Ahead of ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ arriving on HBO, we’re counting down our favorite Stephen King nightmares from screens big and small.
It: Welcome to Derry hits HBO October 26, bringing Pennywise the Clown out of the sewer to feast on a new generation of children. It remains to be seen if Derry will rank among the scariest Stephen King adaptations—we have a feeling it might—but there are still plenty of chilling movies and TV releases that draw on King’s prolific output to make your nights as sleepless as possible.10. Cujo (1983)
Based on King’s 1981 novel about a St. Bernard who transforms from a gentle pooch into a vicious, violent monster after tangling with a rabid bat, the 1983 movie makes a few key plot changes, including softening the ending. However, the movie is still deeply unsettling, with the dangers of being trapped in a car with no water on a scorching day very nearly eclipsing the terror of a stalking beast.
Genre superstar Dee Wallace (The Hills Have Eyes, The Howling, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, Critters) gives a ferocious performance as a mom who’ll do anything to protect her son—one of those “Oscar-ignored” horror turns for the ages.9. The Monkey (2025)
Osgood Perkins’ take on King’s cursed-toy tale (a short story first released in 1980) leans heavily into pitch-black comedy, but it’s still unnerving between all the nervous chuckling. Estranged since childhood, twin brothers (both played by Theo James) unhappily reunite when the cymbal-crashing simian that destroyed their youth resurfaces—but really, The Monkey’s main purpose is for the viewer to cringe in their seat as the tension builds between kills, each death more gruesomely Rube Goldberg-ian than the last.8. Creepshow (1982)
We’re playing a little fast and loose with “adaptation” here; King wrote the screenplay, which does adapt a few of his short stories but also features new material. Like The Monkey, it’s a horror comedy—paying loving tribute to the splattery legacy of EC horror comics—but with George A. Romero behind the camera, it also unloads plenty of frights.
King himself stars in one of the anthology’s segments, playing a goofy farmer whose close encounter with a meteor results in some intense, plant-based body horror.
