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It: Welcome to Derry hits HBO October 26, bringing Pennywise the Clown out of the sewer to feast on a new generation of children. It remains to be seen if Derry will rank among the scariest Stephen King adaptations—we have a feeling it might—but there are still plenty of chilling movies and TV releases that draw on King’s prolific output to make your nights as sleepless as possible.
10. Cujo (1983)
Based on King’s 1981 novel about a St. Bernard who transforms from a gentle pooch into a vicious, violent monster after tangling with a rabid bat, the 1983 movie makes a few key plot changes, including softening the ending. However, the movie is still deeply unsettling, with the dangers of being trapped in a car with no water on a scorching day very nearly eclipsing the terror of a stalking beast.
Genre superstar Dee Wallace (The Hills Have Eyes, The Howling, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, Critters) gives a ferocious performance as a mom who’ll do anything to protect her son—one of those “Oscar-ignored” horror turns for the ages.
9. The Monkey (2025)
Osgood Perkins’ take on King’s cursed-toy tale (a short story first released in 1980) leans heavily into pitch-black comedy, but it’s still unnerving between all the nervous chuckling. Estranged since childhood, twin brothers (both played by Theo James) unhappily reunite when the cymbal-crashing simian that destroyed their youth resurfaces—but really, The Monkey’s main purpose is for the viewer to cringe in their seat as the tension builds between kills, each death more gruesomely Rube Goldberg-ian than the last.
8. Creepshow (1982)
We’re playing a little fast and loose with “adaptation” here; King wrote the screenplay, which does adapt a few of his short stories but also features new material. Like The Monkey, it’s a horror comedy—paying loving tribute to the splattery legacy of EC horror comics—but with George A. Romero behind the camera, it also unloads plenty of frights.
King himself stars in one of the anthology’s segments, playing a goofy farmer whose close encounter with a meteor results in some intense, plant-based body horror. But the standout shocks come from the creature horror of “The Crate” and buggy revenge howler “They’ll Creep Up on You.”
7. Salem’s Lot (1979)
Just four years after King’s source-material novel came out, Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) directed what’s still the best screen version of the author’s oft-adapted small-town vampire story. The two-part miniseries digs into not just the bloodsucker takeover, but also why Salem’s Lot—a seemingly idyllic Maine town, not unlike a little place called Derry—is such an ideal setting for a creeping outbreak of evil.
Hooper’s version makes a key alteration, changing the look of King’s head vampire character into something more ghoulish than originally described, but it makes sense—by making the viewer recoil when the unexpected, visually striking image appears. Also, apologies to Sinners, but Salem’s Lot still wins for the most spine-chilling “invite me in” scene of all time.
6. Carrie (1976)
King’s first published novel (1974) became his first adapted work, and not only are we still seeing tons of King adaptations coming every year, Carrie itself has also gone through many iterations (with a Mike Flanagan series on the way as we speak). But Brian De Palma’s film weaves its own spell in ways that’ve never been eclipsed, thanks to Sissy Spacek’s towering lead performance, the effectively jarring use of split-screen to bring the bloody prom scene to life, and one of horror’s best and earliest examples of a jump-scare finale.
5. The Mist (2007)
As this list has already demonstrated, many filmmakers have chosen to alter King’s prose to create a more effective screen story. But nowhere is that more searing and horrifying than in Frank Darabont’s 2007 take on King’s 1980 novella. Darabont, of course, is also the director behind some of the most uplifting King movies ever—The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and The Green Mile (1999)—but The Mist just might be the most feel-bad movie of all time. That’s a testament to the tension it builds and the characters you meet as the titular fog envelops a small Maine community—building up to a devastating ending that will haunt you.
4. It (2017)
We will always love Tim Curry’s Pennywise performance in the 1990 miniseries, but Andy Muschietti’s big-screen adaptation of the first half of King’s sprawling 1986 novel turns the screws in so many dreadfully alarming ways that Bill Skarsgard’s buck-toothed clown is just one fearsome element. Not for nothing is the kid-centric film the more agonizing of Muschietti’s duology; there’s something plainly terrifying about seeing coming-of-age stories that are already backgrounded in depressing home lives compounded by an insatiable supernatural entity.
3. Pet Sematary (1989)
The whole movie could just be furious, tendon-slashing, returned-from-the-grave toddler Gage and the shudder-inducing flashbacks featuring the dreadful Zelda, and it would be top five on this list. That Mary Lambert’s film (adapted from King’s 1983 novel) manages to couch those eerily resonant elements in a movie that constantly teeters on the edge—of despair, sanity, and the next terrible choice made out of sheer hopelessness—is no small achievement.
2. Misery (1990)
The 1987 book is unsettling; the 1990 Rob Reiner movie, starring James Caan as a best-selling author kidnapped by a deranged fan (Kathy Bates), is a thrilling masterpiece. Bates’ well-deserved Oscar for bringing the unhinged Annie Wilkes to life feels like payback for all the horror performances ignored by major awards over the years, and the “hobbling” scene still stings no matter how many times you watch it.
1. The Shining (1980)
King famously disliked Stanley Kubrick’s interpretation of his 1977 novel (speaking of page-to-screen changes, this one’s got quite a few)—but fans of the movie would be forgiven for suspecting the author is the only hater of this cinematic classic. Jack Nicholson’s performance as Jack Torrance is frightening, but it’s the Overlook Hotel itself—its mind tricks, its ghostly inhabitants, its troublesome elevators, its gorgeously nonsensical architecture—that makes the film practically vibrate with evil.
Did we miss your favorite scary King movie or TV show? Share your favorites in the comments.
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Cheryl Eddy
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