Films based on Stephen King the books are terrifying in their own right, but even they've held their own, cutting some nightmarish scenes from the original books over the years. Adapting Stephen King's books is always a risk, as many of the little details and character work on the page that make King's books stand out don't translate well to the screen. The result is that some Stephen King film adaptations have been fantastic, while others, like The Dark Tower 2017 and its confusing ending show what happens when a film adaptation doesn't fully understand what King is selling with a specific story.
Still, he's the King of Horror for a reason, and some of the best scenes in his film adaptations were ripped straight from the books. What works in a book is sometimes too dark for a movie's parental advisory rating, and as a result, many horrific scenes from Stephen King books never made it to the big screen. Some are cut completely, while others are drastically changed. This means that some of the most terrifying and horrific scenes from Stephen King's books have never been adapted for the screen, and perhaps never will.
10
Hedge animals come to life
The Shining
In Stanley Kubrick's cinematic interpretation of The ShiningThe Overlook Hotel's maze is a focal point of the film, serving as the setting for the climactic chase sequence through the frozen maze and the final resting place of Jack Torrance as he freezes to death in the middle of the maze. Otherwise, it's more or less part of the setting, as the film's main action unfolds entirely within the hotel walls until The Shiningis ending.
It doesn't seem that scary on paper, but from the child's point of view, The Shining The scene turns into a nightmare for a child with psychic powers he doesn't understand.
In the book, however, a genuinely scary moment happens outside the Overlook. Rather than a hedge maze, the novel's Overlook Hotel is instead a topiary maze, with shrubs artfully trimmed into the shapes of animals. Young Danny Torrance is always scared of the bushes, feeling like they have a way of looking back at him. In one particularly gruesome scene, the bushes come to life and chase Danny, trying to kill him. It doesn't seem that scary on paper, but from the child's point of view, The Shining The scene turns into a nightmare for a child with psychic powers he doesn't understand.
9
Jack hits himself with a Roque hammer
The Shining
The Shining There are actually two entries on this list, but that's perhaps to be expected considering the film adaptation is very different from Stephen King's original book. This is not to say that Kubrick's version The Shining It's not a masterpiece, but it's actually more inspired by King's novel than an adaptation, especially the ending. In the film, Jack is completely possessed by the hotel and chases Danny and Wendy with an ax into the maze before succumbing to the elements and freezing to death. It's a relatively gentle way to die.
In the book, however, Jack fights against the hotel's possession, and when he wakes up and tells Danny to run, the hotel's spirits fight back, forcing Jack to pick up a rock hammer and hit himself with it, mutilating his own body. . face and breaking his bones. He eventually dies in a subsequent fire when the hotel burns down, but the scene of him hitting himself in the face with the hammer is more gruesome and frightening than any other scene in the book.
8
Tad dies of heatstroke
Whose
Whose is a Stephen King classic for a reason, one of the few in which the story's antagonist is not a genuine monster, or a maniacal human, nor does it have a supernatural catalyst. Instead, it's just the story of a loving former Saint Bernard who contracts rabies and becomes a wild, violent beast, trapping mother Donna Trenton and her son, Tad, in their car. For many reasons, it's one of Stephen King's most tragic stories, but the film ends on a relatively happy note, at least for the humans, with Donna and Tad making it out alive after Donna manages to shoot Cujo.
The end of the book is much darker: not only Cujo dies, but also the boy Tad. Unlike the film, where Tad is revived after suffering heatstroke, the book's Tad succumbs and dies while Donna fights Cujo. After finally defeating and killing the dog with a broken baseball bat, Donna overpowers the dog and runs back to her son when her husband, Vic, arrives, only to discover that it was all for nothing and that her son died at some point. during the final fight with Cujo. . It's a scary ending, with Tad so close to being saved only to die in the end.
7
Annie Wilkes kills a police officer with a lawnmower
Misery
With MiseryThe most famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) scene changed in the book is the limping scene. In the film adaptation, Annie Wilkes puts a block of wood between Paul Sheldon's ankles and then smashes them with a sledgehammer, and it's horrible. In the book, however, it's worse, with Annie cutting off one of Paul's feet with an ax and making him look at it.
Arguably one worse scene that changed from the book to the film is the scene where Annie kills a police officer. In the film, it is Buster, the local sheriff, who stops by Annie's house to check on her, as he has a hunch that she is with Paul. She shoots Buster, which is quite tragic. In the book, however, it's a state trooper who stops by to check things out and dies in a much more horrific way. Instead of a quick death with a shotgun, Annie runs him over with a lawnmower, a much more gruesome and gruesome way to leave this world.
6
The Complete Story of Patrick Hockstetter
THIS
Of course, it wasn't just specific scenes that were cut, changed, or largely glossed over in the film adaptations of Stephen King's books. Occasionally, entire stories were cut from the adaptation, either due to narrative necessity or time constraints. Every now and then, it's because it's simply too dark and twisted a plot to make it into the film and that's the case with Patrick Hockstetter's story in THIS. Although he is in the 1990 miniseries adaptation of THIS and in the more recent films, Patrick Hockstetter's backstory and character arc are severely truncated and, in some places, cut completely.
In fact, this is for the best. Patrick might be one of King's worst human monsters, and in a film that's already concerned with a murderous interdimensional clown, weaving in his story would be too much. Frankly speaking, Patrick is a psychopath who, since childhood, has considered himself the only “real” person in the world. At age 5, he choked his younger brother to death, which was cut from the film entirely, as was his penchant for torturing and killing animals. The film also drastically facilitates his death. In the books, his blood is slowly drained by grotesque flesh-colored leeches, and then Pennywise eats his corpse.
