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Lists about the King of Horror and ranking his greatest works.

Stephen King Works

Stanley Kubrick&#39;s&nbsp;The Shining&nbsp;is regarded as a masterpiece of the horror genre, despite what Stephen King <a href="https://collider.com/the-shining-book-differences-comparison/#:~:text=Stephen%20King%20hated%20the%201980,ABC%20that%20aired%20in%201997." target="_blank">might think</a>. The art direction, the acting, the music... everything is perfectly in place to not only tell a story, but also to create a deep sense of foreboding within the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/weird-facts-about-the-shining/anncasano" target="_blank">carefully crafted film</a>. Here are a few deep dive movie details and interesting tidbits&nbsp;from&nbsp;The Shining&nbsp;that were shared by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails" target="_blank">dedicated fans</a>. Vote up the most interesting details.

Adaptations

From Stephen King&#39;s Children of the Corn&nbsp;to the kids from&nbsp;It, there is no shortage of eerie youngsters in the pages of King&#39;s oeuvre - nor in the myriad films that have been adapted from his work. In fact, when you start to break down the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/the-creepiest-kids-in-horror-movies/ron-mexico" target="_blank">creepiest kids in horror movies</a>, you&#39;ll find that a disproportionate number of them come from King&#39;s cinematic universe - ranging from Carrie White, in the very first film adapted from one of his novels, to the latest takes on It,&nbsp;Pet Sematary, and&nbsp;Doctor Sleep.

Here are the creepiest Stephen King movie kids; they&#39;re&nbsp;too young to vote but not too young to scare your socks off - or worse. Where the movie differed from the book, we went with the movie version here.

What happens when a wannabe first-time director writes an almost perfect screenplay? Look no further than&nbsp;The Shawshank Redemption, the making of which was a laborious process filled with 18-hour days and&nbsp;six-day weeks. Take a look at what really happened behind the scenes of the movie that sits atop the <a href="https://www.imdb.com/chart/top/" target="_blank">No. 1 spot on IMDb&#39;s list</a> of the Top 250 Movies.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-the-shawshank-redemption-quotes/movie-and-tv-quotes" target="_blank">The Shawshank Redemption</a> is one of those movies that makes people not just cry but full-on weep. It&#39;s a prison movie&nbsp;but also a tale of enduring male friendship. It&#39;s a story of hope and about never giving up. That same mentality was needed for Frank Darabont to bring what Tim Robbins called &quot;the best script he&#39;s ever read&quot;&nbsp;to the big screen.

Hollywood insiders knew&nbsp;Darabont&#39;s adaptation of Stephen King&#39;s novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption&nbsp;was pure gold. What they didn&#39;t know was that Darabont would refuse to let someone else direct it -&nbsp;or&nbsp;that the still-green director would ask for so many repeated takes&nbsp;that it would cause a major rift with one of his veteran actors.

The Shawshank Redemption was supposed to be a Hollywood hit. But no one showed up on opening night. Find out why a movie that was nominated for seven Academy Awards failed to initially find an audience, and how the movie ultimately turned a nice profit. Which two A-List actors almost appeared in the movie? What did Stephen King really think of Darabont&#39;s script?&nbsp;

Discover all those The Shawshank Redemption behind-the-scenes facts and more.

Horror

With over 50 published novels and 200 short stories, perhaps no author in the history of literature is more prolific than Stephen King. This list of Stephen King TV adaptations also proves that the horror master is one of the most adaptable commercial writers. Mr. King still treats writing as an everyday job, promising to put in at least 4-6 hours every single day, and will not stop writing until he pens at least 2,000 words. From Mr. Mercedes&nbsp;to <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/stephen-king-castle-rock-easter-eggs/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">Castle Rock</a>, here is the exhaustive list of Stephen King TV shows and Stephen King TV movies.

King&rsquo;s adaptations are certainly amendable. For example, his 1980 horror novella The Mist was first a feature length major motion picture released in 2007. In 2017, the novella was also adapted for the small screen on&nbsp;the cable channel Spike&nbsp;in the form of a ten-episode season. One of King&rsquo;s most popular big screen adaptations came in 1980 with Stanley Kubrick&rsquo;s horror masterpiece The Shining. That film was adapted for the small screen&nbsp;in 1997 in a <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/the-shining-1997/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">three-episode television miniseries</a> that aired on ABC. Sometimes the adaptations stay in the same format - The Stand was adapted as a miniseries in 1994 and will be adapted again in 2019 as a limited TV series.

