THE SHINING IS OBVIOUSLY THE scariest Stephen King adaptation,” Rob Savage tells SFX over a call, “but I don’t think there’s been a King adaptation that’s as viscerally scary as this movie.” It’s a bold claim from the filmmaker behind pandemic breakouts Host and Dashcam, and whose next project – his first for a major studio – is an adaptation of King’s short story “The Boogeyman”.
“This movie attacks the source material in a way that’s different from any other King adaptation,” he continues. “We wanted this to feel true to his writing. Me and [co-screenwriter] Mark [Heyman] were always going back to the warmth of character that you feel in King’s novels. Even when the subject matter is dark, there’s that glimmer of hope. He’s not a cynical writer.”
“The Boogeyman” is arguably one of King’s most twisted tales. It sees Lester Billings attend a therapy session after the murders of his three children. Though two of the deaths were entirely mysterious, there was a common factor between them: the bodies