They Filmed the Book- 1922 By Stephen King

This is one of King’s darker, possibly more gothic stories, as the characters seem to face one travesty after another but they are self-inflicted.  I liked the story and it’s not a very long read, but the Netflix version of 1922 is pretty good too, in my opinion.  It’s for sure worth a watch if you are a fan of the novella by King as it stays pretty close to the source material but does a great job in bringing the story to the screen.  

Mind you, this isn’t one of King’s most famous works but it’s still a great chilling story.  With King you get the horror aspect mixed with some supernatural elements and the characters are all facing dark ends by the conclusion of the story.  Again, not an uplifting tale but one that draws you in.

The story centers around Wilfred James, who is a farmer in Nebraska and he loves the life he’s built.  However, his wife wants nothing more to do with the farm life and wants to sell land she owns to hog farmers and this would greatly impact Wilfred’s ability to farm.  In the book, Wilfred’s wife selling her land would make his useless due to the waste from the hog farm but in the show it makes it seem more like Wilfred is farming his wife’s land, since she inherited it.  Either way, Wilfred wants to stay, his wife wants to go.

So, in King fashion, Wilfred decides the best course of action is to murder his wife with the help of his son.  Obviously, this is a terrible scene as they botch the murder and make it a more violent and drawn out event than they’d intended.   The story then continues with strain developing between Wilfred and his son, a drama that arises with his neighbor, and the eventual haunting/mental breakdown of Wilfred.

Again, the story isn’t very long and it’s not one of King’s greatest works but any fan of the horror/gothic genre or just a general King fan is likely going to enjoy the book but it’s also work a watch on Netflix since the story follows closely to the novella.