‘King of Horror’ Stephen King reveals his top 5 movies ever including thrilling Amazon Prime ‘masterpiece’
Unsurprisingly, UNILAD RANKED's list of Stephen King's top films contains a fair few suspense movies.
Author Stephen King knows a fair few things about movies given at least 50 of his novels have been adapted for film and around 28 for TV, but when it come to the so-called 'King of Horror's' own taste in movies?
King wrote about eight films for the BFI, stating his top two with the others 'in no particular order'. This week, UNILAD RANKED looked at the median Rotten Tomatoes score of his other choices and formed a top five.
5) The Stepfather (1987)
It would be wrong to start with anything but a psychological horror and kicking off the top five is a 1987 release with a screenplay by Donald E. Westlake from a story by Westlake, Carolyn Lefcourt and Brian Garfield alongside an uncredited rewrite by David Loughery.
Advert
Produced by Jay Benson and directed by Joseph Ruben, the film stars Terry O'Quinn (Lost), Jill Schoelen (The Phantom of the Opera) and Shelley Hack (Charlie's Angels) - Schoelen reportedly doing nearly all of her own stunts.
It centers around a serial killer who adopts different identities to pray on his next victims and Westlake reportedly based the character of Stephanie on his real-life teenage stepdaughter who he was struggling to get along with, IMDB states.
With a Rotten Tomatoes tomatometer score of 89 and popcornmeter of 65 - a median of 77 - The Stepfather has been praised by a Twitter user as 'a deeply unsettling dissection of the American Dream with an all time performance from Terry O’Quinn' - you can rent it on Amazon Prime or Apple TV.
And horror fans buckle up, because there are more spooky scenes coming your way...
4) The Changeling (1980)
A Canadian supernatural horror, the film's screenplay was written by William Gray and Diana Maddox and directed by Peter Medak.
The 'supernatural horror' stars 'George C. Scott (Dr. Strangelove) in perhaps his last great screen role', according to King, alongside actors Trish Van Devere (One is a Lonely Number) and Melvyn Douglas (Ninotchka).
The story centers around a man whose family is killed in a road accident and goes to a mansion where the ghosts continue to follow him, the composer resolute to getting to the bottom of the mystery of a young boy's death.
A social media user wrote: "This is one damn creepy film that still turns my blood cold."
"One of the greatest ghost stories on film," another praised.
"This is a masterpiece!," another added on Rotten Tomatoes.
With a tomatometer score of 85 and popcornmeter of 79, if you have an Amazon Prime subscription you're in luck because you can catch the 'under appreciated' release on there.
If not, there's another cult classic up next too.
3) Duel (1971)
The 1971 release was adapted by Richard Matheson from his own short story of the same name which had been published in Playboy in 1971 - based off his own experience in 1963 when a trucker cut him off on a California freeway.
Directed by Steven Spielberg no less, the action-thriller centers on a traveling salesman called David Mann - played by Dennis Weaver - who ends up chased and terrorized by an eerie truck driver.
King praises the release as Spielberg's 'most inventive film' and with a tomatometer score of 89 and popcornmeter of 84 - with a median of 86.5 - clearly others are fans too, the film since praised as one of the greatest films ever made for TV, first premiering on ABC in November, 1971.
A Twitter user wrote: " So many memorable moments and stylistic shots in this well crafted film!"
"It remains one of my favorites and it still creeps me out and scares me to death," another added.
You can rent Duel on Amazon Prime or Apple TV.
2) Les Diaboliques (1955)
Based on the 1952 novel She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, the screenplay was written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, Jérôme Géronimi, René Masson and Frédéric Grende.
With 'sublime' cinematography by Armand Thirard, it stars Simone Signoret, Véra Clouzot, Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel and centers around a woman and her husband's mistress and their plot to kill him.
The 1955 release was also directed by Clouzot with King branding Les Diaboliques a 'suspense-horror masterpiece, as terrifying now as it was back in 1955' even going so far as to say Clouzot 'out-Hitchcocked Hitchcock'.
King's reference is to Clouzot optioning the screenplay rights after finishing 1953's The Wages of Fear. This prevented Hitchcock from making the film which was stated as being an inspiration for Robert Bloch's novel Psycho - IMDB reporting Clouzot beat Hitchcock to the film rights by only a matter of hours.
You can rent the 'masterpiece' on Amazon Prime - drum roll please for King's top pick.
1) Sorcerer (1977)
Written by William Friedkin, Walon Green and Georges Arnaud, Sorcerer is the second adaptation of Georges Arnaud's 1950 novel Le Salaire de la peaur and considered a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 film The Wages of Fear.
Starring Roy Schieder, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal and Amidou, the release centers on four men from different corners of the globe who are running from the law and all make a similarly risky deal in a bid for freedom.
And the risk wasn't limited to the narrative either, Friedkin revealing around 50 people were forced to leave the set 'for either injury or gangrene' as well as malaria and food poisoning, IMDB reports.
Despite King's love for the film, Sorcerer was considered a box office flop, taking in a domestic gross of $5.9 million and worldwide gross of $9 million against a budget of a reported $21-22 million.
Was it the film or was it the film being released the same year as Stars Wars? Either way, it's the Horror King's top movie and, well, you can't really argue with that can you?
A Twitter user also branded it a 'criminally underrated movie,' and another even dubbed it Friedkin's 'best' - so check it out to rent on Amazon Prime if you want to see what you're missing out on.
UNILAD RANKED is a weekly series with a new article released every Friday.
Topics: UNILAD RANKED, Stephen King, Film and TV, Entertainment, Horror
Poppy Bilderbeck