Tag: horror

Stephen King in 2025: new books, screen adaptations and what’s next

For the better part of the last fifty years, Stephen King has maintained his dominance over horror and popular literature — and 2025 shows no signs of slowing.

With both fresh books and more screen adaptations on the horizon, King continues to thrive as both an author and a source of seemingly endless cinematic inspiration. As we’ve explored in our Inconstant Reader column, his dual legacy on page and screen has earned him legions of fans across generations.

With 2025 well under way — and at least one King adaptation already out in the wild — here’s a breakdown of what to expect in print, on screen, and beyond.

📚Books

Never Flinch

As we learned from the Bill Hodges Trilogy, King is just as punchy in crime fiction as he is in horror. Never Flinch continues that thread, following Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch, The Outsider, If It Bleeds, and Holly by once again returning to Holly Gibney. Reportedly inspired by the Lady Gaga dognapping case, this instalment follows a celebrity activist pursued by a stalker. This one’s perched firmly atop this Constant Reader’s pile.

🗓️Release date: 27 May 2025

Hansel and Gretel

One of the year’s more surprising entries, this children’s picture book sees King collaborating with The Maurice Sendak Foundation to reimagine a classic fairytale. Sendak’s connection dates back to 1997, when he designed sets and costumes for Humperdinck’s opera version. It’s not King’s first venture into children’s literature either. See: Charlie the Choo-Choo, a Dark Tower tie-in by “Beryl Evans.”

🗓️WHEN: 5 September 2025

🎬Films

The Monkey

Already released earlier this year, director Osgood Perkins expands King’s macabre 1980 short story (later collected in Skeleton Crew) — about a cursed cymbal-banging toy monkey — into an unhinged, darkly funny ride. Blending absurdity with gore, it’s a bloody good time. (You can read our full review here on The Reel Bits).

🗓️Release date: Out now.

The Life of Chuck

Yes, it won the People’s Choice Award at TIFF last year — but let’s be honest, the real buzz comes from Mike Flanagan (Gerald’s Game, Doctor Sleep) adapting King once again. Based on the 2020 novella from If It Bleeds, this story unfolds in reverse, chronicling a life from death to birth. Tom Hiddleston stars in the title role.

🗓️Release date: 6 June 2025 (USA), 21 August 2025 (Australia – following debut at Sydney Film Festival in June)

The Long Walk

The first of two 2025 adaptations from King’s Richard Bachman works, this one is set in a dystopian America ruled by a brutal dictator (cough). One hundred teenage contestants are forced into a walking contest where the last one standing is declared the winner. Already the inspiration for Sweden’s real-life Fotrally (running since 2009), The Long Walk finally makes it to screen via director Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games, Red Sparrow), after prior attempts by George A. Romero and Frank Darabont.

🗓️Release date: 11 September 2025 (Australia), 12 September 2025 (USA)

The Running Man

From walking to running: the second Bachman adaptation is arguably the most high-profile. Edgar Wright takes the reins on a new version of this 1982 dystopian novel, famously adapted in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger. This time around, Glen Powell stars as the hunted contestant in a deadly game show.

🗓️Release date: 6 November 2025 (Australia), 7 November 2025 (USA)

BONUS: Black Phone 2

Okay, not King — but close. This sequel to The Black Phone comes from Joe Hill, King’s son, with an original script based on Hill’s pitch. Scott Derrickson returns to direct, along with co-writer C. Robert Cargill. The first film cemented Derrickson as a genre master, so we’re keen to see where they go next.

🗓️Release date: 16 October 2025 (US), 17 October 2025 (US)

📺TV

The Institute

Based on King’s 2019 novel, The Institute follows children with psychic abilities being held in a sinister facility. This limited series comes with serious TV pedigree: David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies, Boston Legal) handles the script, with Jack Bender (Lost, Game of Thrones) directing. Ben Barnes and Mary-Louise Parker lead the cast.

🗓️Streaming: On MGM+ sometime in late 2025.

🔮What’s next?

Talisman 3

A project so secretive it doesn’t even have a title yet. King has confirmed he’s “beavering away” on a third entry in the saga that began with The Talisman and Black House, co-written with the late Peter Straub. King says he’s “channeling” Straub and basing the story on ideas they discussed before Straub’s death. No release date yet — and 2025 might be a stretch — but never say never.

Want more Stephen King? Inconstant Reader is the feature column that explores Stephen King’s books in the order they were published — sort of!

May 10, 2025
Review: Death of a Unicorn

Unicorns are real—or at least, they exist in the cultural imagination. Over centuries, we’ve imbued them with meaning, transforming them from mythical beasts into symbols of purity, power, and rebellion. Whether lurking in the shadows of Legend, shimmering in the neon haze of Blade Runner, or standing as an emblem of LGBTQIA+ pride, they are everywhere. In Alex Scharfman’s film, however, their presence takes on a different weight—one that leans fully into broad satire.

