2021 saw a string of Stephen King adaptations make it to the small screen, but not all of these TV shows fared as well with critics as the iconic horror author might have hoped. Since his 1974 novel debut Carrie became an instant best-seller, author Stephen King has remained popular with readers for decades. However, despite the author’s novels being consistent best-sellers, his critical reception has been much more mixed.
As proven by movie flops like Graveyard Shift, King’s adaptations have also struggled to earn consistent praise from reviewers. For every massive hit like It or critical darling like The Shawshank Redemption, there are expensive misfires like Dreamcatcher. Similarly, while some of King’s small-screen adaptations have been endlessly influential hits like Salem’s Lot, others were messy, critically-derided flops.
2021 saw four Stephen King TV shows arrive on the small screen, and their reception was as mixed as the rest of King’s career output has been. Early in 2021, the ambitious miniseries The Stand wrapped up its brief run to a sigh of relief from most critics, while midway through the year, Lisey’s Story surprised reviewers by being a more substantial (if uneven) viewing experience than many anticipated. After that, the vampire horror Chapelwaite divided critics with its somber period drama, while the returning favorite Creepshow season 3 saw the streaming service Shudder provide a more crowd-pleasing (though no less thoughtful) brand of TV scares. With the year wrapped up, there’s no better time to look back on King’s 2021 and see what did and didn’t work when it came to the author’s small screen adaptations.
The Stand
The kindest thing that can be said about director Josh Boone’s adaptation of The Stand is that the miniseries remake certainly had more ambition than his earlier flop New Mutants. Unfortunately, ambition alone can’t elevate a humdrum effort. From a miscast Amber Heard to a misguided anachronic storytelling device, The Stand was a confusing mess from start to finish. The out-of-sequence storytelling made the already sprawling story impossible to follow, the performances were tonally all over the place, and Alexander Skarsgard was wasted as the most harmless iteration of Randall Flagg imaginable. Admittedly, releasing a horror fantasy epic about a world decimated by a killer pandemic in late 2020 meant that The Stand was always going to have an uphill battle with critics.
However, even reviewers who were willing to cut the series some slack and ignore its unfortunate timing were met with confusing storylines, paper-thin characterization, and painfully slow pacing. A handful of elements, like Owen Teague’s unsettling take on Harold, were worth watching. But for the majority of its runtime, The Stand could more reasonably have been re-titled The Slog, and even Stephen King penning The Stand's unexpectedly brilliant finale couldn’t save the miniseries as a whole. An expensive misfire, The Stand was both 2021’s worst Stephen King TV show and proof that director Mike Garris never got enough credit for how well he managed to bring the book to life in 1994’s underrated The Stand miniseries.
Chapelwaite
Salem’s Lot was always going to be a tough act to follow. Thanks to the peerless direction of hour icon Tobe Hooper, the 1978 small-screen adaptation of King’s small-town vampire novel has a place not only in television history but also in horror history as a whole. Therefore, Chapelwaite’s failure to outdo Salem’s Lot came as no surprise, and few fans took the prequel miniseries to task for failing to outshine its predecessor. However, on its own merits, Chapelwaite was a slow, humorless, and dour affair that arguably spent too long setting up its period milieu and not enough time offering gory action. The miniseries certainly deserves credit for being a harsher and darker take on the short story "Jerusalem’s Lot" than many fans might have expected and provided occasional scares and plenty of tragic melodrama for viewers who didn’t mind the hopelessly bleak tone. However, with Midnight Mass offering a more fast-paced, talkative, and thoughtful take on the whole “isolated community attacked by vampires in an obvious but effective religious allegory” conceit, Chapelwaite couldn’t help feeling a little ponderous in comparison.
Lisey’s Story
While admittedly imperfect, Lisey’s Story was proof that Stephen King should adapt more of his work. The tale of a woman who uncovers her author husband’s mysterious internal life after his death, Lisey’s Story was a more emotionally charged, evocative tale than the blockbuster action heroics of The Stand. However, the miniseries was stronger for this intimacy, with its most dramatic and fantastical elements feeling somewhat out of place. Where Lisey’s Story excelled was as a tender character drama, with screen veterans Clive Owens and Julianne Moore offering excellent central turns as the departed husband and the show’s heartbroken heroine. Lisey’s Story could not quite nail its tone (although the source novel suffered from the same issue), and elements like Dane DeHaan’s campy villain felt teleported in from a sillier, more arch take on the material. However, for all of its imperfections, Lisey’s Story was 2021’s most personal Stephen King adaptation, and the miniseries has enough heart to overcome its tonal issues.
Creepshow Season 3
Lisey’s Story had heart, Chapelwaite had self-seriousness, and The Stand had little more than an incredible, wasted cast, but it was Shudder’s Creepshow that brought back the most vital part of what makes readers return to King’s horror writing. Even though Creepshow season 3 did not adapt specific King stories, the anthology horror show reanimated the dark sense of humor that made both its first two outings and King’s best short fiction pop. With satirical jabs at the rise of the far-right and timely commentary on the COVID-19 pandemic, Creepshow season 3 held its own as one of Shudder’s best 2021 offerings. It was Creepshow’s comedic elements that kept the show’s tone light and its pace fast, both elements that were missing from 2021’s other Stephen King adaptations. Never lingering too long on a gag or belaboring a metaphor to the point of patronization, Creepshow season 3 kept its horror light, smart, and quick. This made the Shudder anthology horror the best of Stephen King's 2021 TV shows, even though the author himself only served as the series creator and not its scribe this time around.