5
Brian's death by suicide and Raider's death
Necessary things
Give Stephen King credit: he never pulled punches when it came to children and animals being in as much danger as adults. While most horror films still treat the death of a child on screen as taboo, King never saw them as forbidden. Some readers find this distasteful, but most appreciate his willingness to go there; In the real world, children are not spared, just like in their horror novels. That includes kid Brian Rusk in Necessary thingswho is overcome by remorse after being manipulated by the greater evil and ends up taking his own life when he realizes that he was unwittingly a pawn who killed other people.
Necessary things didn't stop there, including the taboo one-two punch of a child and a dying animal
But Necessary things it didn't stop there, including the taboo double whammy of the death of a child and an animal. Just as tragic as Brian's suicide is the death of Raider, housekeeper Nettie Cobb's happy, friendly pet dog. In the novel, a deranged Hugh Priest kills Raider for a “prank,” and the scene is heartbreaking, as Raider never knows what is coming. Friendly to the end, Raider doesn't recognize the danger Priest poses and even rolls over to have his killer rub his belly just before he dies. There's a reason why Necessary things It is often labeled as one of King's most relentlessly dark novels.
4
Vicky is sacrificed
Children of the Corn
Surprisingly, the Stephen King work that has spawned the most adaptations and spin-off sequels is not one of his long epics or even one of his novels, but the short story "Children of the Corn" from his 1978 collection. Night Shift. On its own, the original tale is terrifying, a story of religious fanatic children praying to a monstrous entity in the corn, whose fanaticism turns them into murderers. The film does a good job of capturing the chill of rural religious fanaticism as it curdles and darkens, but co-protagonist Vicky escapes unharmed after her husband, Burt, saves her from being sacrificed.
In the original tale, however, Vicky does not escape being sacrificed; his fate is much darker and final. Although her death is not actually depicted in the short story, the aftermath is, and it is arguably more horrific. Burt staggers through the corn trying to escape the children's wrath when he stumbles upon his missing wife - or rather, her body. He is hanging from a cross with barbed wire and his eyes have been gouged out and stuffed with corn silk, his gaping mouth stuffed with corn husks. The horrific scene certainly remains, a far cry from the film's relatively happy ending.
3
The boy sexually assaults the man in the trash can
The position
Similar to Patrick Hockstetter in THISAnother of the most terrifying scenes in a Stephen King book involves not a supernatural monster, but pure human evil. This plays out in another of his epic tales, The positionand this happens with the tragic figure of the Trash Can Man. In both miniseries adaptations, Trashcan Man is a schizophrenic pyromaniac and arguably a sympathetic character - although he falls victim to Stephen King's villain Randall Flagg and does horrible things, his tragic backstory and childish mentality leave him open to being a pawn involuntary in Flagg's game. .
In a particularly stomach-churning scene, King graphically illustrates how the mentally ill and homeless are often the biggest victims of violence, not its perpetrators. When the Trash Can Man encounters another survivor known as The Kid, The Kid forces the mentally challenged Trash Can Man to sexually pleasure him at gunpoint. Even worse, The Kid shoves the gun up his victim's rectum, raping her with the loaded gun barrel and injuring her while forcing the Trash Can Man to finish pleasing him. It's a graphic scene of sexual assault, and all the more tragic because of the Trash Can Man's mental state.
2
Child abuse scene
'Salem Lot
A scene that, understandably, never made it into any television adaptation. 'Salem Lot it involves the McDougalls' baby, Randy. The first involves a tragic but mundane type of horror: undiagnosed postpartum depression that leads to a scene of child abuse, in which young Sandy McDougall, who is desperately unhappy and feeling trapped after giving birth, beats Randy in a moment of anger. Stephen King depicts the baby smiling at her as Sandy wipes blood from his face in a chilling moment of domestic violence.
What happens next to Randy is even more horrible. Young Danny Glick, transformed into a vampire when he was a child, turns the baby into a vampire. Of course, to become a vampire, you first have to die, and Randy does. It culminates in a scene where a broken Sandy tries to force-feed her baby's corpse chocolate pudding. With her mind completely broken at this point, Sandy uses her fingers to force her dead baby to smile. Meanwhile, the chocolate pudding just falls out of your mouth. The moment is visceral, shocking and impossible to forget.
1
Roland lets Jake fall to his death
The Gunslinger
Long-time constant readers know this The Dark Tower unites Stephen King's universe not just as his masterpiece, but as the focal point around which many of his short stories and books revolve. Although the story expands into a full-blown epic over the course of subsequent novels, a short story and tangential stories, the relationship at the center of the entire Dark Tower The story is arguably that between gunslinger Roland Deschain and young Jake Chambers, which begins in The Gunslinger. In the disastrous 2017 adaptation of The Dark Towerthe film - eventually - captures some of their surrogate father-son dynamic at the end.
Although it will haunt him for the rest of his life, it can never be written off that Roland chose to sacrifice a child rather than be dissuaded.
Their relationship in the book version of The Gunslinger It’s not there yet – far from it. In a moment that shows that Roland cannot be trusted, as he will sacrifice anything and anyone in his obsessive quest to reach the Dark Tower. That's exactly what he does, opting to chase his prey, the Man in Black, rather than pull Jake off a crumbling rock bridge. The decision to let the boy die rather than lose his chance to catch the Man in Black says a lot about Roland as a character. Though it will haunt him for the rest of his life, it can never go unwritten that Roland chose to sacrifice a child rather than be dissuaded. Still, it gave us one of the most famous Stephen King lines: "Go then. There are other worlds besides these."