Eight years ago, this blog--a legitimate, for-real, no-ads, homemade-just-like-your-grandma-used-to-bake web log, or 'blog, began a challenge. The challenge was to watch four recent straight-to-streaming horror movies a month and to write something interesting and snarky about them. We called this the "Netflix Horror Challenge." It was a challenge that defeated us pretty quickly.
Today, we announce a new challenge and new misplaced resolve.
We will:
(1) watch every screen adaptation of Stephen King's works available, in chronological order of release.
(2) write blog posts about each of them.
(3) when possible and convenient, read the work each adaptation is based upon.
We call this: The Stephen King Adaptathon.
Beyond those four rules, we aren't sure of anything else. Will we keep the same back-and-forth irreverent snark that our reader(s) may remember? Will we open up interactive conversations with our reader(s) to discuss our progress? Will anyone out there join us, for a little while or for longer or forever? Will King publish more books than we publish reviews in a year? No one knows!
Why King? Why adaptations? Hopefully this will all make sense as we go, but if nothing else it will be a stroll down the last 45 years, which is just about how old both of us are. Carrie, the first film on our docket, released in 1976, which is when Paul was released as well. It will be a Gen X memory lane, full of child-murdering clowns, haunted hotels, and possessed everything, from mack trucks to muscle cars to batshit virtual reality lawnmowers.
Why us? Are we like Stephen King experts? No! But we might be after this is through. Longtime King fans are invited to join us though, and to yell at us from the comments section, because we're going to get things wrong.
What adaptation are you most looking forward to re-watching? Is it Tommyknockers? Is it The Dead Zone? Is it The Cat's Eye?? Oh man, this is going to be fun.
A full chronological list can be found here. It's long. This will not be an easy challenge.
The first four in order are:
Carrie (1976)
Salem's Lot (1979)
"Sorry, Right Number" in Tales from the Darkside (1980)
The Shining (1980)
Next up: Carrie (dir. Brian DePalma, 1976). See you at the Beehive for a soda after the prom!