Stephen King and the battle for the perfect adaptation

Salem's Lot is a brand new Stephen King adaptation on its way to cinemas to send a chill down audiences' spines, reimagining the prolific author's 1975 vampire novel for a new generation.

The author's writing has proved fruitful for the silver screen for decades, but they haven't always been as successful as the source material. There have been countless adaptations that audiences loved but King hated, and ones that have downright failed to work with either camp.

For every Carrie there is The Dark Tower, and for every Misery or The Shining there is Graveyard Shift or Maximum Overdrive, with 65 books under his belt there are some stories that have been adapted multiple times. Salem's Lot is one of them, having previously been adapted as a miniseries in 1979 and 2004 respectively.

Hollywood seems hell bent on figuring out how to recreate just some of the magic that King brings in his writing, and for better or worse that means we have almost as many adaptations as there are books by the author.

Salem's Lot was King's second novel, and it imagines a world where vampires invade the middle America town of Jerusalem's Lot and wreak havoc. It's a simple enough premise but critic reception varies for the project, with Variety calling it "mediocre" and Total Film saying it's "midnight movie fun".

It appears, then, as if Salem's Lot is destined not to make as much an impact as other adaptations, the film is arriving in cinemas in the UK but it was released straight to streaming in the US. That's very little fanfare for a King adaptation, but it has always been a battle to make a good Stephen King adaptation.

King has an interesting history with his screen adaptations, with the author enjoying some and hating others. For example, the author is a big fan of The Shawshank Redemption and has called it one of his favourite films.

One adaptation he famously didn't enjoy is also one of the most famous: The Shining. King didn't appreciate the way in which the narrative took away Jack Torrence's character arc, regardless of how well Jack Nicholson performed the role.

He once told Deadline: "I think The Shining is a beautiful film and it looks terrific and as I've said before, it's like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it."

"Jack Torrance has no arc in that movie," the author went on. "Absolutely no arc at all. When we first see Jack Nicholson, he's in the office of Mr. Ullman, the manager of the hotel, and you know, then, he's crazy as a s**t house rat. In the book, he's a guy who's struggling with his sanity and finally loses it. To me, that's a tragedy. In the movie, there's no tragedy because there's no real change."

Read more: Was Stanley Kubrick's The Shining his moon landing confession?

The success of a King adaptation seems to come down to how well the screen version embodies what the author originally intended. The Shining, for example, feels very detached to the author's original work despite being regarded as a cinematic masterpiece, and director Mike Flanagan tried to rectify this in his sequel Doctor Sleep.

2017's The Dark Tower also failed to recreate the spirit of King's original novels, the Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba led film ultimately shed many of the things that made its source material so impressive. In the end, it became a generic action flick that could have been made by anyone, rather than by the master of horror himself.

King pinned the film's failure as an adaptation to its rating, telling Entertainment Weekly in 2017: "The real problem, as far as I'm concerned is, they went into this movie and I think this was a studio edict, pretty much, this is going to be a PG-13 movie."

Brian De Palma's 1979 adaptation of Carrie was a successful King adaptation namely because the filmmaker's vision matched that of the author. Not only does the movie feel like a perfect adaptation it is also an incredible horror movie in its own right.

King certainly agreed on that front, telling Florida Weekly in 2010: "I liked De Palma's film of Carrie quite a bit ... I think De Palma saw a chance to make a movie that was a satirical view of high school life in general and high school peer-groups in particular."

So the fight continues to create the best Stephen King adaptation, but for the author it's less about the quality of the reimagining than it is the effort that has gone into them

When speaking to Deadline he admitted he has "never" regretted making a movie deal, adding: "To me it was always a case of go on out there and do the best picture that you can and if it was a success like Carrie or The Dead Zone, I can say, you know, that’s my story. Stand by Me, there’s another one, Shawshank Redemption, Misery. I’ve had a lot of things where I felt, been able to feel really pleased about the outcome.

"And if it doesn’t work so well, I can say, well, they went out and they gave their best shot but I didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m just a bystander in this car wreck."

Salem's Lot premieres in cinemas on Friday, 11 October.