It can be said that 2023’s days are numbered, as we have just a little over two weeks until we ring in the new year, but the ever-active world of Stephen King isn’t falling asleep as we creep closer to the holiday season, and there’s still plenty to discuss in this week’s The King Beat.
In this seventeenth edition of the column, there is a lot to celebrate: Stephen King’s latest book has won the Best Horror prize from the GoodReads Choice Awards, John Carpenter’s Christine has turned 40, and I reflect on the King adaptations featuring the great Andre Braugher. Let’s dig in!
Holly Wins The 2023 Goodreads Choice Award For Best Horror Novel
Stephen King’s Holly is a great novel. It’s been amazing to watch the transformation of titular protagonist Holly Gibney since she was first introduced nearly a decade ago in the 2014 novel Mr. Mercedes, and her latest adventure is both thrilling and refreshing. Her mysteries have been tilting toward the supernatural since End Of Watch, and King masterfully uses that trend to play with expectations as Holly hunts down clues leading her to the vicious and cannibalistic Emily and Rodney Harris.
All of this is to say that I am not surprised in the slightest that the book has won the 2023 GoodReads Choice Award for Best Horror novel.
From the total 295,053 votes cast, Holly got some competition from Grady Hendrix’s How To Sell A Haunted House (47,851 votes) and T. Kingfisher’s House With Good Bones (22,580 votes), but the new Stephen King book won with an impressive 77,993 ballots cast in its favor.
It’s not altogether surprising to see the author take the award given his impressive decade-plus history with the voting body of GoodReads. He has won 10 awards, including Best Horror five times (Doctor Sleep, Sleeping Beauties, Elevation, The Institute and Holly), Best Mystery & Thriller three times (Mr. Mercedes, End of Watch, The Outsider) and Best Science Fiction (11.22.63) and Best Fantasy (The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole) once each. Constant Readers clearly activate for this polling.
Only Rick Riordan has won more GoodReads Choice awards, as he took home the prize for Best Children's & Middle Grade book 11 times between 2011 and 2021. Unfortunately, Stephen King may not have a chance to tie the record next year, as there is no category for Best Collection, and the only work the author has coming out in 2024 is his new short story omnibus You Like It Darker.
Holly is best enjoyed if you’ve read the previous Holly Gibney books before it (including the novella “If It Bleeds” in Stephen King’s eponymous 2020 collection), as that’s how you’ll recognize just how much Holly has grown since her introduction, but it’s also perfectly accessible for newcomers who just want to read an exciting mystery that sports some extra sharp teeth. You can purchase the book in multiple formats, including hardcover, paperback and on Kindle, but I would personally also recommend purchasing the audiobook. Justine Lupe, who played Holly on the television series Mr. Mercedes, does the read, and it makes it oh so easy to imagine a fourth season of that fantastic show (which is available to stream if you have a Peacock subscription).
John Carpenter’s Christine Celebrated Its 40th Anniversary This Week, And It Remains One Of The All-Time Great Stephen King Adaptations
Looking back at the full history of Stephen King in Hollywood, one could make the argument that 1983 was the best year ever for the creative partnership. The span of just a few months saw three of the greatest King adaptations of all time arrive in theaters. First, there was the rabid canine terror of Lewis Teague’s Cujo in August; then, David Cronenberg’s The Dead Zone unleashed terrifying premonitions that October. Lastly, closing out the year, there was John Carpenter’s Christine – and of the three tremendous horror classics, it stands out as the best.
The classic killer car movie celebrated its 40th anniversary this past Saturday, and its legacy starts with the fact that it wasn’t Carpenter’s first choice as a King adaptation. The filmmaker was originally set up to make a big screen version of the 1980 novel Firestarter, but his vision was shut down when it was deemed too expensive following the box office flop of The Thing. A potential pivot was presented when he got his hands on a pre-publication manuscript for Christine, and when he and screenwriter Bill Phillips settled on a big screen vision, the production started up exceptionally fast. The novel arrived in book stores in April 1983, and audiences were buying tickets to see the adaptation less than eight month later.