Given their cultural significance, killing a unicorn sends a powerful message. That’s exactly where DEATH OF A UNICORN (the clue’s in the title) begins. As Elliot (Paul Rudd) and his daughter Ridley (Jenna Ortega) drive deep into the wooded mountains on their way to the estate of Elliot’s boss, the terminally ill pharma oligarch Odell (Richard E. Grant), they strike a young unicorn.

What was meant to be a weekend of corporate ladder-climbing quickly turns into something far stranger. When the unicorn’s horn and blood are revealed to have potent properties, a ruthless scramble ensues to dissect and commercialise the carcass. Yet Ridley finds herself drawn to the creatures, and it soon becomes clear the foal was not alone—and its parents are not happy.

Scharfman’s script takes broad swipes at the class divide, establishing a stark dichotomy between the haves and have-nots almost immediately. The long-suffering butler, Griff (played with wonderfully taciturn aplomb by Anthony Carrigan), serves as a reminder of the “silent majority” of working-class labour that the Leopold family and their ilk carelessly exploit. Meanwhile, Elliot’s apparent early heel turn—willingly going along with Odell’s scheme in the hopes of securing some scraps—only reinforces the film’s cynical outlook.

Yet Scharfman never really pushes beyond surface-level commentary, whether on class or the environment. Once the unicorn parents arrive—nightmarish steeds ripped from the darkest corners of mythology—the film shifts gears into full-blown horror. Aside from a few mystical visions hinting at a cosmic connection binding all living things, it largely devolves into spam-in-a-cabin survival mode, all frantic running and gut-spilling gore.

Still, at the heart of the film is the father-daughter relationship between Rudd and Ortega, emotionally estranged following the death of Ridley’s mother. Rudd uncharacteristically downplays some of his natural comedic tendencies as a misguided parent, while Ortega explores a different kind of angsty teen than her Wednesday persona. It’s a fine contrast to the indifferent relationship between Téa Leoni’s matriarch and the singular comedic entitlement of her son, played to perfection by Will Poulter. (Sidebar: how great is it to see Leoni’s comedy chops back on the big screen?)

DEATH OF A UNICORN may not be the biting swing at the rich we desperately need in 2025, but we can still delight in its chaos. Like these creatures of myth, movies have the power to hold up a mirror to our society—and maybe even show us a lighter way. The biggest takeaway? If you do run over a majestic creature with your car, don’t be a jerk about it. Until then, we’ll keep searching for that unicorn.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Alex Scharfman | WRITERS: Alex Scharfman | CAST: Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Téa Leoni, Richard E. Grant, Anthony Carrigan, Jessica Hynes | DISTRIBUTOR: A24 (USA), VVS Films (Australia/NZ) | RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 10 April 2025 (Australia), 28 March 2025 (USA)

April 4, 2025
Review: The Monkey

Some of the best Stephen King adaptations have come from his short stories and novellas, from Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption to The Mist. Perhaps it’s because King’s work provides the bones and lets filmmakers create their own cemetery.

Like Rob Savage’s recent take on The Boogeyman, writer/director Osgood Perkins takes the framework of King’s titular short story—first published in 1980 and later collected in Skeleton Crew—and gleefully runs amok in an expanded version of that world. Perkins wastes little time showing us his intentions, as a blood-splattered Capt. Petey Shelburn (Adam Scott) attempts to rid himself of an organ-grinder’s monkey toy with predictably bloody results.

Yet the bulk of the story focuses on his children, twins Hal and Bill (Christian Convery). After finding the monkey among their father’s belongings, a series of bizarre deaths start occurring around the squabbling brothers. Following the loss of their mother (Tatiana Maslany) and the apparent eradication of the monkey, the pair grow further estranged.

Cut to 25 years later, and weird stuff starts happening again. The adult Hal (Theo James) struggles to connect with his own son (Colin O’Brien), who resents Hal’s lengthy absences. Yet as bodies begin to drop—someone evidently controlling the monkey again—it quickly turns into a messed-up bonding road trip.

King’s original short story has often been praised and interpreted as an exploration of intergenerational trauma, inherited guilt, and parenthood in the face of an absent father. Perkins’ version retains all of this but delivers it with such a gleeful sense of the macabre that you can sit back and enjoy the chaos for what it is.

What might surprise you, especially after Perkins’ unnerving Longlegs, is just how funny THE MONKEY can be. Each death—from a decapitation at a teppanyaki restaurant to one involving fish hooks and a mailbox—somehow manages to sneak up on you, even with a giant neon signpost lighting the way.

