Stephen King Reveals All-Time Favorite Horror Movie That Left Him In ‘Helpless Terror’
Stephen King has revealed his favorite horror movie of all time.
‘The King Of Horror’ is the brain behind some of the most terrifying stories of all time, including The Shining and IT, both of which were turned into popular fan-favorite films.
King has been writing for over 50 years and has become a huge influence in the horror genre, dominating the space with his twisted novels.
He is known as one of the best-selling authors of all time, with over 400 million of his books selling worldwide.
Despite the ‘Carrie’ author being immersed in the genre, there’s still one horror that left him feeling ‘helpless terror’ while watching.
Based on his writing, King doesn’t seem like the type of person who would scare easily.
That said, in 1974, the author and his wife went to stay at The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park Colorado, which heavily inspired his hit novel ‘The Shining.’
He thought up the whole plot for the book while smoking a cigarette on the balcony of room 217, one of the ‘most haunted’ rooms in the hotel.
King had said he experienced a sleepless night whilst staying there.
The room he stayed in is reported to be haunted by the ghost of Mrs. Wilson, a chambermaid who was injured in a gas explosion in the room in 1911.
Although it didn’t make the cut as his favorite film of the horror genre, King has previously shared that found-footage classic The Blair Witch Project had been too scary for him to even finish.
He recalled in an interview with Eli Roth’s History Of Horror (per Indie Wire): “The first time I saw [The Blair Witch Project], I was in the hospital and I was doped up. My son brought a VHS tape of it and he said, ‘You gotta watch this.’ Halfway through it, I said, ‘Turn it off it’s too freaky.’“
This may not be a surprise to many, as it is widely considered one of the scariest movies ever made.
The found footage element of the film plays a role in that, as it makes the film feel more authentic, with viewers being made to feel unsure as to whether the events of the movie actually happened.
But now fans of the writer are in for a treat as he has shared in an essay for Variety his top most terrifying film he has ever seen.
King reveals that he has thought deeply about what movie he would consider the scariest he’s seen and shares that, of course, he has seen plenty of horror movies.
He writes: “My conclusion is that the ‘scariest’ varies according to the viewer’s age. As a kid of 16, the scariest movie was The Haunting (directed by Robert Wise). As an adult, it was The Blair Witch Project, with that building sense of doom and those truly horrible last 35 seconds.”
King shares that he sees similarities between The Blair Witch Project and his top pick: “And now that I think of it, there’s a real similarity to Blair Witch, both with minimal or no music, both cast with unknown actors who seem barely capable of summer stock in Paducahville, both with low-tech special effects. They work not in spite of those things, but because of them.”
The writer notes that perhaps his scariest horror film might have lost its ‘elemental power over the years’ and may be seen as almost a ‘joke’ of a movie now.
But King still remembers the helpless terror he felt when he first watched Night Of The Living Dead.
King recalls a scene where the character Barbara is trying to lock herself in a car and escape a walking corpse, drawing attention to the ‘moment of pure atavistic terror.’
The 1968 horror classic has 7.8/10 on IMDb and 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The film is considered to have single-handedly reinvented the modern-day zombie genre of films, which has heavily inspired films such as Zombieland and World War Z.
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