The King of Horror&#39;s&nbsp;works have translated into mini-series, made for TV movies, limited series, and long-running TV shows. Which small screen adaptation is your favorite? Which one missed the mark? Make your voice heard and vote up the best Stephen King television adaptations.

You know Stephen King as the master of horror, a writer whose work is synonymous with fear, and the brain&nbsp;behind chilling books like It, The Shining, and Pet Sematary - but what drives King to create such terrifying tales? Any <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/stephen-king-trivia-facts/coy-jandreau" target="_blank">Stephen King trivia</a> buff will tell you the key to his craft can be found by looking to his childhood. King&nbsp;grew up with his mother and brother -&nbsp;his father split shortly after his&nbsp;birth -&nbsp;and&nbsp;his life didn&rsquo;t get more peachy as he matured.&nbsp;

Aside from the normal hardships many single-parent families endure, King&rsquo;s young life was full of horrific events that informed many of his stories. He witnessed the passing of one of his friends&nbsp;and lived through several other harrowing events. King has said he doesn&rsquo;t believe the grim facts about his upbringing have anything to with his stories, but it&rsquo;s arguable&nbsp;his childhood formed the basis for much of his work.&nbsp;

Stanley Kubrick&#39;s The Shining&nbsp;is considered to be one of the scariest movies in horror history. It also&nbsp;routinely appears on lists of the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-best-movies-of-all-time" target="_blank">best films of all time</a>.&nbsp;Everyone loves the film,&nbsp;except for the one person whose opinion really&nbsp;matters:&nbsp;the author of the original book, Stephen King. From the moment Kubrick&#39;s film was released in 1980, King began voicing his disapproval, and in 1997, he finally did something about it.&nbsp;

King convinced ABC to air a <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-characters-shining-miniseries-cast/ranker-entertainment" target="_blank">remake of The Shining</a>, written by King himself&nbsp;and directed by Mick Garris, who also&nbsp;directed&nbsp;the miniseries adaptation of King&#39;s&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/the-stand-mini-series-cheesy/jacob-shelton?ref=search" target="_blank">The Stand</a>. When The Shining TV series was released in &#39;97, horror fans were perplexed. The three-episode miniseries definitely infused&nbsp;the story with King&rsquo;s voice, but perhaps not for the better.

Of all the nightmares Stephen King has put to paper, Pet Sematary is easily his most gruesome work. The&nbsp;book - a look&nbsp;at how a family&nbsp;falls apart after the loss of a child&nbsp;- is nothing less than chilling, and many passages are full of the kind of phrasing only King can deliver.

The story follows Louis Creed, a doctor from the big city who moves to Ludlow, ME, which happens to sit directly next to an ancient Native burial ground that&#39;s &quot;gone bad.&quot; Characters butcher animals, children die, and there are lengthy descriptions of violent acts -&nbsp;it&#39;s not a book for the weak of heart.

There are some grisly Pet Sematary scenes in the 1989 cult classic film, but the grossest parts of&nbsp;Pet Sematary&nbsp;only exist in&nbsp;King&#39;s writing. The author is able to get&nbsp;inside his readers&#39; heads and prey on their greatest fears. With Pet Sematary, he cemented himself as one of the most gruesome <a href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/best-horror-novelists" target="_blank">horror writers</a> in American history.

Stephen King is a horror staple in both film and literary circles. More <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/true-stephen-king-stories/juliet-bennett-rylah" target="_blank">Stephen King books</a> have been adapted into movies than the works of nearly any other author.&nbsp;King is known to weigh in periodically on what he thinks of these adaptations, and he is brutally honest. Although he appreciates what Frank Darabont&nbsp;did to the end of&nbsp;The Mist,&nbsp;what he has to say about&nbsp;The Shining will be hard&nbsp;for Stanley Kubrick fans to hear.&nbsp;If you thought&nbsp;Brian De Palma&#39;s artsy adaptation of&nbsp;Carrie&nbsp;was better than the book, cried at the end of&nbsp;<a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/stand-by-me-behind-the-scenes-stories/anncasano?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">Stand by Me</a>, or are still waiting for Cujo&nbsp;to receive its Academy Award, you might be glad to hear King&#39;s opinion.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/scary-stephen-king-facts/shanell-mouland" target="_blank">King</a> has been writing successfully for decades, and shows no signs of slowing down on the printed page or the silver screen. Whether it&#39;s&nbsp;his praise for&nbsp;movies that successfully adapted his work in natural and creative ways, or a few choice words for projects he probably wishes he could remove his name from altogether, what Stephen King has to say about his movies might be of interest&nbsp;to both film and literary fans.&nbsp;