Much of this is thanks to the sublime editing from Greg Ng and Graham Fortin, whose scalpel-like precision inserts gags and jump scares with deft timing. Set against Perkins’ ’90s-by-way-of-the-’70s aesthetic, it feels like walking through a surreal funhouse drenched in human goop.

The rest is down to a completely deadpan James, whose narration maintains the story’s literary origins while dryly observing the horrors around him. Playing dual roles in the film’s back half, it’s only a slight tonal shift towards the silly that keeps this from fully sticking the landing.

Still, in every other way, THE MONKEY is an unhinged delight. It won’t just join the ranks of other possessed doll films but will earn its cult status for its mix of Sam Raimi-esque dark humour and self-aware references aimed squarely at the core horror faithful.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Osgood Perkins | WRITERS: Osgood Perkins (based on the short story by Stephen King) | CAST: Theo James, Tatiana Maslany, Elijah Wood, Christian Convery, Colin O’Brien, Rohan Campbell, Sarah Levy | DISTRIBUTOR: Roadshow Films (Australia), Neon (USA) | RUNNING TIME: 98 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 February 2025 (Australia), 21 February 2025 (USA)

February 18, 2025
Review: Heretic

The arc of Hugh Grant’s career is worthy of a film of its own, evolving from beloved rom-com prince to type-breaking heavies and monsters. With Scott Beck and Bryan Woods’ HERETIC, he uses our fondness for his earlier roles to draw us completely into this darker world.

Sisters Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) and Paxton (Chloe East), two missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are attempting to convert new recruits. But after arriving at the home of Mr Reed (Hugh Grant), their faith is tested as they begin to realise that Reed’s cosy sweaters and promise of pie are not what they seem.

Like Reed, HERETIC has much more going on beneath the surface than it initially appears. What could have been a straightforward women-in-peril survival horror is deftly transformed into a psychological game of cat-and-mouse for most of the film. Grant’s character remains genuinely likeable at times, and even as his more sinister nature emerges, he’s the sort who happily uses Monopoly and Jar Jar Binks as analogies for organised religion.

Even when danger seems inevitable, we keep thinking everything might be alright. Like the characters of Barnes and Paxton, flawlessly played by Thatcher and East, screenwriters Woods and Beck give us the option to either take Reed at face value or question everything we see. It’s as if the film itself is part of Reed’s elaborate game, testing the viewer’s beliefs while anticipating our every reaction.

This is the essence of Reed as a villain. Unlike, say, The Saw franchise – which offers captives the hope of escape in exchange for bodily dismemberment – Reed’s menace lies almost entirely in his plainness of language. He tells us what to expect, even mansplaining the genre to his captives. This is where the film may flag briefly, especially when it leans more on oratory than exploration.

Yet there are moments of unbearable tension as we try to second-guess his next move. Under Chung Chung-hoo’s deft photographic eye, Beck and Woods skilfully use light and shadow in only a handful of locations, maintaining an atmosphere of unease. The constant dripping of water near a light source, for instance, resembles sparks flying.

After the disappointing 65, this is one of the most impressive returns to form in recent memory. HERETIC does not set out to revolutionise the horror genre, but I was nevertheless glued to the screen for its duration – and I may never look at blueberry pie in the same way again.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods | WRITERS: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods | CAST: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East | DISTRIBUTOR: A24 (USA), Roadshow Films (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 8 November 2024 (USA), 28 November 2024 (Australia)

November 9, 2024
Review: Longlegs

Supported by a viral marketing campaign reminiscent of The Blair Witch Project buzz, LONGLEGS knows its horror history. In fact, writer/director Osgood Perkins has been steeped in it for four decades, after making his screen debut as a young version of his father’s Norman Bates character in Psycho II (1983). So, it’s no surprise that this film nods to some icons while being quite unnerving in the process.

Perkins starts the process of keeping the audience off kilter from the opening scenes, in which a little girl about to have a birthday party is approached by a white-faced man (Nicolas Cage). Set in the 1970s, complete with a 4:3 aspect ratio and rounded corners, Greg Ng and Graham Fortin’s phenomenal editing cuts him off mid-sentence for a terrifying title drop, a motif that the film continues to use as a way of slapping us out of complacency.

As the narrative shifts gears to the 1990s, introducing us to green and seemingly mildly psychic FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe), the screen widens like eyes in terror. Following a brutal incident in the field, Harker’s superior Agent Carter (Blair Underwood) puts her on the trail of the Longlegs killer. Against probability, his cold trail grows warm under her watch – with revelations that sit a little too close for comfort.

Perkins’ film occupies a space between the Satanic panic films of the 1970s and the 90s serial killer films like Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs. The director has referred to the latter as a “shorthand for the audience to feel engaged.” In this territory, LONGLEGS is a wholly disquieting investigative piece that dwells in the realms of shadow and light. While Perkins also cites John Cassavetes, Gus Van Sant, and Bob Dylan as influences, it’s the aesthetics of Jonathan Demme and David Fincher that he wears on his sleeve. (Hell, even the end-credits run backwards).

