Favourite Night Shift Movie Adaptation

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blunthead

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Aug 2, 2006
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Battleground is my favorite adaptation from Night Shift. I liked all of the Nightmares & Dreamscapes productions, in fact. William Hurt is one of my favorite actors, too.
 
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Mr. Crandall

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Jan 17, 2014
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I'm a big fan of Children of the Corn. It may not be the most faithful adaptation, but it had some good campy fun. Also, I grew up in corn country like that. Running through mature corn fields is an otherworldly experience and can be very disorienting.

"Outlander! We have your woman!"
 

Aloysius Nell

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Apr 1, 2014
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I'm a big fan of Children of the Corn. It may not be the most faithful adaptation, but it had some good campy fun. Also, I grew up in corn country like that. Running through mature corn fields is an otherworldly experience and can be very disorienting.

"Outlander! We have your woman!"
That movie scared the **** out of me as a 5th grader, spending the night at a friend's who was allowed to stay up and watch HBO. Every now and then, you see the red-haired dude that played Malachi popping up on TV, and I always wonder, "Where's he hiding the knife?" He was a demon on Charmed once.
 
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SutterKane

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Jun 7, 2014
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Children of the Corn was probably the best for me simply because it was a favorite of mine as kid. I re-watched it not too long ago and, yeah, it hasn't aged very well, but I still think it has it's charms. Memorable if nothing else

Graveyard Shift would have to be the worst, I never watched it until I seen it in the bargain bin for $1 at a gas station, and figured "Hey, it's only a buck, why not"..........And even at that price I wanted my money back. Horrible in every way possible, not just one of the worst king adaptations, but one of the worst films I ever viewed period.
 
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Gerald

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Sep 8, 2011
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I'm probably in a minority but I liked the 2009 Children of the Corn slightly more. My problem with the original is they took away the darker ending of the story - I didn't like the finale at all. Though neither are great films, imo.

Probably the best adaptation was Battleground, but I like Cat's Eye too - especially casting the always nervous, on edge James Woods as someone who tries to quit smoking.

And even though not a great film, I thought Maximum Overdrive is far better than Stephen or people in general give it credit for. But then, maybe something with an AC/DC soundtack ALWAYS has an advantage.

Gotta agree about Graveyard Shift as one of the worst and also never cared much for The Mangler or Trucks.
Sometimes they come Back is so-so.
Lawnmower Man was spectacular for its time, but has dated badly.

Amazingly there are still stories never filmed from Night Shift (apart from the Dollar babies). Gray Matter would be fun to see, and I know what you Need certainly has dramatic potential. Jerusalem's Lot might make a nice atmospheric feature film. It's surprising no one touched those.
 
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misfit1979

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Jun 24, 2014
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Maximum Overdrive for me. Its so bad its good.
The scene that the kid gets run over by the steamroller scared the crap out of me when I was a kid for some-reason probably since I rode my bike though baseball fields all the time
. Plus Who made who as the soundtrack=awesome!
 
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Rrty

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Jun 4, 2007
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This is a good thread, too bad I got to it late.

I too think there is something about "Children of the Corn" that makes it rise to either the top, or near the top, of the list. Haven't seen it in a while, but the premise is solid and intellectually disturbing. Did someone say a studio did a remake of it? I never saw it. I would like to see another, proper remake, maybe a found-footage one, but I hate to even say that because I think King doesn't make any money from the sequels. Maybe he could offer to get involved in one to reassert his profit-participation status? I would love to see his version of a found-footage film with the "Corn" premise. Make for an excellent theatrical/VOD-combo release, like the model used with "A Good Marriage."

Mr. Crandall, I think you are correct -- it must be scary to be deep into a field of corn. I would think it would be a claustrophobic experience, as well. I never truly stopped to imagine what it would feel like to be in the middle of one, but as I do so now, it makes me thankful that I have never ventured into a cornfield. I always knew, however, to stay away from those Halloween corn labyrinths; from what I understand, people do get lost in them, sometimes. Now this makes me really want King to do something with this. He could just write a few thousand words of a treatment, at least. Maybe it could be a cable series, sober in tone like The Walking Dead? A limited one?

We've touched upon the professional versions of Night Shift tales, but how many dollar-baby adaptations have there been? Are any of those good or have led to Hollywood work for the makers?

And I've said this before, but there really should be an anthology, maybe on HBO (but not for the sake of it being free to be overly gory, just for the chance for it to be a quality production) series, based on Night Shift. Would love to see one of his sons maybe tackle this (I think Joe Hill is busy with the Tales From the Darkside TV reboot -- at least, I hope he is still busy with that and that it didn't fall out of development -- so maybe Owen?).
 
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