Horror Books

Warning: Spoilers ahead.&nbsp;There have been many books made into films, but few authors can boast a number&nbsp;equal to Stephen King.&nbsp;Nearly all the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/best-movies-based-on-stephen-king-books/lons" target="_blank">movies based on Stephen King novels</a>&nbsp;try to bring most of the horror in the literature to the silver screen, yet the&nbsp;It&nbsp;(2017) film&nbsp;actually circumvents some of <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/scary-things-seen-heard/amandasedlakhevener?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">the most terrifying</a> events that occur in the book.&nbsp;For example, there's a huge sex scene that is completely omitted in&nbsp;Andr&eacute;s Muschietti's cinematic interpretation of King's written story.&nbsp;Stephen King's It&nbsp;was&nbsp;made into a two-part miniseries&nbsp;in the 1990s, which was criticized for being comical and not scary enough.&nbsp;Nearly two decades later,&nbsp;Muschietti&nbsp;decided to bring&nbsp;It&nbsp;to the big screen in an ambitious film adaption with a wealth of horrifying scenes. Yet amongst all the frightening hubbub, book readers of&nbsp;It&nbsp;have been quick to point out that lots of scary things were left out in the movie. Just what exactly didn't make the cut for the movie,&nbsp;It? Here is a list of differences between the novel and the film adaptation of King's creepy clown masterpiece. Vote up the most surprising deviations from the book version of&nbsp;It.&nbsp;

Horror Movies and TV

In the conversation about <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/misery-behind-the-scenes-annie-wilkes-paul-sheldon/eric-vega" target="_blank">horror novels and their film adaptations</a>, it can be argued&nbsp;books are the more disturbing of the two, because no matter how realistic the special effects in said movies are, they can never replace the effectiveness of the imagination. This is certainly true of <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-movies-based-on-stephen-king-books/lons" target="_blank">Stephen King movies</a>. They&nbsp;often contain scenes faithfully adapted from their source books, but they lack the emotional heft of the written word. And yet, there are some scenes from King&#39;s novels that are simply better left on the page, either because Hollywood standards keep them on the cutting room floor, or because they&#39;re so gruesome.

Here are several of just such scenes, but beware of SPOILERS.

Bag of Bones

He&#39;s one of the most recognizable names in fiction and easily one of the most prolific American authors. With so many great works, this <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-selling-books-of-all-time/jeff419?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">list of books</a> by Stephen King, voted on by the Ranker community, attempts to rank his top novels and <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/best-books-of-all-time-_fiction_?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">best books ever</a>. This list of King&#39;s writings is the definitive ranking of his body of work. King&#39;s stories range from thick novels to short stories and collections, and include some of the most popular horror novels of our time. Many Stephen King books and stories have been adapted into <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/best-movies-based-on-stephen-king-books/lons">popular horror movies</a> as well, including The Shining, Misery, Carrie, and The Shawshank Redemption.&nbsp;

What are Stephen King&#39;s best books? This list is focused only on Stephen King&#39;s published work, not the resulting movies or TV shows. Enjoy this list of Stephen King books ranked, and vote for the novels you think are the best Stephen King books of all time. Then, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-stephen-king-audiobooks/ranker-books" target="_blank">see if they&#39;re available on audiobook</a>.

Ranking Stephen King books isn&#39;t easy, with so many to choose from, so help us out and vote! His works cover many genres, primarily horror, fantasy, supernatural fiction, and dark fantasy. He has written memorable series such as The Dark Tower series, as well as stand-alone horror novels, like The Stand. King has also branched out from horror writing during his career, such as with the time-travel novel, 11/22/63, about the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The best Stephen King novels on this list have combined to sell over 350 million copies, and King himself has received numerous writing and literature awards throughout his career. So vote for the best among his many top works below, or rerank the list if you don&#39;t agree with the order.

