How the Upcoming Film, “One For The Road,” Can Jump-Start Your Stephen King Collection

In 1975, Stephen King released the classic vampire horror novel, “‘Salem’s Lot.” In the novel, an author has to fight an ancient vampire who intends to take over the small fictitious Maine town of Jerusalem’s Lot.

Shortly after, in 1977, King released a collection of short stories, “Night Shift.” Clearly the ideas he had from “‘Salem’s Lot” were still with him because in this collection, two of the short stories, were directly related to the 1975 novel.

The short story “Jerusalem’s Lot” was a prequel to the novel describing the dark past of the haunted town. The short story “One for the Road” was a direct sequel to the novel where we see a family who has been trapped in a snow storm just outside the town, discover they are not alone.

In the 70’s King started allowing student filmmakers to buy the rights to his stories for $1. The filmmakers would make their adaptations and present them to King for approval before showing them at independent film festivals. These are called Dollar Baby films.

On February 6^th, a duo of independent filmmakers Joseph Horning and Curtis Case of CKC Quarterly Productions wrapped up filming of their Dollar Baby adaptation of “One for the Road.” They shot the film in South East Pennsylvania during the huge snowstorm in January.

“One for the Road” is slated for King’s approval viewing sometime in February 2018, and hopefully will be shown at a film festival shortly after. This is just the most recent of many Dollar Baby films.

The most famous Dollar Baby was an adaptation of King’s short story titled “The Woman in the Room” (a short story from “Night Shift”) directed by Frank Darabont. King liked Darabont’s adaptation so much that the two struck a “handshake deal” for Darabont to direct a film version of King’s novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (from the collection “Different Seasons“).

You may have heard of this movie which turned into IMDb’s top rated film of all time: “The Shawshank Redemption.”

Speaking of “Different Seasons”… this is a collection of four short novels (novellas) released in 1982 containing the previously mentioned “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption,” “Apt Pupil” (adapted into another fairly successful film), “The Body” which was adapted into the well-known movie “Stand By Me” (you’ve seen it, its #192 on IMDb’s top 250), and lastly “The Breathing Method.”

Darabont also went on to adapt King’s novel (another one you may have heard of) “The Green Mile” (the film is #32 on IMDb’s top 250).

So, you may be thinking, “Cool? So what?” Yes, independent films are usually never as good as big Hollywood movies, but every director and producer started somewhere right? They need all the support you can give when they are at this early level, so watch those independent films, and donate to small production companies.

BUT, (yes, there’s a but), read the books first! You know the saying, “the book is always better than the movie.” Well, that saying is almost always true.

Here’s the deal, if you haven’t seen these movies yet, do so ASAP. If you have seen them (or haven’t), get the books!

Plenty of sites such as Amazon, AbeBooks and Ebay as well as stores like Barnes and Noble, offer King’s books at great prices!

Stephen King has had a plethora of his books adapted for the screen, whether that be television or movies. It is definitely worth it to find the books, read them, and collect them. The books not only look amazing, but they ARE amazing.

Start your King collection with the few books mentioned above… its only four, you can do it and once you start collecting and reading them, you will never stop… trust me.

In case you were just skimming through or already forgot which books you need to go get, here’s a list with their film counterparts:

• “‘Salems Lot” (478 pages) (1975) – TV movie released in 1978 and a remake in 2004
• “Night Shift” (a collection of 20 short stories; many have been adapted) (326 pages) (1977)
  • “One For The Road” – film to be released in 2018
  • “Children of the Corn” – film released in 1984
  • “The Woman in the Room” – film released in 1983
  • “Quitters Inc.” and “The Ledge” – both featured in the film “Cats Eye” in 1985
  • (And a few others)
• “Different Seasons” (Collection of four novellas) (518 pages) (1982)
  • “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” – film released as “The Shawshank Redemption” in 1994
  • “Apt Pupil” – film released in 1998
  • “The Body” – film released as “Stand By Me” in 1986
  • “The Breathing Method”
• “The Green Mile” (399 pages) (1996) – film released in 1999

Feel free to comment with any questions, concerns or anything you’d like to say!