Stephen King is more brand name than niche horror author, and although he has written many things that can’t be defined—strictly or otherwise—as horror, his brand is based on an assumption that he will horrify his readers. In Screening Stephen King (University of Texas Press), Simon Brown examines film and television adaptations of his work. Brown uses the fact that most King screenplays for small screens have appeared on network TV rather than cable or internet to buttress his assertion of the author’s mainstream status, which is to say: King wants to reach beyond the horror genre to the widest possible audience without entirely outgrowing his roots.
Writing as a fan and a scholar (he is a professor of film and television at Britain’s Kingston University), Brown recognizes that his subject is skeptical of fancy academic interpretations. He demolishes poststructuralist obscurantism by pointing to the five shelves of King’s books in his office: “They are his books and there is a consistency of style, theme, and approach that makes them recognizably his.” And yet in the collaborative media of film and television, “King’s original ideas are nevertheless filtered through a new set of thematic and industrial preoccupations.”
The success of Brian De Palma’s adaptation of Carrie (1976) lifted King into the mainstream. On screen and on the page, Carrie provides “a good representation of the reasons” for King’s ability to reach beyond genre to an audience that includes almost anyone who buys books. He draws from the threadbare vernacular of American speech and sees the horror inherent in everyday life. Stripped of telekinesis, Carrie is a story of bullying and sexual awakening—unpleasant rites of passage for millions of Americans.
Carrie’s box-office success boosted King’s career as a bestselling author to an almost unprecedented level, yet the majority of film adaptations that followed have sold only unexceptional numbers of tickets. By the metric of the entertainment industry, he is middlin’ at the movies.
And yet, the adaptations keep coming. Brown identifies “an abiding confidence within the industry for the appeal of both Stephen King stories and the King name as brand for film and TV audiences.” He has, as Brown perceptively recognizes, “created his own literary brand” and become a genre unto himself.