In case you didn&#39;t know, Stephen King writes horror stories, and his novels contain a lot of awful events described in great detail. There&#39;s pain and suffering without a lot of joy in his books. With the abundance of nightmarish scenarios in <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/the-very-best-of-stephen-king?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">Stephen King books</a>, fans have no shortage of literary demons.

From little kids having their arms bitten off by clowns to attempted human sacrifices in the supermarket, there&#39;s something terrifying for anyone and everyone. King&#39;s use of dark themes and scenarios&nbsp;is often sickening and enthralling at the same time. It disgusts you as a reader, but you can&#39;t look away, and that&#39;s what makes King one of the <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-writers-of-all-time/ranker-books?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">best writers ever</a>.

Check out the list below to relive some of the horrible things in Stephen King novels, and maybe you&#39;ll walk away from this list feeling slightly more traumatized.

Stephen King didn&#39;t earn the title King of Horror by sticking to safe subjects or shying away from taboo characters. Vampires, children being run over by semi trucks, and a girl dispatching bully classmates with her telepathic powers titillated readers and fans, but never elicited outrage on a large scale. Yet <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/most-controversial-songs-ever/sean-kelly?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">the most controversial</a> King book of all time is one he wrote while still a 16-year-old high schooler.

<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/school-shootings-drove-stephen-king-to-take-rage-off-shelves-2014-3" target="_blank">King wrote&nbsp;Rage&nbsp;in 1965</a> and published it in 1977 and 1985 under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. The novel focuses on a young man named Charlie Decker taking a firearm to school to exact revenge on teachers and students.

After multiple real-life school shootings in the &#39;80s and &#39;90s&nbsp;mirrored aspects of the novel,&nbsp;garnering it media attention for possibly inspiring the rampages, King himself asked to have&nbsp;Rage&nbsp;pulled from print. Highly sought-after by banned-book enthusiasts today, used copies of&nbsp;Rage&nbsp;can only be found by luck or acquired at great expense.

King&#39;s move to suppress his own writing in the wake of controversy deserves an examination, along with the book&nbsp;itself, to fully understand its impact&nbsp;as well as the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/real-creepypasta-crimes/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">thin line between</a> entertainment and inspiration.

<a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/stand-by-me-behind-the-scenes-stories/anncasano?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">Stand By Me</a>&nbsp;is such an emotional, coming of age movie, that it&#39;s no surprise fans love to discuss certain poignant details. Since it&#39;s based on Stephen King&#39;s short story &quot;The Body,&quot; there are also fun King Easter eggs, such as the use of the very ominous number&nbsp;237. Scroll on for more memorable details, as well as fun facts and behind-the-scenes stories from members of the cast.

Then, vote up the poignant moments that made you emotional.&nbsp;

Easter Eggs

The ghosts of the Overlook didn&#39;t die in&nbsp;The Shining,&nbsp;as Mike Flanagan&#39;s&nbsp;Doctor Sleep&nbsp;is quick to point out. And thanks to a recent revival of the film on HBO, including a new director&#39;s cut, fans of the film&nbsp;are getting a better look at the empty devils that wander the haunted hallways. Thanks to this revived interest, fans are discovering small details and subtle callbacks to Stanley Kubrick&#39;s original masterpiece, as well as the book it&#39;s based on, hidden deep within Doctor Sleep. Here are a few callbacks made from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/doctor-sleep-easter-eggs/jacob-bryant" target="_blank">Doctor Sleep</a>&nbsp;to&nbsp;The Shining, as discovered by Reddit sleuths.&nbsp;

Stephen King is one of the most beloved and prolific writers of our time. His celebrity and astonishing output of work, both extremely rare for a writer in this day and age, often obscure the fact that King is nothing short of a master storyteller. Like any virtuoso of his craft, King creates <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/violence-in-stephen-king-books/jacobybancroft">multilayered tales</a> that may not seem to have much in common on the surface but one can dig a little deeper and&nbsp;find a vast and interconnected universe. In fact, there are countless theories of how Stephen King books are connected.

