1408 Is Stephen King’s Most Underrated Short Story Adaptation
Although 2007’s 1408 was relatively well-received, the Stephen King short story adaptation does not receive the kudos that the movie deserves for nailing the author’s style and tone. Even the best adaptations of iconic horror author Stephen King’s work sometimes run into trouble with the author’s notoriously tricky balance of pure horror and character drama. While 2017’s It, for example, was a critically-acclaimed coming-of-age horror-comedy, the 2019 sequel It: Chapter Two was a tonally messy disaster salvaged only by Bill Hader’s standout turn as Richie Tozier.
It is not hard to see why many screenwriters and directors struggle to adapt King’s work. The author’s writing contrasts sequences of broad, sometimes borderline surreal horror with much more grounded character detail. Many filmmakers can’t recapture the delicate tonal balance of King’s horror writing, wherein the realities of divorce and eviction can exist alongside a monstrous shape-shifting demonic clown or a haunted talking telephone.
Related: The Boogeyman: Everything We Know About The Stephen King Adaptation
The same thing that makes King’s writing so effective is what makes his style hard to render faithfully on screen, with many directors and screenwriters opting to cut the realistic character detail or the more outre horror elements and ending up with a project that never feels like classic King. This is what makes 2007’s lone-location psychological horror 1408 such an underrated success story. Adapted from King’s collection Everything’s Eventual, 1408 might be based on a short story, but unlike many feature-length adaptations, the underrated movie makes the most of its source material and manages to make its premise even more compelling than the
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