Now that the new IT film has become a huge hit I thought I’d follow-up on my post about the movie last week. I’m not surprised that the film has done as well as it has, and I’m also not surprised to hear that the movie’s success has lead to another King property getting snatched-up for the silver screen treatment. Here’s io9 with the word…

Announced mere hours after the huge box office numbers for It were reported, King’s 1972 short story Suffer the Little Children is the first one off the board. Sean Carter will write and direct an adaptation for Bread & Circuses Entertainment.

“The Stephen King aesthetic has been imprinted into my psyche since I was a teenager, and Suffer the Little Children fits right into that classic King paradigm: a tragically flawed lead character put into a shockingly unimaginable scenario,” Carter told Deadline. “It’s a tiny peek into a mythology that I can’t wait to expand into a full-length movie.”

First published in 1972 but more widely distributed in King’s 1993 collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Suffer the Little Children flips the It idea. In this, the kids are the potential villains and a teacher is the hero. She spends the story trying to figure out if her students are human or not.

Here’s an audiobook version of the story. It’s only about a half hour long so just listen in the background while you’re working or playing, and get the background on the next hit King film…

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I saw a preview of the new screen version of Stephen King’s IT tonight. I’d have to think about it a little more to write a full review as I just got home and I need to stop working for the night and watch some hurricane news which has been really scary. Hurricane Irma is a real life monster bearing down on Florida, but there are plenty of reasons to be wary of going to see IT: it’s very scary, very gory, and even a bit questionable in terms of how far the onscreen violence goes in scenes where little kids are concerned. Obviously the vulnerability of children is a huge part of what makes IT terrifying, but there are at least a few sequences I’d have preferred to keep off-camera.

That said, most of the scares are right on point and feature great set-ups and killer make-up and digital effects. This Pennywise is an amazing monster and I’m sure IT will make a great showing in the technical categories come awards season. But the best part is that this flick is also funny and it features an amazing cast of kids. The masterstroke is that this version of the story only features the kids’ experiences with the monster and not their second confrontation as adults. This splitting of the story makes this condensed version super intense, and this movie is going to be so successful that there is no doubt that there will be a sequel. Get your scary movie season started right away by springing to see this one in the theater. In the meantime here’s Biography’s 2002 take on King and the weird worlds he creates…

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It mostly doesn’t work out when novelists become film directors. At best, authors seem to make bizarre cult classics: Tom McGuane’s 92 In The Shade comes to mind, and Stephen King’s Maximum Overdrive has its memorable moments of coke-fueled camp. But both pale to the high weirdness and real-life violence in Norman Mailer’s Maidstone:

From the Criterion site…

Over a booze-fueled, increasingly hectic five-day shoot in East Hampton, Norman Mailer and his cast and crew spontaneously unloaded onto film the lurid and loony chronicle of U.S. presidential candidate and filmmaker Norman T. Kingsley debating and attacking his hangers-on and enemies. This gonzo narrative, “an inkblot test of Mailer’s own subconscious” (Time), becomes something like a documentary on its own making when costar Rip Torn breaks the fourth wall in one of cinema’s most alarming on-screen outbursts.

This week we celebrate the birthday of Rip Torn who turned 85 on February 6. Here’s Maidstone…

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For this spooky October post I found a little gem on YouTube. It claims to be the first ever television interview with Stephen King and since I couldn’t find an earlier one on the site, I’m gonna take their word for it.

The interview takes place one decade into King’s career after he’s written horror classics like Carrie, The Shining and The Stand. It’s filmed nearly ten years after King’s graduation from the University of Maine Orono and is produced by the school’s public access channel.

I’m not a big fan of King’s books, but I’m a big fan of King and his spectral success story and his crazy work ethic. However, the scariest thing here might be the ancient computer he was producing those early bestsellers on…shudder…

(2017 Addition) The original, first Stephen King video, was taken down by YouTube. It’s been replaced here by a King interview on the Charlie Rose show from 19993…

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