Many of King&#39;s works have been adapted into motion pictures or <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-stephen-king-tv-shows/ranker-film" target="_blank">television series</a>, which give fans a whole new avenue to look in for clues, Easter eggs, and other signs that harken back to&nbsp;King stories. Take movies like The Shawshank Redemption, or <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/what-to-watch-if-you-love-castle-rock/watchworthy" target="_blank">shows like Castle Rock</a>. While some of them may sound like crazy theories about Stephen King and his canon of work, there is <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/true-stephen-king-stories/juliet-bennett-rylah">ample evidence</a> to back up most suggestions. From clear-cut links to ideas requiring a bit more imagination, Stephen King universe fan theories are everywhere.

Re-evaluation

With the sequel to Andy Muschietti&#39;s&nbsp;It&nbsp;due out in 2019, along with a new version of&nbsp;Pet Sematary, Stephen King fever is gripping Hollywood. Thus,&nbsp;it&#39;s the perfect time to revisit some of the older King adaptations, and there are few that are weirder than 1996&#39;s&nbsp;Thinner, a mostly forgotten curses-and-body-horror flick.

Filled with Academy Award-winning makeup effects by Greg Cannom, weird plot developments, gallows humor, and plenty of behind-the-scenes weirdness,&nbsp;Thinner&nbsp;is an unpredictable&nbsp;throwback to shows like&nbsp;Tales from the Crypt, trading in King&#39;s love for old EC Comics where morally awful people get their well-deserved comeuppance. While it may not be one of the best King adaptations around, Thinner is&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/best-90s-horror-movies/ranker-horror" target="_blank">the&nbsp;perfect midnight movie</a> for those craving&nbsp;an unusual dose of King.

Strange True Stories

Stephen King is a master of horror who has authored dozens of novels and stories exploring monsters both human and supernatural. Many of King&#39;s ideas are rooted in true stories, either historical in nature, like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that serves as the foundation for time travel thriller 11/22/63,&nbsp;or embellishments of mundane everyday life. For King, a simple trip to the grocery store in a thunderstorm or a walk over a bridge to pick up his car from the mechanic can be the start of some creepy tale.

One of King&#39;s greatest works, The Shining, emerged from a dream he had in a snowy hotel in the mountains. A&nbsp;lesser-known piece was inspired by Dennis Rader, one of America&#39;s <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/americas-most-famous-serial-killers/tool100?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">most notorious serial killers</a>. To find out who inspired Misery&#39;s obsessive Annie Wilkes and which real St. Bernard led to Cujo, read on.&nbsp;

Many people know Stephen King&nbsp;for the horror stories he writes so well. In fact, one of his novels,&nbsp;Rage, was <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/stephen-king-rage-controversy/jodi-smith" target="_blank">so taboo and dark</a>&nbsp;that&nbsp;King asked publishers to pull it from their print collection. The author doesn&#39;t just write about evil, though - he lives with it. His Corgi, Molly, may look adorable and sweet, but in truth, she balances on the precipice between plain ol&#39; evil and antichrist-level abomination.

King photographs Molly - the Thing of Evil, as her friends and minions call her -&nbsp;then shares&nbsp;her malignant deeds with the world through <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/stephen-king-funny-tweets/damon-davis" target="_blank">Twitter posts</a>.&nbsp;Things get pretty dark and twisted (and adorable) at the King household.&nbsp;

The&nbsp;first lines in Stephen King books set the stage for the stories that follow. Over his long career, King has written opening sentences that are funny, informative, scary, and downright odd. But which one is&nbsp;the&nbsp;best? Is it the simple statement about&nbsp;the&nbsp;gunslinger following the man in black through the desert in The Gunslinger, the novel that begins his epic eight-novel fantasy cycle? Is it the more in-depth breakdown of the Boston Globe reporter's surroundings in The Colorado Kid? Is it the random gurgles and moans that kick off Misery? Or is it something else entirely? There's certainly not a shortage to chose from.&nbsp;Check out the list below to view every first sentence from King's novels and vote up your favorite ones!&nbsp;

The Dark World of Stephen King

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Memes

&quot;All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.&quot;&nbsp;

Enjoy this small selection of memes from&nbsp;The Shining&nbsp;perfect for those who need a moment of a little insane fun.&nbsp;

21 Pretty Funny Memes From 'The Shining' That Had Us Screaming

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&quot;All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.&quot;&nbsp; Enjoy this small selection of memes from&nbsp;The Shining&nbsp;perfect for those who need a ...