Of course, if that was the totality of Perkins’ picture, we probably wouldn’t still be talking about it. With a discordant and often brain-scouring score by Zilgi (aka Elvis Perkins), coupled with the crispness of Pat Scola’s controlled photography, the opening act of this picture cuts into our psyches with scalpel-like precision.

Yet Perkins is also tied to certain things that he has trouble shaking in the back half. Nicolas Cage certainly disappears physically and audibly into the role. Still, at this point in his career there are certain ‘Cageisms’ (let’s call them) that break the fragile reality of the story. Cage screaming ‘Mommy’ in a car, not to mention the ‘shock value’ of his interrogatory denouement, elicited more than a few laughs from this viewer. By contrast, Alicia Witt (as Harker’s mother) has a restrained grace and control to her performance that is even more chilling than the primary villain.

Which ultimately brings us to the final part of the film, labelled ‘Birthday Girls’ on screen. Without revealing any spoilers, certain information comes to light that will either bring all the threads together or just leave you frustratingly cold. For me, it was a bit like another film influence entirely tacked onto the end of one that had already established a particular flavour.

The film works best as an investigative psychological horror, blending modern sensibilities with a throwback aesthetic. It’s a terrific showcase for the standout performances of Monroe and Witt, and the kind of movie that is made for horror fan cults. One just hopes it remains a self-contained story that acknowledges the power of brevity.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Osgood Perkins | WRITERS: Osgood Perkins | CAST: Maika Monroe, Nicolas Cage, Blair Underwood, Alicia Witt, Michelle Choi-Lee, Dakota Daulby | DISTRIBUTOR: Neon (USA), Rialto Distribution (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 101 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 12 July 2024 (USA), 18 July 2024 (Australia)

July 17, 2024
Inconstant Reader: Joyland, Revival, Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Holly

Welcome back to Inconstant Reader, the feature column that explores Stephen King’s books in the order they were published — sort of! Warning: spoilers are a constant.

It was around this time last year that I confessed to having missed a few columns. So, here I am a year later with the same problem on my hands: too many books and not enough time to write about them.

In my defence, I flagged the ‘inconstant’ bit in the title of the column over five years ago. There’s nothing much connecting these books either, except for a common author and the same set of eyes reading them over the course of four months. With the exception of Holly, published this year, the books discussed were all published between 2012 and 2016.

There’s a few from that period not covered here. I read Doctor Sleep out of order back in 2019 in anticipation of the film adaptation. Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers and End of Watch were ones I devoured a few years ago as audio books, hooked on Will Patton’s phenomenal reading. The point is that my reviewing is as inconstant as my reading (and vice versa), so it was great to revisit Holly Gibney at the other end of her journey.

In fact, this effectively brings the first phase of my Inconstant Reader journey to a close. Eighty books later, I’ve now read all the extant King commercially available. Yet Ka is a circle, after all, so it’s not over just yet.

Joyland

It was a dark and stormy night. Or at least that’s how they’re meant to start, right? How about a whole summer? Released in 2013 as part of the Hard Case Crime series – King’s second following The Colorado Kid – it’s equal parts nostalgic pulp and ghost story. In other words, it’s written by Stephen King. King sets it up as a pulp noir set in a carnival, with young Devin Jones taking a job at the titular park in North Carolina. It might ostensibly be a crime novel, but it works best as a period piece, and sometimes it’s just a pleasure to spend some time with this group of people working the carnival scene. Hell, you might even start picking up some of the lingo. Connecting historic crimes, modern mystery and giant mascot costumes, it’s a taut and moody piece that’s equal parts coming of age and ghost story.

Revival

One of the things about REVIVAL, originally published in 2014, is that it is just as relevant now as it was a decade ago. Perhaps this is because the world is an even darker mirror of that time, and the revivalist preacher that haunts and taunts King’s protagonist is a microcosm of a broader socio-political influence we’ve seen across the world, and certainly in King’s United States. Inspired partly by Arthur Machen’s The Great God Pan and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, King’s tale of obsession and faith takes a Lovecraftian turn later in the piece. Some may argue that this takes the book too far away from its original setting, which is a series of character pieces that King does so well. Yet Constant Readers know that there are other worlds than these visible through the thin gaps in reality, and like the best revivalist preachers, he’s merely pulling back the curtain to make the cosmic nightmare visible.

Bazaar of Bad Dreams

King’s sixth collection of short stories, and his tenth collection overall, is arguably one of his most eclectic – in all the best ways. It opens with the unnerving Mile 81, a spiritual successor to Christine (or the short story Trucks before it) in which a very bad car does very bad things. Yet the volume also touches on the heartbreak and small miracles of living near someone with Alzheimers (Batman and Robin Have an Altercation), the moral philosophy of violence (Morality), the experience of living as a gay man during the height of the AIDS epidemic (Mr. Yummy) or simply and acutely observing society (Herman Wouk Is Still Alive).

