Pet Sematary (2019)

This adaptation improves upon the wooden 1989 one but just can't overcome the silliness of Stephen King's plot about grown men, one a ER doctor for goodness sake, who - what, unable to face up to a pet cat's death? - trudge through a woods at night to make use of a magical burial ground which one of the men forgets to say only resurrects mangy demon-beasts and when the cat comes back as expected a raging, rabid monster, what do the men do but head back to the burial ground again and again to repeat the process of resurrecting as deranged murderous monsters things even more dear to them.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

1408 (2007)

In this Stephen King short story adaptation, John Cusack is perfect as the drily funny, cynical paranormal investigator and professional skeptic who checks into room 1408 of New York's Dolphin Hotel wanting to debunk claims the room is somehow evil, but both he and the viewers soon have the smiles wiped off their faces once the supernatural terror kicks in, though these chills and jump scares wear thin a good time before the movie's oblique, that'll-do, "whatever" ending.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Christine (1983)

Pretty much, Carrie (CAR-rie) comes back as a 1958 Plymouth Fury in this Stephen King adaptation that has director John Carpenter doing his horror-movie best with the Horror Novel King's big, ugly and empty story about a vehicle whose gender is ascribed by men and whose unexplained sentience, jealousy and murderous nature serves only to eclipse the psychopathy of the movie's real monsters, those men themselves: ugly, knife-wielding, sniggering, self-loathing, cigar-chomping, bullying and friendless, gambling and drinking, erection-obsessed and female-objectifying boys aged 15 to 80.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The Dark Tower (2017)

This Stephen King book adaptation about a supernaturally gifted boy upon whom the continued existence of multiple worlds relies never ceases world-building so that even three-quarters of the way through, Idris Elba's Gunslinger (a Western sheriff crossed with Devil May Cry's Dante, in a good-versus-evil battle with Matthew McConnaughy's Man in Black, a cadaverous Christopher Walken impersonation) turns to the boy to utter short scene-final explanations - "[the shapeshifting monster we've just bested] was exploiting your weakness, [by appearing in the form of your father]" and "What happens in this world [i.e. beams of light from the sky and portals opening and closing] is mirrored in other worlds," or things like that - and it is funny that by film's end you still have no idea what this intensively explained world is and why anyone should care less about it ceasing to exist, though it won't cease to exist - it is a part of the Stephen King canon that will be dredged up and reimagined forevermore irrespective of whether it makes sense or is interesting or not.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

It (2017)

A group of kids are pitted against horrors both real and imagined in this not very nice and entirely meaningless Nightmare on Elm Street variant based on a Stephen King brick, most shocking for swapping Nightmare on Elm Street's late teens (Johnny Depp was 21) for eleven-year-olds who shoot people point blank through their foreheads, stab and kill their parents, and stone bullies, among other psychotic crimes, and everyone says how good it is and how they can't wait for the sequel.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Carrie (2013)

The two problems with this 2013 remake of Carrie, the 1976 movie based on the Stephen King book are, one, the wildly inconsistent state of mind of the title character who one minute sobs and screams inconsolably, the next calmly employs expert conflict resolution skills in negotiations with her neurotic bible-bashing mother about how unfairly she is being treated only to immediately revert back to hysterical, incessant screaming; and two, the horror movie wants us to sympathise with Carrie and who really has sympathy for a school massacrist, bullied and telekinetic or not?

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Pet Sematary (1989)

A well-meaning neighbour introduces Louis Creed to an ancient burial site that will reanimate his daughter's dead cat because the best lesson about death a child can get is to have adults pretend it doesn't happen, but the neighbour neglects to mention that all his previous experiences of reanimating the dead have resulted in foul-smelling, murderous beasts -  a considerable oversight, thanks neighbour - in Stephen King's Pet Sematary, brought to the screen here with a cast of not very expressive actors who themselves might benefit from a trip to the burial ground to be reanimated.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Carrie (1976)

The original 1976 film version of Stephen King's Carrie is a not especially enjoyable American gothic horror story about an alienated student bullied into the sort of destructive behaviour that these days happens in American high schools with guns, not telekinesis.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS