 Recently, renowned author Stephen King tweeted: “How about Netflix bringing back UNDER THE DOME, only starting from scratch and actually doing the book?” The tweet garnered a fair amount of support, but also a little criticism from certain parties, who didn't care for the 'whining' tone they attributed to his words and felt he would be better using his platform to promote the works of others. There was a wee bit of debate. You might wonder what impact a little old tweet could have, with only 60,000 likes, around 6,000 retweets and associated stories in BloodyDisgusting, AVClub, Business Insider, Cinema Blend, etc, etc, etc... If you think there's little chance a casually tossed-off tweet could lead to a full-blown TV production, you've obviously forgotten that Hollywood is fresh out of ideas and apparently has no clue how to find them. When someone like Stephen King speaks (and there really is no-one else like Stephen King) they listen. At the very least, his tweet will have started a conversation in a boardroom somewhere. And he can tweet what he likes. I wouldn't dare try to tell him not to say what's on his mind. Sure, it might be nice if he was urging Netflix to adapt a work written by someone other than himself, but he's plenty supportive of other authors most of the time. No, my message is for all the TV execs thinking of grabbing a King property of their own, and it is very simple: Stop putting Stephen King properties on TV. They ALL SUCK. In TV terms, Stephen King's name has been like a one-way ticket to Mediocrity, with occasional connections to Dismal Embarrassment and Excruciating Boredom. He is associated – not only his name but sometimes the full involvement of the man himself – in some of the worst TV drama ever produced. Across four decades of television, he has helped birth into existence one miserable disappointment after another. And yet, he is still viewed by TV producers as a sure-fire winner. He is not. I have the mental scars to prove it. Don't misunderstand me. I don't have any axe to grind with Stephen King the writer. He is immensely talented. I've liked most of the books I've read. The films based on his books include some of the greatest horror movies of all time. It's partly my fondness for his other work that has led to me being suckered time after time after time into enduring truly appalling televisual abominations. It took me a long time and a lot of suffering to realise the truth: almost without exception, they stink. EARLY PROMISE I mean, okay, yes, he didn't get off to the worst start imaginable. The TV movie 'Salem's Lot' (known for years in my house and others as 'David Soul's Salem's Lot', even though it was directed by Tobe Hooper) has an engaging cast and some effectively creepy moments. It is certainly better than the 2004 TV miniseries (yes, this has already been made, and is probably due another remake, right Steve?) but it is not exactly good. Even for the time it was made it has an overly cheesy 1970s TV-movie vibe about and the passing decades have not been kind. Look to 'The Night Stalker', broadcast five years earlier, for a TV movie about vampires that actually holds up. The following decade was all about the silver screen, with King's TV work limited to script-writing duties on the occasional episode of a horror anthology show like 'The Twilight Zone' or 'Tales from the Darkside', which I won't criticise because I haven't seen them and the shows would have continued with or without his involvement. It wasn't until 1990's 'IT' that the template was set for all that would follow. Even today, the first part of that TV movie 'event' still just about holds together, before the Loser's Club grows up to deliver two hours of pure tedium. I'm on record as being a fan of Tim Curry's performance, but I've found the only way to make it through the whole thing is with generous application of the 'fast-forward' button. Still, 'IT' was a high-point, considering what came after. THE MICK GARRIS YEARS 'Sometimes They Come Back' was middle-of-the-road TV-movie pap that never scared anyone and nobody remembers now but inexplicably spawned two sequels at the time. It was immediately followed by the first actual Stephen King TV series, 'Golden Years'. It was also the first to be quickly cancelled (they've mostly been cancelled). No matter, however, as 1993-94 gave us 'The Tommyknockers' (which 7-year-old me found highly engaging, but adult me would struggle to defend) and 'The Stand', a four-part epic based on the beloved classic, directed by true visionary Mick Garris. If anyone's going to argue the case for 'The Stand', it's probably down to their enduring love for its opening sequence (an expertly-crafted parade of death, set to Blue Oyster Cult's 'Don't Fear the Reaper' which has rarely been bettered by the opening sequence of any other show). What follows those opening moments, however (really the first episode, which is still somewhat compelling) is hours of poorly paced, poorly staged, poorly shot, badly cast and badly acted gumpf, amounting to a cheap-looking