It seems Stephen King is all the rage once again. With numerous television shows, movies and streaming originals coming, a brand-new generation can learn why he is known as the Master of Horror. The most recent example is not only an adaptation but a remake of a previous movie. Pet Sematary follows It in the recent trend of remaking older King properties.
When it comes to Stephen King remakes, the bad far outweighs the good, at least in the eyes of film and television critics. Despite that, the films and TV shows still mostly have their fans, for both the good and the bad.
Even King himself has a love for some of the remakes, believing they actually exceed his expectations compared to the originals, even if critics disagree on occasion. Here is a look at all the Stephen King remakes that have hit television and theaters, ranked from worst to best, based on reviews.
11. CHILDREN OF THE CORN: GENESIS - AVERAGE SCORE: 10
The original Children of the Corn movie was not a critical darling when it was released in 1984, sitting at 36% rotten on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the movie was an independent effort and has a massive cult following. It also resulted in six sequels before getting the remake treatment.
The movie actually has two remakes. The second is one of the lowest-rated Stephen King movies critically, with a 10% audience rating. However, there are not enough professional critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic to post an official score.
Children of the Corn: Genesis was released in 2011 as a straight to DVD movie from Dimension Films' Extreme. The movie follows the same basic storyline of the 1984 version, with a couple's car breaking down and ending up hunted by the children. The difference is there is a lot of supernatural psychokinetic events in this movie, whereas the original movie was just about children murdering adults.
Scott Weinberg of FEARnet summed up the movie by calling it "cheap, lazy, uninspired filmmaking" that tries to get by on the brand name.
10. CHILDREN OF THE CORN (2009) - AVERAGE SCORE: 16
While it fared better with audiences than the 2011 remake, the 2009 remake of Children of the Corn was also seen as a major disappointment, although it also does not have enough critical reviews to garner a ranking on either Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic. The audience score has it sitting at a low 16% rating.
This version was released as a television movie and is an adaptation of the Stephen King short story and a remake of the original film. This was a more accurate remake than the 2011 version, with the couple hitting a child who wanders into the road and ending up in the small town where the cult of children closes in on them.
Unlike the original movie, where older kids portrayed the young children in the cult, this version actually went with age-appropriate actors, which somewhat hurt the acting quality. According to R.L. Shaffer of IGN DVD, this version of Children of the Corn is part "nasty bickering" and part "boring corn chase."
9. TRUCKS - AVERAGE SCORE: 30
Released in 1997, Trucks remakes the cult classic Stephen King film Maximum Overdrive. King fans remember that original film based on the fact it was the only Stephen King adaptation adapted by the Master of Horror himself. It starred Emilio Estevez and a Green Goblin-inspired semi truck.
The remake retitled the movie to the same title as the original short story on which it was based from King's first collection of short stories, Night Shift. Both movies are about the fear of technology taking over and starting to kill humans. In both cases, the main culprits are big trucks.
The movie was dismissed sight unseen by most critics, although audience scores ranked it at 30% on Rotten Tomatoes. That at least puts it higher than the critic ranking for the original Maximum Overdrive, which sits at 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, with most critics proclaiming this is why novelists should not direct their own work.
8. THE SHINING - AVERAGE SCORE: 42
The Shining is one of the most polarizing topics when discussing adaptations with Stephen King fans. Critically, it remains one of the top horror movies of all time, the Stanley Kubrick version ranked 86% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes, although Metacritic ranks it much lower at 63%.
However, Stephen King hates the movie and many of his more loyal fans agree with his stance that the movie is not a loyal adaptation of his source novel. As a result, King wanted the movie remade, and that happened in 1997 with the made-for-TV movie starring Steven Weber.
The Shining remake sits at 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, although it is nowhere to be seen on Metacritic. King wrote the screenplay for this remake and attempted to make the hotel the true villain rather than Jack Torrance, while also trying to fix the problems he had with Wendy from the Kubrick movie.
Critics were not impressed, despite some hardcore King fans preferring it to the Kubrick version. The overall consensus of critics concerning The Shining remake is that it "is hobbled by a drab literalism of the text and cheesy effects that diminish the scares."
7. SALEM'S LOT - AVERAGE SCORE: 48
The original Salem's Lot was made for television and had Tobe Hooper as director, following up his terrifying Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the Stephen King vampire story. While he made a few changes from the source material, he was faithful and his movie has a nice 88% ranking at Rotten Tomatoes.
The Salem's Lot remake came 23 years later and has an all-star cast. Still made as a TV movie, released as a miniseries on TNT, the new version has Rob Lowe step in as the lead character of Bean Mears. Samantha Mathis portrays his girlfriend, Susan Norton, Rutger Hauer and Donald Sutherland take on the roles of Kurt Barlow and his servant and James Cromwell portrays the ill-fated Father Callahan.
While Rotten Tomatoes did not have enough reviews to give the Salem's Lot remake a true rating, it did have one positive and two negative critics reviews from its release, and three positive and one negative review from its DVD release.
The reviews were mixed on the film's reception. Cinema Crazed called it a "horrible remake to a classic horror film," while Moviehold said it was "better than the original." The audience score of 48% shares the polarizing view of this Stephen King remake.
6. CARRIE (2002) - AVERAGE SCORE: 49
Carrie has been remade several times, including three movies based on the original novel and a sequel. The book was King's debut novel and made him a major player in horror. The movie starring Sissy Spacek hit just two years later, proving King was now in the big leagues.