There are some major deviations from the source material, including the nature of the evil that possesses the iconic 1958 Plymouth Fury, but it’s nonetheless a brilliant translation of the spooky coming of age story. There is a clear understanding from Carpenter that there is something a touch silly about a dorky teen becoming infatuated with a haunted automobile, and the filmmaker successfully leans into that in standout moments (See: “Ok… show me.”) But he is also able to effectively make any and all laughter stop.
Christine, covered in flames, hunting down Buddy Repperton (William Ostrander) on an empty road is ironically chilling, and witnessing Alexandra Paul’s Leigh choking while drowning in the car’s white hot interior light is intense enough to stop your breath. And let’s not ignore the cinematic magic that is seeing the eponymous antagonist rebuild herself.
The world will forever wonder what John Carpenter’s Firestarter may have been (it would have been vastly different from Mark L. Lester’s 1984 adaptation), but Christine is phenomenal and stands among the filmmaker’s best works. I’m personally excited to see the remake that is in the works from writer/director Bryan Fuller, but the 1983 film will always hold a special place in horror history – and that’s very clear with 40 years of perspective.
Christine isn’t presently available to stream on any subscription services, but it’s available to watch with ads on Pluto TV. If you’re a physical media fan aiming to build the Ultimate Stephen King Collection, the 4K UHD that was made for the 35th anniversary is a must-own.
Reflecting On Andre Braugher’s Two Memorable Stephen King Projects: 2004’s Salem’s Lot And The Mist
In the last couple months, the community of actors who have starred in Stephen King adaptations has suffered some sad losses. In mid-October, Oscar-nominated Carrie star Piper Laurie passed away at the age of 91, and it was reported late last month that Misery’s Frances Sternhagen died at the age of 93. This week, more horrible news was delivered, as it was confirmed that Andre Braugher has left us at the age of 61.
Braugher is remembered by many fans for his years playing a police officer on the small screen – first as Detective Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life On The Street and then as Captain Raymond Holt on Brooklyn Nine-Nine – but the actor also has two Stephen King adaptations on his celebrated filmography. In 2004, he took on the key role of English teacher Matt Burke in the underrated miniseries remake of Salem’s Lot, and three years later, he played antagonistic neighbor Brent Norton in Frank Darabont’s much-celebrated The Mist.
Matt Burke is a key character in Salem’s Lot as a paternal figure and ally to protagonist Ben Mears as he discovers the vampire plot slowly destroying the town of Jerusalem’s Lot – and Andre Braugher has the precise warmth that the character requires. In deviation from the source material, Burke is portrayed as being gay, and it’s an aspect of the 2004 miniseries that hasn’t aged particularly well, but Braugher nonetheless does terrific work.
It’s actually funny that he went on to play Brent Norton in The Mist, as that’s a character with an energy completely opposite of what Braugher delivers in Salem’s Lot – but it’s a testament to his phenomenal skills as a performer that he pulls it off equally well. His early established conflict with Tom Jane’s David Drayon is a preview of the neighbor vs. neighbor horror that follows once they and other members of their community find themselves trapped in a grocery store by monsters from another dimension, and the antagonistic attitude Braugher offers in the film’s first act ultimately echo throughout the entire movie.
The world lost an incredible talent in Andre Braugher this week, and my condolences go out to his family, friends, and fellow fans.
Recommendation Of The Week: “Gray Matter”
As we get deeper into December, it feels fitting to start recommending some of Stephen King’s chillier stories that plunge readers into the cold of winter – and “Gray Matter” feels like as good a place to start as any. After all, the tale begins in the midst of a horrible snowstorm causing the city of Bangor, Maine to all but totally shut down.
A group of townies are collected at a local convenience store and they all become deeply troubled when the son of local drunk Richie Grenadine enters the establishment petrified with fear. He explains that something is seriously wrong with his father and getting worse, and the issues trace back to him drinking a mold-infected beer. The townies brave the blizzard to go check in on Richie and see if he needs to be taken for help, but they are horrified to discover that the man is no longer a man and is instead a monster that is getting exponentially more dangerous.
Though first published in the October 1973 issue of Cavalier magazine, Constant Readers can find the terror of “Gray Matter” in the pages of the classic 1978 Stephen King collection Night Shift.
That brings this week’s edition of The King Beat to a close, but I’ll have a new column brimming with Stephen King goodies next Thursday, and in the meantime you can explore my Adapting Stephen King series, digging into the full history of King in film and television.
