Stephen King's 13-Part Remake Of A Lovecraftian Classic Is A Shadow Of The Original

Published Nov 7, 2026, 6:00 PM EST

Faith Roswell is a Senior Writer on Screen Rant's Classic TV team. Since earning her degree in Creative Writing over a decade ago, Faith has written articles on film and TV from a variety of different angles. Faith now combines her knowledge of psychology with her love of monster movies to give more insight into what makes the best ones. 

You may have read her Screen Rant lists and features covering horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, or read her Amazon Top 10 book, "Movie Monsters of the Deep."

Faith has had an extensive career as a writer, appearing on BBC live radio, researching true crime for Rotten Mango podcast, and writing for publications including Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and The Daily Jaws before beginning here at Screen Rant. 

Stephen King is no stranger to Lovecraftian horrors, from IT's terrifying shapeshifter Pennywise to his mind-bending masterpiece The Dark Tower, but despite being known as "the king of horror," Stephen King's box office record is not always great. Many of his best adaptations have become the greatest horror movies of the past 50 years, but one of Stephen King's adaptations that missed the mark is, instead, best known for drawing attention to its fantastic source material. Lars von Trier is responsible for one of the 90s' most underrated must-watch horror shows, with King's version being a shadow of the original.

The Kingdom is a unique show that captures the surreal atmosphere of Twin Peaks, but with an even more disconcerting tone. Set within a hospital, Lars von Trier's 13-episode series follows its staff and patients as they encounter a bizarre range of supernatural phenomena. The show's three seasons are spaced years apart, first airing in 1994, and with the final season acting as the highly-anticipated ending to a cliffhanger viewers had been waiting 25 years to see resolved. The series is often considered to be one of von Trier's best works, with Stephen King's version failing to improve on it.

Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital Couldn't Match The Danish Original

Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital was based on The Kingdom, but while the premise was still intriguing, King's version lacked the sheer weirdness that von Trier brought to the screen. The Kingdom had more than enough scenes that felt like nightmare fuel, but the dark satire included in the story was central to the show, while the adaptation adhered more closely to typical horror genre tropes. This meant that while Kingdom Hospital was a good show in its own right, earning two Emmy Award nominations, including for its visual effects, it did not bring anything new to TV.

The Kingdom was instantly recognizable for its sepia tone and for casting a wide range of character actors who could carry the story, which was often chaotic. Lars von Trier's characters tend to be realistically flawed people with trauma and obsessions, but this is a versatile enough description that his projects rarely feel repetitive. On the other hand, Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital included one of his most common self-inserts, the tormented writer. This changed the balance of the original series, drawing the focus to it being a Stephen King show, rather than the writer's take on the existing source material.

Lars von Trier's series is called Riget in Danish, meaning "the realm."

With Kingdom Hospital only adapting the first season of von Trier's original show, it failed to include the payoff that The Kingdom's fans had waited for, and instead felt like a confusing array of subplots compared with the original, which won 19 out of the 25 awards the series was nominated for. Had Kingdom Hospital been more streamlined and featured the uneasy Lovecraftian atmosphere that King incorporated into other projects, like The Mist, which had one of the most devastating endings of all time, the show could have come closer to matching the Danish original.

How The Kingdom Infuses Lovecraftian Elements Into Its Story

Image via MovieStillsDB

The Kingdom might not rank among the most Lovecraftian TV shows of all time, but it truly nails cosmic horror even so. Every aspect of the series, from its setting to its characters, hints at a vast unknown. From a pathologist obsessed with claiming a cancerous liver as a trophy, to a ghostly ambulance that appears and disappears, The Kingdom is extremely mysterious throughout, and rather than presenting the hauntings as disturbances that can be solved through killing a demonic power or solving an ancient curse, the series has no such neat ending.

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Cosmic horror is designed to challenge our perception of reality, presenting unknown forces that are impossible for a human mind to comprehend, and The Kingdom's final act adds several more layers to the story, including a meta cameo from von Trier himself. Rather than being a direct Lovecraft copy or tribute, The Kingdom infuses elements of his work into the story, while remaining a recognizable von Trier project. Had Stephen King taken this approach, Kingdom Hospital would have been a very different, and potentially better, show.

The Kingdom

Cast

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  Søren Pilmark

  Jørgen Krogshøj

• Ghita Nørby

  Rigmor Mortensen

• Birgitte Raaberg

  Judith Petersen

• Peter Mygind

  Morten 'Mogge' Moesgaard