The Little Green God of Agony is a classic King short story, in which one man’s chronic pain is personified by a demon that can be exorcised. Of course, that means letting it out of the body. Similarly, Bad Little Kid – originally only published in French and German languages – follows a man plagued by the actions of the titular boy who keeps turning up like a bad penny. There’s a lighter side though, with Drunken Fireworks following a lakeside fireworks competition that escalates dramatically and ends with a comical wink.

A favourite of mine, especially given my fondness for The Dark Tower and its connections along the beam, is Ur. Originally published as a Kindle exclusive, this volume’s slightly revised edition follows what would happen if someone accidentally got their hands on a device that could download material from other worlds. Imagine a universe where Hemingway wrote twice as many novels, or you could see the news before it happened. It’s a perfect mix of ‘what ifs’ and terrifying possibility. (The Dune also plays with premonition, but in a more Twilight Zone inspired scenario, while Obits gives the protagonist more direct control over the fate of others).

Likewise, Blockade Billy – about the incredible luck a the New Jersey Titans who adopted the eponymous player during the 1957 Major League World Series season – could happily sit alongside The Green Mile as a mirror image. King explores his love of baseball, the 1950s, and those simpletons who aren’t quite what they appear to be.

Despite these familiar touchstones, this is King showing us a more vulnerable and experimental side. Take The Bone Church, for example, a lyric poem (inspired partly by the style of Robert Browning) about a bar patron who asks for drinks in return for his stories about dark expeditions. King, on the other hand, simply asks us for our time and some of our coin in return for his tales – and we’re all the richer for it.

Holly

The titular Holly Gibney, first introduced in Mr. Mercedes and the Hodges trilogy – and last seen flying solo in The Outsider and If It Bleeds – finally gets her name on the cover. Like some of King’s best work, it splits its time between the past and the present. A couple with an appetite for the macabre believe they can extend their lives through their wicked activities. Later, in the time of Covid, Holly investigates a series of disappearances. Naturally, the two stories align at some point. (Curiously, the pandemic backdrop is at once familiar and feeling further away from our reality). Definitely one of King’s more political pieces, and arguably one of the darker versions of his detective novels, it’s all the more frightening for its lack of overly supernatural themes. Let the tales of Holly continue until King has stopped writing.

When Constant Reader returns in 2024, and it will return, it’s time to go once again around the horn with a reread of The Dark Tower saga – and maybe a few old favourites I haven’t written about yet. Soon Roland will raise the Horn of Eld. And blow.

November 3, 2023
Inconstant Reader: Full Dark, No Stars

Welcome back to Inconstant Reader, the inconstant feature column that explores Stephen King’s books in the order they were published — sort of! Warning: this piece is full spoilers, no stars.

Stephen King’s novellas have reached some legendary status over the years.

After all, the mostly non-horror anthology Different Seasons (1982) inspired films Stand By Me (1986), The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and Apt Pupil (1998) to date. Four Past Midnight (1990) gave us more adaptations, and the near-perfect story The Sun Dog. The 1999 work Hearts in Atlantis has a deep connection to his Dark Tower cycle.

So, with FULL DARK, NO STARS (2010) we see him returning to this type of storytelling after almost a decade. The four stories in the comparatively small volume, which means anything less than 400 pages for our friend Stephen, are not directly connected. Yet they are thematically linked by ordinary people acting out dark desires or on pure survival instincts.

The opening salvo is 1922, the lengthiest story of the bunch. Set in the titular year, in the familiar-sounding town of Hemingford Home, Nebraska, we meet Wilfred and Arlette James in the middle of a marital dispute. Arlette wants to sell her inherited farmland and move to Omaha, while Wilfred wants to remain and continue farming. As you might guess, Wilfred’s plan comes with fatal intent, ultimately involving their son Henry in a plot of murder and deceit.

1922 takes its sweet time getting to where it goes, very deliberately I might add, but that just adds to the tension. Set over the course of a year that goes to hell, it’s the first of several stories in the bunch that explore the idea of how far down the rabbit hole (or in this case, the well out back) you go once you start down the path of misdeeds. It doesn’t just infect the father but the son, with a subplot of Henry impregnating a farmer’s daughter and going on a Bonnie and Clyde spree across America.

On one level, 1922 is a ghost story. Once a deed is done, Wilfred is perpetually haunted: not just by Arlette and what he has done, but by the rats that seem to follow him everywhere. It is never clear whether this unnerving motif of rats in the walls, something that King has revisited on multiple occasions, is real or part of Wilfred’s delusions.The story ends by shifting from a first-person account to a newspaper article, forever leaving doubt in the minds of Constant Readers.