production with an unforgivable absence of scares or menace. We can only assume that Stephen King loved it, though, because he let Mick Garris take plenty more cracks at his work. And, from 'Quicksilver Highway' (the second, better half, is based on a Clive Barker story) to 'The Shining' to 'Desperation' to 'Bag of Bones', each one was, somehow, incredibly, EVEN WORSE than the last. Garris's bland, bloated style (if you can call it a style) seemed to bleed its way into King's other TV adaptations. As a result, he has been blamed for a whole bunch of mid-1990s/early 2000s miniseries and TV movies he didn't even direct, like 'The Langoliers' (which I actually kind of like, even though, objectively, it's crap), 'Trucks' (which is a film that exists for some reason), 'Storm of the Century' (needlessly taking an interesting premise and stretching it out to an unbearable three hours) and 'Rose Red' (interesting fact: I've never seen 'Rose Red' and I've never met anyone who has). Then there was 'Carrie' (2002), the TV movie, not to be confused with 'Carrie' (1976), 'Carrie' (2013) or 'The Rage: Carrie 2' (1999). (Have we had enough adaptations of 'Carrie' yet, Steve? Is it time Netflix made another one, perhaps? Do tweet and let us know.) KINGDOM COME They weren't great, those 1990s/early 2000s TV movies and miniseries. Yet for all their faults, they still retain a few defenders. I think you would find it hard, however, to find any defenders of 'Kingdom Hospital', which helped usher in the era of Stephen King as a constant presence on TV. Promoted as 'Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital', this was a remake of Lars Von Trier's frightening and phenomenal masterpiece 'Kingdom' which ruined every character and plot point it retained from the original and threw in a load of aggressively terrible garbage, seemingly designed to simultaneously pad out the run-time and settle old scores. Most egregious was the insertion of a central plot strand in which a jogger is hit by a van and left for dead at the side of the road (remember when Stephen King was hit by a van when he was out jogging? Remember that?) The hit-and-run driver – a pathetic and grotesque individual – then suffers through an escalating series of tortures in what feels like a nasty attempt by the author to deliver some kind of comeuppance through his art. The driver who did King wrong did indeed meet a miserable, lonely death a few years ago, so you would hope the writer no longer feels the need to incorporate him into his petty revenge scenarios. In any case, if his preoccupation with incorporating his own biography into the show wasn't enough to sink it, his manhandling of the original series' tone and themes, including an unforgivably saccharine happy ending, surely was. IN THE ZONE In 2006, TNT produced eight episodes of 'Nightmares & Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King'. I've never seen them and I won't pretend I have. I haven't seen 2009's TV remake of 'Children of the Corn' either, but I'm certain it's no better than the original. I HAVE seen 'The Dead Zone', which ran for 77 episodes, from 2002 to 2007. At least, I've seen parts of it. Perhaps whole episodes. But can I remember a damn thing about it? Nope. Can you? I'll bet you, even if you watched it at the time, you haven't thought about it in years and, if not for reading about it in this article, might have gone the rest of your life without ever giving it another moment's consideration. It no doubt had fans and made an asset of its 'Quantum Leap' style procedural premise, but I doubt anyone's clamouring for it to be recognised as a classic of the medium. Likewise 'Haven', based on King's 'The Colorado Kid', which ran for 78 episodes from 2010 to 2015. Presumably SOMEONE was watching it? That brings us to 'Under the Dome', which King must have hoped would have the same kind of longevity, but made it to only 39 episodes, though it should really have been cancelled after one. Misconceived entirely, this train-wreck of a show infuriated fans of the book and baffled casual viewers. It limped on through a bewildering three seasons of inane sub-plots, dead ends and perplexing character choices, apparently fuelled by the outrage of those who continued to watch. They couldn't believe it. No matter how bad it got, it just kept getting worse. 