Movies based on SK's works are fairly enjoyable to watch. Plenty of em, like the TV movies, are below par effects-wise and performance-wise.
I d say
The Mist is pretty much up there alongwith the best of SK's works onscreen...second only to
The Shawshank Redemption and
The Shining, the latter not being SK's exact version, but rather a filtered SK idea which Stanley Kubrick made his own.
My own choices (in no exact order) for recommended viewing based on SK's works would be :
- Christine,
- The Shawshank Redemption,
- Carrie,
- The Dead Zone,
- Silver Bullet,
- Stand by Me,
- The Running Man,
- Pet Sematary,
- Misery,
- Storm of the Century,
- The Shining, (both Kubrick's and Garris's versions)
- The Green Mile, and
- The Mist.
The ones which I thought were decent enough to be worth a watch:
- 1408,
- It,
- Children of the Corn,
- Thinner,
- Needful Things,
- Dolores Claiborne, and
- Creepshow.
All the rest are skippable.
Unlike some, I don't regard
Salem's Lot (original and remake) too highly (I thought it was pretty boring actually),
Cujo which wasn't the least bit scary,
Firestarter was totally forgettable,
Cat's Eye was yawn-inducing,
Maximum Overdive was so bad it isn't even funny,
The Lawnmower Man was eminently disappointing,
Graveyard Shift sucked,
Sometimes They Come Back was another sore disappointment,
The Tommyknockers was absurd,
The Dark Half could have been SO much better but wasn't,
The Stand was a big pathetic attempt,
The Mangler held so much potential but missed the mark,
Quicksilver Highway sucked with a capital S,
and so did
Riding the Bullet.
And don't even get me started on
The Night Flier,
The Langoliers,
Hearts in Atlantis,
Rose Red and
The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer.
If I missed any others, they would be either A) not watched by me yet, or B) too sucky for me to even bother to remember right now.