Still from the Netflix adaptation of 1922.

By contrast, Big Driver starts with something that seems like a King staple: a mystery writer on her way to give a talk at a library. On her way back, she takes a recommended shortcut, but is abducted, held prisoner, and raped by a trucker. The remainder of the story is both a tale of investigation and revenge.

One of the things that struck me about this story was that it follows a repeated use of rape as a plot device over the last few novels and short stories published around this time. In the collection Just After Sunset (2008), The Gingerbread Girl covers similar ground of abduction and escape. In Under the Dome (2009), several sexual assaults are revisited multiple times in sickening detail. When writing about the latter, I said “At one point I wanted to call back in time and check up on 2009 Stephen to see if he was okay.”

The story was later made into a film for Lifetime, which seems appropriate. Much of the story plays on the kinds of rape-revenge tropes you’d see in a Movie of the Week, right down to the ending – one that treads dangerously close to a victim having to justify her own outrage.

A Fair Extension is the shortest of the bunch. It takes place in Derry, a town that has never been quite right. Dave Streeter, who is dying of cancer, is offered a chance for a fair extension of his life by George Elvid (geddit?), a mysterious figure who claims to have lived for centuries. He can’t give Streeter immortality, but he can extend his life a bit. The monkey’s paw is that he has to give the misfortune to someone else. He chooses his ostensible best friend, who he has secretly hated for years.

Perhaps it’s that I’ve read this for the first time on the other side of Gwendy’s Button Box (2017 with Richard Chizmar) and its sequels, but this felt like familiar territory. Indeed, the kicker at the end – with Streeter seemingly contemplating trading his wife’s life for a little more time – feels most like a Twilight Zone episode.

If that theme of people pushed to dark places runs through the first three stories, then A Good Marriage puts it up on the marquee and runs with it. Darcy Anderson, married to accountant Bob for 27 years, finds two things in his garage by chance: a collection of pornography with sadomasochistic imagery, and the identification cards of a victim of the known serial killer “Beadie.”

Debating whether or not to confront him, he figures something is wrong and admits it to her. The only rub is that he has convinced himself that a childhood friend has ‘infected’ him, thereby justifying his actions in his own mind. Darcy ponders whether she can live with this knowledge, but ultimately plots to kill him. King was reportedly inspired by Dennis Rader, also known as the “BTK Killer.”

“The stories in this book are harsh. You may have found them hard to read in places,” writes King in an afterword. This is because FULL DARK, NO STARS is a collection that lives up to its name. Very little light permeates these stories, and they are frequently disturbing in their outlook. Indeed, coupled with the microcosm of Under the Dome that preceded it, King’s outlook on the first decade of the 20th century can be described as ‘bleak’ by this point. Yet the stories are also endlessly readable, filled with characters who are painfully true to themselves and honest, if not always likeable.

When Inconstant Reader returns, we travel back in time (and return to Derry) as we take a look as that infamous date, 11/22/63.

June 24, 2023
Review: The Boogeyman

If there are two certainties in life, it’s death and Stephen King adaptations. While the former has been fairly consistent in its finality, the latter hasn’t always been as successful as the master’s prose.

THE BOOGEYMAN, based on a 1973 short story that appeared in the Night Shift collection, uses the source material as a jumping off point to do its own thing. In the original story, King uses a simple structure of an unreliable witness relating his terrible tale to a psychologist before we get the devilish twist. It’s as much modern Gothic as it is Twilight Zone.

In Rob Savage’s film version it is the therapist’s family who are in the midst of tragedy. After the loss of his wife to an accident, Will (Chris Messina), his children Sadie (Sophie Thatcher) and Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) all exhibit their own signs of trauma. When Will opens the door to unexpected walk-in client Lester Billings (David Dastmalchian), he inadvertently lets in a presence that wants to attack his kids when they are most vulnerable.

Adapted to the screen by Scott Beck, Bryan Woods, and Mark Heyman, one of the uphill battles was translating this slender story to a feature-length scarefest. The expansion of the lore is quite well done, and it was a wise move making someone other than the unhinged Billings the centre of the story. The beauty of the film’s structure is that the entirety of the short story could have still happened off screen.

Like many films in this specific sub-genre of horror, the principal weapon for fear is the jump scare. This works here thanks to a phenomenal use of the soundscape. The titular character, with all of its requisite grunts and growls, can be heard coming from all directions, as if to immerse us in darkness just outside the closet door. If King has spent his career sharing tangible fears with us, then this is a film that trades on our primal fear of the dark.