'Hate-watching' may not have begun with 'Under the Dome', but 'Under the Dome' surely helped define it. In fairness to Stephen King and the spirit of his recent tweet, it is, indeed, pretty fucking dreadful. PLAY MISTY FOR ME And yet... is 'Under the Dome' the worst TV show ever based on a Stephen King story? I would argue not. That dubious honour surely goes to 'The Mist'. Though it was broadcast a mere two years ago, it is possible you have already scrubbed its excruciatingly awful single season from your brain. But it is worth reminding yourself, before you get too excited about any announcements of new shows to which Stephen King's name is attached. Expanding on the premise of the excellent novella and film, 'The Mist' follows the inhabitants of a small town facing off against a supernatural mist. But while the novella and film's monsters were extra-dimensional tentacle beasts and religious zealots, the TV show took the 'brave' decision to make its central villain... a gay teenager. And a rapist, too. Naturally, this choice to resurrect the 'evil gay' stereotype did little to endear the show to its dwindling audience, most of whom have tried to rinse its general 'ickiness' from their brains. And they must have done a fine job, because when 'Castle Rock' was announced, everyone got just as excited as they had for 'The Mist'. More so, even! This, after all, was not a series based on any one particular Stephen King story. It was, instead, taking a daringly creative swipe at capturing and distilling his entire mythos. What fascinating potential! In the end, however, that's all 'Castle Rock' was. A lot of potential. A whole bunch of characters, plot-lines and mysteries that must have looked good on paper, but didn't translate to the screen. It's not a terrible show. Certainly far superior to the likes of 'Under the Dome' and 'The Mist'. But the magic isn't there. I – and many others – tuned out before the end of the first season. It is coming back for a second season, of course. Maybe it will limp its way to three, like 'Under the Dome'. Maybe it will even make it to four or five, like 'The Dead Zone' and 'Haven'. Maybe it will cement a small but enthusiastic fan base as it bubbles along for years. Sometimes you'll meet one, who'll tell you, “Oh, it's great, you should give it another shot,” and you'll reply “Yeah, I've been meaning to get back into it...” But you never will. HAVE MERCY Somewhere in the midst of all that was '11.22.63' (which was overlong and boring and starred James Franco, so really, who cares?) and 'Mr Mercedes', which I have not seen, but some people think is quite good. However, what I do know for sure is it's a crime show, not a horror show, so, again... who cares? We currently await the premieres of the new 'Creepshow' TV series and 'The Dark Tower' AND 'The Outsider'. Oh. AND 'The Stand' (how could I forget?) Now I ask you... isn't that enough? Isn't that enough yet, Mr King? Isn't that plenty to be going on with, Mr TV Executive? Won't you have mercy? Could we not, possibly, after four decades of absolute dreck splashed across our TV screens, have a bit of something else? SOMEONE else? There's a chance – of course there's always a chance – that at least one or even all of these upcoming projects could turn out to be great. I suppose a remake of 'Under the Dome', more true to the spirit of the source material, could be worth a watch. But I have looked at the data. I have done the research. Going on all that has gone before, the most likely outcome is not a positive one. Perhaps it's time the likes of Netflix looked to another horror writer for inspiration. Perhaps, if they asked him nicely, that benevolent and warm-hearted Mr King could even recommend someone? What do you say, Stephen? No, I didn't mean Joe Hill! About John McNee  John McNee is a writer of numerous strange and disturbing horror stories, published in a variety of strange and disturbing anthologies, as well as the novel PRINCE OF NIGHTMARES. He is also the creator of twisted sludge-city of Grudgehaven and the author of GRUDGE PUNK, a collection of short stories detailing the lives and deaths of its gruesome inhabitants, plus the sequel, PETROLEUM PRECINCT. He lives on the west coast of Scotland, where he is employed as a journalist. He can easily be sought out on Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter and YouTube, where he hosts the horror-themed cooking show A RECIPE FOR NIGHTMARES. Twitter: @THEJohnMcNee website: www.johnmcnee.com Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/y6k7l5ac YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/yc33j9d6 Prince of Nightmares by John McNee "Fantastically warped and wonderfully twisted, John McNee is a writer with a towering imagination, and he knows how to use it." ~Victor Gischler, Edgar Award-nominated author of GUN MONEYS and DEADPOOL: Merc with a Mouth. “McNee has taken the dream spectrum and contorted it into an unrelenting haven of fear.” ~K. Trap Jones, Author of THE DRUNKEN EXORCIST and THE CHARM HUNTER Welcome to the Ballador Country House Hotel. Nestled in the highlands of Scotland, it is unlike any other lodging. Guests can expect wonderful scenery, gourmet food, and horrifying nightmares—guaranteed. Daring travelers pay thousands to stay within the Ballador’s infamous rooms because of the vivid and frightening dreams the accommodations inspire. Before Josephine Teversham committed suicide, she made a reservation at the hotel for her husband, Australian magnate Victor Teversham. Once he arrives at the hotel, Victor finds himself the target of malevolent forces, revealing the nightmares—and their purpose—to be more strange, personal, and deadly than anyone could have guessed.   Comments are closed.
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