The horror genre has so many different faces and facets that it’s always intriguing to see what its modern maestros use to inspire them. Of course, the works of Stephen King tend to feature heavily. Stephen King is certainly a hefty influence on Get Out filmmaker Jordan Peele, who has made some of the best horror movies of the last decade.
Get Out, Us, and Nope are a trio of genre-bending stories built from the ground up based on fascinating, original concepts. That has been the bread and butter of King’s career as the greatest living horror novelist, with his books in turn inspiring many of the best movies for fans of the spooky and the macabre.
In an interview with USA Today, Peele listed the biggest influences on his trademark cinematic scares. He actually picked two Stephen King adaptations, opting for The Shining and, less predictably, Rob Reiner’s chilling spin on Misery.
Misery, of course, is a record-breaking outing in the pantheon of King adaptations, standing as the only King movie to win an Oscar (we know that sounds mad, but it’s true). Kathy Bates won the Best Actress award for her maniacal role as obsessed literature superfan Annie Wilkes.
Peele said: “Misery is a movie where the unlikely villain turns out to be the scariest. But it’s also a movie where the acting and the performance and the script and the dialogue is where the fear in the movie lies. I love that kind of technique.”
We’re completely in agreement with Peele. Bizarrely, given its pedigree, Misery doesn’t seem to get as much airtime as other King adaptations, but it’s definitely up there with the best of them. Bates is terrific, of course, but James Caan also deserves a lot of credit as the writer who finds himself in Annie’s clutches.
Reiner, of course, should also be praised for how much tension he manages to create in a movie that, for the most part, is focused around a single setting. He was one of the best directors on the planet at this point, in the midst of a creative hot streak that included such diverse new movies as Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally, and The Princess Bride. Peele could certainly do worse for an influence.
For more from the dark world of King, learn about the strange inspiration behind the most depressing Stephen King movie and find out which overlooked King movie he loves a lot more than The Shining. Elsewhere, we’ve explained how Stephen King saved the Evil Dead franchise.
Now, seek out more scares as we look at the best ghost movies and the best slasher movies.