As such, photographer Eli Born (who shot the most recent Hellraiser) relies on those lights and shadows. There’s a creepy house that Sadie visits several times, one that is illuminated only by a sporadically flashing bulb and corridors full of candles. In another scene, a slowly pulsing red light draws us into darkness with terrifying results. There’s a recurring motif of Sawyer’s circular night light, one which the audience might also want to desperately cling to, as Savage and Born take us down certain corridors.

Messina seems to sleepwalk through his scenes, partly appropriate for the distance his character has created from his kids. Indeed, he’s completely absent for long stretches of the film – whether intentionally or through the edit. So, it’s up to the two very capable young stars Thatcher (Yellowjackets) and Blair (Obi-Wan Kenobi) to carry this off. Which they do spectacularly. Through their eyes, it’s a nightmarish Monsters Inc.

THE BOOGEYMAN is probably never destined to reach the iconic heights of some of Stephen King’s other works. Yet the moment to moment scares are effective, especially in the environment of a darkened cinema. Indeed, it was King who suggested to Savage that they’d be “fucking stupid to release this on streaming and not in cinemas.” It’s a good thing they listened. Now, if you don’t mind I’m just going to close that closet door.

2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: Rob Savage | WRITERS: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods and Mark Heyman (based on a story by Stephen King) | CAST: Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, Vivien Lyra Blair, David Dastmalchian | DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Studios | RUNNING TIME: 99 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1 June 2023 (AUS), 2 June 2023 (USA)

May 31, 2023
Inconstant Reader: Just After Sunset

Welcome back to Inconstant Reader, the feature column that explores Stephen King’s books in the order they were published — sort of! Warning: just after the setup, the SPOILERS rise.

Although this is commonly listed as Stephen King’s fifth collection of short stories, keen Constant Readers will know that’s not strictly the case. While 2008’s JUST AFTER SUNSET is the first collection since Everything’s Eventual in 2002, it’s the eight collection of King stories overall when you include novella volumes like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight.

King’s bold declaration in Nightmares and Dreamscapes (1993) was that “all the good stories have now been collected; all the bad ones have been swept as far under a rug as I could get them.” So, while the earliest story here is from 1977 (“The Cat from Hell”) the bulk of the 12 stories (and one novella) were originally published between 2003 and 2008.

The opening salvo is “Willa,” a seemingly straight-up ghost story originally published in the pages of Playboy in 2006. It’s about a man who is unable to find his fiancée after an apparent car wreck. Winding up in a train station, it slowly becomes obvious that they have both died, and they are the only ones there who know it. The story has such an incredible sense of place from the get-go, an important element in a story where folks are trapped in a liminal space – what Buddhists might call a bardo.

Compare this with “The Things They Left Behind,” published a year earlier in the Transgressions: Volume Two compendium. Other references and allusions aside, it’s King’s most overt response to 9/11. It tells the tale of a man who didn’t go to work on that day and has collected some of the belongings of his coworkers. In both of these shorts, we see how King uses ghost stories to convey something that is as heartbreaking as it is ghostly, touching on survivor’s guilt, collective grief, and the importance of totems in the healing process.

King continues some of these themes in “The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates” (2007), in which a widow answers calls from her deceased husband. During the call, he predicts two major catastrophes. It’s almost a mirror to “Harvey’s Dream” (2003), where the titular man recounts his nocturnal adventures, culminating in the ringing of a phone that might indicate that it’s all coming true.

Another trademark is a series of stories that don’t quite go where you expect. Take “The Gingerbread Girl” about a woman who deals with the crib death of her daughter by obsessively taking up running. As we allow ourselves to let the poignancy of that sink in, King baits and switches it out for a story of abduction and survival. It’s a genuinely tense piece, and the Mexican stand-off of a conclusion is a white-knuckle ride you can’t help but read breathlessly. Likewise, the surprise in “Graduation Afternoon” (2007) is even more explosive: the titular graduation rapidly becomes about a group of people bearing witness to the end of the world.

The lengthiest of the stories is the novella, “N.” Published specifically for this collection, I got some serious H.P. Lovecraft vibes off it, although King speaks of it being “a riff on Arthur Machen’s ‘The Great God Pan,’ which is one of the best horror stories ever written. Maybe the best in the English language.” High praise indeed from the master, and while I can’t speak to the original, it certainly pulls on some eldritch traditions, playing with repeated memes, thin spaces between one world and the next, and a powerlessness to stop it all. (There’s a series of animated shorts done with Marvel that coincided with the release too).

Of course, you are always going to see familiar elements in many of the stories. Which is not to say that King is spinning his wheels, just that he knows which buttons to push – and that some terrors recur despite our best attempts to be rational about them. “The Cat from Hell” (1977), sees a hitman go after the titular feisty feline with unexpected results. “Mute” has a bit of an urban legand/Twilight Zone vibe in its ‘killer hitchhiker’ motif. “Ayana” (2007) is one of King’s first works to directly acknowledge his predilection towards the trope of ‘magical’ Black characters.

