Even thoughStephen Kingis known throughout the world as a hugehorrorwriter, the legendary author has a thin line he doesn’t cross when it comes to sitting down to watch slasher movies, and one film in particular has the King reeling in disgust. Never afraid to give his opinion, the Maine native has previously revealed some of the TV shows and movies he enjoys after a long day writing bestselling novels. One of hisfavorite horror films from 2009 wasThe Last House on the Left,which he said was “easily the most brilliant remake of the decade” due to the original being a “crapfest”.
Thankfully, another top choice of Stephen King’s could never be described as “crap” with its 87% rotten tomatoes score.The Stranger,a Netflix thriller adapted from the book by Harlan Coben, was an “excellent mystery” and “addictive,” according to theMiserywriter, in which a mysterious stranger appears out of nowhere to tell family man Adam Price a terrible secret about his wife, who then goes missing. Of course, life hasn’t always been easy for King. Throughout his years of battling drug and alcohol addiction before getting sober, he revealed thatGeorge R.R. Martin’sGame of Thronesseries helped to save his lifeafter a particularly painful period, and that listening to the audio versions helped him carry on with his ability to work.
Stephen King Thought The Toolbox Murders Film Went Too Far
According toFar Out Magazine, Stephen King once called the 1978 filmThe Toolbox Murders"awful" because of the nasty way it kills a girl in it. “The worst one I ever saw wasThe Toolbox Murders,” he explained. “There’s a guy who gets a girl at one point with a nailer, one of these gadgets, right in the forehead.” However, King added that even though the movie is despicable, he revealed that there is something about slasher movies that makes him want more, disclosing “‘Oh, my god, that’s awful. Let’s do it again.”
The Toolbox Murdersis a 1978 American slasher film directed by Dennis Donnelly and starring Cameron Mitchell, Pamelyn Ferdin, and Wesley Eure. The movie’s plot centers around a host of violent murders in a Los Angeles apartment complex that sees the kidnapping and disappearance of a teenage girl who lives there. While the film states that it was based on actual real-life events, there was no evidence to confirm if this was true or not, and it was likely a marketing ploy to hype the film up for audiences. In the UK,The Toolbox Murderswas banned for a time in the 1980s because it was deemed too violent and graphic. Even though it was eventually taken off the list, it still hung onto its “banned film” notoriety.
It wasn’t just King who thought the slasher movie wasn’t up to par. OnRotten Tomatoes,The Toolbox Murdersreceived a poor score of 13% from critics and a 31% rating from its audience. Many comments from those who had to endure the movie said that it was “thoroughly tasteless” and that it “delivered one of the most obnoxious performances ever in a horror movie.” Stephen King even thinks that people who actually enjoy movies likeThe Toolbox Murders “would like to go out and do that exact same thing and don’t have the guts to do it”, which is a pretty strong statement coming from the mind of someone who wrote about a child-killing clown.
To add to King’s long list of book-to-movie adaptations,Netflix has made a deal to adapt King’s 1981 bookCujo,which tells the story of a dog who turns into a killer canine after being bitten by a bat, into a feature film, with producer Roy Lee in line to helm the project.
