Now, Stephen King adaptations are notoriously inconsistent - either very good or truly horrible on screen - but TNT's upcoming miniseries adaptation of King's short story collection Nightmares and Dreamscapes has one very important factor in its favor, namely casting that just won't quit. I mean, how far wrong can you go with William H Macy, William Hurt, Claire Forlani (mmm, Claire ...), Jeremy Sisto, Steven Weber, Tom Berenger, etc etc? Plus the stories themselves are generally a lot of fun.
Well, you can get an advance peek at the shows now, with TNT making a full electronic press kit available online, complete with a fistful of clips ...
Nightmares & Dreamscapes Clips (embedded Flash)
Despite the mini-series' title, the stories are not just from the "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" collection but also from "Nightshift". I've read reviews of two episodes online so far. Supposedly BATTLEGROUND is quite excellent while CROUCH END suffers from having been helmed by a TV director who doesn't understand the horror genre. Guess we'll see. Adapting King's short stories in this format and length makes a lot of sense. Most of the movies based on his books lose to much stuff to be good adaptations (and usually good films) while his short stories tend to also suffer from too many silly additions when strenched to feature film running time (TRUCKS, GRAVEYARD SHIFT etc.)
Oh boy, more Stephen King slop stinking up the small screen...sign me up...
When you refer to the "very good" stuff, to what do you refer? Misery and The Shining, maybe Shawshank, but A LOT of shit. Now if someone did a high quality version of The Dark Tower... I'd wet my pants
"nightmares and dreamscapes" is an incredible collection of short stories. let's hope this doesn't turn into a piece of crap like "masters of horror".
i agree with Caterpillar. king's work would be much more potent on film if the stories were shorter. his book to film adaptations are horrid because they just get dragged out and get stagnant. did anyone see "dreamcatcher"? i never read the book and never want to after seeing that!
Nooooo.
I'm not a King fan, only his earlier short stories are of interest to me, but Crouch End was one of my favorite King stories, back when he COULD write horror. The episode involving the hedge was one of his best written scenes. Hopefully the story won't suffer as badly as the review said?
G, Shawshank and Stand By Me are both great films. I like Apt Pupil a lot, too. Pretty much anything adapted from his Richard Bachman books tends to turn out well. There also seems to be an inverse relationship between quality and King's level of involvement. The closer he is to the film project, the worse it turns out.
Carrie anyone? Just saying. Also, I have kind of a soft spot for Christine.
I don't have very high hopes for this series. But at least the adaptations are not four hours long like those Mick Garris movies.
I like the concept of Cell a lot. The book itself...meh.
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