“The toilet was the American West, the Australian Outback, the Horse Head Nebula.”

If all of these stories are variations of things that scare King, a suggestion he makes in various notes to the text, then “A Very Tight Place” is the capstone. Curtis Johnson is a middle-aged gay man who Tim Grunwald lures to an empty construction lot after hours. After locking Curtis in a portaloo, much of the piece has to do with escape. It’s tense in all the right places, although Grunwald is such an insidiously vile character that one needs a shower immediately. Especially given what they both end up covered with.

King has continued to publish prolifically since this collection, with another three short fiction collections and around 17 more novels to date. Yet it’s anthologies like these that seem to showcase the diversity of his talents, while flipping that switch in our brains that craves short bursts of the macabre and a soft place to land afterwards.

Next on Inconstant Reader: Under the Dome, King’s snapshot of American history as viewed through the lens of a really big ant farm.

March 14, 2023
Inconstant Reader: Duma Key

Welcome back to Inconstant Reader, the feature column that explores Stephen King’s books in the order they were published — sort of! Warning: this key unlocks some spoilers.

“I was supposed to lose my life, but I didn’t.“

It’s hard to read lines like that from DUMA KEY without imagining Stephen King’s life going in a very different direction. Published almost a decade after the car accident that very nearly resulted in the writer’s leg being amputated, his lead character Edgar Freemantle could almost be an avatar for an alternate King scattered somewhere in his vast Dark Tower multiverse.

We first encountered Edgar in the short story ‘Memory,’ a 2006 tale originally published in Tin House and included as an annex to Blaze. That story casts Edgar as a contractor injured on a construction site. After losing parts of several limbs, and his vision, he is prone to mood swings and amnesia. King has publicly stated that this was inspired by how much and little he could remember of his own 1999 accident.

It’s also where King chooses to open DUMA KEY, recrafting this short into the first chapter of this lengthy novel. In fact, reading this a few weeks after ‘Memory’ it struck me as an interesting thought exercise of reliving the same traumatic experience through two different lenses. Just as with the short story, Edgar’s unpredictable anger causes his wife to leave him. The short ends with Edgar euthanising an injured dog, finding that channelling his memories has given him the strength he needs.

In DUMA KEY this is just the starting point. We follow Edgar south to the titular island in the Florida Keys. Rekindling his love of sketching at the advice of his therapist, he meets the two other residents of Duma Key. There’s octogenarian heiress Elizabeth Eastlake, who suffers from late-stage Alzheimer’s, and Wireman, a former attorney who now acts as her live-in carer. He has his own skeletons, as the survivor of a suicide attempt following the sudden accidental death of his wife and child.

The wraparound cover hints at the Daliesque surrealism of Edgar’s art.

From here, King spends his time exploring multiple perspectives on loss, grief, and recovery through the lens of a ghost story. As the site’s paranormal activity impacts Edgar’s art, he begins to reveal psychic visions. His ex-wife’s affair, for example, or the suicidal ideation of a mutual friend. Edgar’s work attracts the attention of the art world, but his painting seems to have the ability to impact his surroundings, right down to curing Wireman of serious medical ailments. It’s Stephen King, so there’s also something sinister about them as well.

Much of this is familiar territory for King’s Constant Readers. Yes, there’s the expected Dark Tower references to roses and the number 19, and the psychic artist recalls both Patrick Danville in Insomnia and Seth Garin from The Regulators. Edgar refers to himself as a gunslinger at one point. On a more basic level, the psychic energy of a ‘haunted’ and isolated property might have you thinking about The Shining on more than one occasion. (I’m not alone: Mark Rahmer of The Seattle Times goes into more detail about the similarities).

Yet there’s a complexity to this storytelling as well multiple narrative timelines as it builds towards the Big Finish. Without revealing too much, there’s some genuine surprises and heartbreaks in the last act, and it honestly surprised me how much this affected me. King effortlessly (at least as far as the read is concerned) crafts these deep and meaningful friendships in his books, and Edgar and Wireman is one of the more impactful.

If we’re going to get super deep on this one, and to bring this full circle, it’s arguable that this narrative reveals something of a darker side of the writer’s vision. A Dark Half if you will. One of Edgar’s final acts is a painting so destructive that it will destroy his surroundings. One wonders what destruction that alternative Stephen King may have wrought in a darker moment.

So, even though there are moments in DUMA KEY that feel all too familiar, here I am weeks later still reflecting on it. It’s King playing with some big concepts, some more terrifying than others. Perhaps even the writer didn’t dare plumb all of its depths.

Next on Inconstant Reader: Just After Sunset, King’s collection of 13 short stories that was accompanied by a series of animated videos.

January 26, 2023