That original movie is considered one of the best Stephen King adaptations of all time, ranked at a prestigious 93% by critics on Rotten Tomatoes and 85% at Metacritic. The first remake of Carrie came in 2002 as a made-for-TV movie.
This version starred Angela Bettis (May) as Carrie White and Patricia Clarkson as her domineering mother, Margaret. While the original movie followed the novel closely, the remake had Carrie actually survive the massacre at the end and told the story in flashbacks while law enforcement officials try to discover what happened at the prom that night.
While it does not have enough critical reviews to give it a true rating, it does have a 49% audience rating at Rotten Tomatoes, although it is missing from the Metacritic ratings. In the case of critical reviews, there were two on Rotten Tomatoes and both are rotten, calling this Stephen King remake a "trainwreck" and "brutally boring."
5. NO SMOKING - AVERAGE SCORE: 50
No Smoking is a 2007 Indian film that remakes the classic King short story Quitters, Inc. Originally, this story appeared in the movie Cat's Eye in 1985, an anthology styled film that also included an adaptation of the King short story The Ledge and an original short film titled General.
No Smoking is also the first Indian film to adapt a Stephen King story. The movie stars John Abraham as K, a chain smoker who agrees to stop smoking in order to save his marriage. To do so, he enters into a rehab center where he is given guarantees that he will quit smoking -- one way or another.
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 50% critical rating, although the movie does not show up on Metacritic. The movie received 12 critical reviews, with two from Top Critics, which also delivered a 50% rating.
The Hollywood Reporter compared it to a documentary but said it "fails to entertain," while a critic from Guardian wrote that director Anurag Kashyap would one day direct a Bollywood crossover hit based on his work in this movie.
4. CARRIE (2013) - AVERAGE SCORE: 51.5
The third adaptation of Stephen King's Carrie hit in 2013 and was seen as a disappointment. Chloë Grace Moretz (Kick-Ass) stars as Carrie White in this version, while Julianne Moore takes on the role of her religious fanatic mother.
When released, there was excitement about the movie, with Boys Don't Cry director Kimberly Peirce directing the film and bringing a female point-of-view to the story of a young woman haunted by her own adolescence.
Critics were split on the film, with Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 53% rating and Metacritic delivering a 50% rating for the movie. Michael Phillips called it a "work of smooth confidence" and referred to it as "humane" horror, but A.A. Dowd wrote it was depressing to "see a classic cannibalized" by a film that gets "worse when it deviates."
3. THE MIST - AVERAGE SCORE: 58
In 2007, Frank Darabont directed his third Stephen King adaptation, following up his prison movies The Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile with the pure horror tale of The Mist. It was a polarizing movie, taking a grim and pessimistic story and making it even more tragic with his ending. Despite this, the original movie averaged a 65% between Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.
With that said, when SpikeTV chose to remake The Mist as a television show, it ended up as a complete failure. Instead of telling the story of a group of people trapped in a supermarket while monsters attack their town, the TV show expanded it and focused on people in an entire town and their hidden secrets coming to the light with the arrival of the mist.
Stephen King fans online were vocally against the changes, and the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes signifies that with a 49%. It was canceled after one season. However, critics were a little kinder. On Rotten Tomatoes, The Mist remake has a 62% positive rating while it sits at 54% at Metacritic.
The critics' consensus is that the TV show brings "absorbing atmosphere and solid special effects," but it struggles to tell a satisfying story and the acting and performances also drag it down somewhat.
2. THE DEAD ZONE - AVERAGE SCORE: 65
Easily the most successful television adaptation of any Stephen King story came with The Dead Zone. Originally a 1983 movie starring Christopher Walken and directed by David Cronenberg, the remake came in the form of a USA Network television show starring Anthony Michael Hall as Johnny Smith.
The movie focused on Johnny helping save a woman and then turning his attention to stopping a politician running for office who could bring about the apocalypse. The TV show took the idea and expanded it into a six-season series with 80 episodes.
Most of the TV series saw Johnny helping various people using his psychic and premonition powers, while the story of the politician (Sean Patrick Flanery) played in the background throughout the show's run.
While Rotten Tomatoes has no critic scores available for the TV show, Metacritic ranks it at 65%. Critics who loved it called The Dead Zone "riveting" and "engaging" and praised the performance of Anthony Michael Hall. On the other side, critics less impressed said it "isn't terrible" but is "not that suspenseful."
1. IT - AVERAGE SCORE: 77
When a remake of the Stephen King adaptation It was announced, it had a lot to live up to. While the critical scores for the original television miniseries were not the best, ranking at 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, it had a large fan following, and Tim Curry's performance as Pennywise remains iconic to this day.
There was also the problem that it was announced to be two movies, with the kids' childhood battles with Pennywise in the first and the battles with him after they became adults in the second movie. However, the first film exceeded all expectations when it hit in 2017, 27 years after the original premiered.
The movie was a huge box office success, making over $700 million worldwide on a production budget of just $35 million. The critic's reviews had a lot to do with that, with It ranking at 85% on Rotten Tomatoes and 69% on Metacritic, a combined ranking of 77%.
The overall consensus from critics was that the movie was "well-acted and fiendishly frightening" while also maintaining an "emotionally affecting story at its core." It ended up as the most successful Stephen King remake to date.