the Overlook Hotel's new caretaker, Jack Torrance, the film is considered one of the director's and the horror genre's crowning achievements, depicting the terrifying descent into madness of a father whose demons are preyed upon by the ghosts that haunt the lodging. However, opinions were more mixed at the time, and King himself famously lambasted Kubrick's work for departing so wildly from his original vision. In particular, he voiced his disapproval of Jack's portrayal, which leaned away from his more tragic depiction as a victim to create a frightening antagonist. His views now stand in contrast to a classic that's defined by iconic shots and moments immortalized in cinematic history, from the Steadicam capture of Danny's ride through the Overlook's halls to Jack axing through the bathroom door and the elevator of blood.
Now, the classic is heading to HBO Max just in time for Halloween. The Shining will be part of a massive wave of movies coming to the platform on October 1, joining other horror hits next month ranging from the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise to the recent return of a horror mainstay, Evil Dead Burn. It's a fitting home for the iconic film, considering how many King adaptations are available to stream there, including the aforementioned Long Walk, Misery, both adaptations of It, Brian De Palma's Carrie, and more. HBO Max is also the exclusive home of the prequel series It: Welcome to Derry, which has since been renewed for Season 2.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Is Your Biggest Horror Nightmare? Elm Street · Chucky · Scream · The Conjuring
Four horror franchises. Four completely different ways of scaring you. One waits until you fall asleep. One makes sure nobody believes you. One is already in your group of friends. And one is in the house with your family. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually watch horror, and find out which nightmare was built for you.
😴Elm Street(Freddy Krueger)
🧸Chucky(Child's Play)
📞Scream(Ghostface)
🕯️The Conjuring(The Warren Files)
01
Which horror scene makes you cover your eyes? Four classic images. One of them is worse than the others for you.
02
You are home alone and you hear a noise. First thought? Everybody has one. It arrives before you have decided anything.
03
Which horror movie rule would you break first? Everybody thinks they would survive. Almost nobody actually does.
04
Something genuinely frightening happens. What do you do? Not in a film. In your actual living room, tonight.
05
How do you actually watch a horror film? Be honest about this one. Nobody is checking.
06
Somebody offers you serious money. Which do you still refuse? The amount does not matter. There is one on this list you are not doing.
07
Which feeling stays with you a week after the film? Good horror does not stop when the credits do.
08
Something wakes you at 3am. What is the worst possibility? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your nightmare.
The Lights Just Went Out Your Nightmare Is…
Four franchises, four completely different ways of getting underneath your skin. This is the one built out of your particular fear, why it works so well on you, and what it would leave behind.
Elm Street
Your nightmare does not wait outside the door. It waits for you to close your eyes, which you are going to have to do eventually, because nobody has ever won that particular argument.
- Freddy is horror's cruellest idea: a threat that lives in the one place you cannot guard, cannot lock, and cannot avoid forever.
- You are the one who is fine during the film and wide awake at two in the morning. Your own head is where this does its damage.
- These films understood exhaustion as a horror engine. The kids on Elm Street do not lose because they are weak. They lose because they are tired.
- You can lock every door in the house. You still have to sleep.
Chucky
Your nightmare is not really the doll. It is the face of the person you tell, and the way they decide, very kindly, that you have imagined all of it.
- Chucky works precisely because he is absurd. That is the trap: the more accurately you describe him, the less anybody is going to believe you.
- You are the one shouting at the screen because the characters are not listening. You know that feeling from real life too.
- The franchise is at its best when the adults in the room are the real obstacle, and you have met those adults.
- By the time somebody finally believes you, you will have handled most of it on your own.
Scream
Your nightmare has your number, knows your name, and has almost certainly been inside your house before. The worst part is that you already know them.
- Scream is the only one of these where the killer takes the mask off and turns out to be somebody who was at the party.
- You are the person who calls the twist out loud before it lands. You watch people the same way you watch films.
- The franchise made the rules of horror part of the plot, which means the survivors are the ones paying attention. You would be paying attention.
- Everybody is a suspect, including the person who just offered to walk you home.
The Conjuring
Your nightmare is not really about you. It is about the people asleep down the hall, and the feeling that whatever is here is not interested in leaving.
- The Conjuring films are domestic horror. The house, the family, the perfectly ordinary room that quietly stops feeling ordinary.
- Your instinct is to get everybody into one room. Your fear is protective rather than personal, which is rarer than it sounds.
- This is the one franchise where belief is the weapon. The people who come through it are the ones who are not alone and refuse to be.
- Whatever is here did not come for you. It came for the household, and you are the one standing in the hallway.
The Next Big Stephen King Adaptation Is Right Around the Corner
While HBO Max has a wealth of King films and series to binge during the spooky season, Prime Video will be the home to his next big adaptation — Flanagan's version of Carrie. The series is set to premiere on October 7 and will put the Midnight Mass creator's own spin on King's debut novel across eight episodes. With the expanded runtime, he's taking the titular high schooler into the social media age, a change that the author has wholeheartedly praised for separating Flanagan's approach from De Palma's. Summer H. Howell leads the cast as Carrie White, joining Samantha Sloyan, Siena Agudong, Alison Thornton, Amber Midthunder, Joel Oulette, Josie Totah, Arthur Conti, and more.
The Shining checks into HBO Max on October 1. Stay tuned here at Collider for more on all the films coming to and leaving streaming throughout the year.
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