When Jack Nicholson starred in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of "The Shining," the horror stigma surrounding Stephen King temporarily disappeared in Hollywood. Though he tended to write pulpy, gory fictions, if the A-list team of Kubrick and Nicholson deemed his material worthy of a major motion picture, perhaps there was box office and awards glory to be mined from his other books (which the prolific author was pumping out at an astonishing pace).

This notion would be challenged something fierce throughout the 1980s. While esteemed directors like David Cronenberg and Rob Reiner earned favorable reviews for, respectively, "The Dead Zone" and "Stand by Me," critics had little use for "Cujo," "Firestarter," "Children of the Corn," "Silver Bullet," "Pet Sematary," and the King-directed "Maximum Overdrive." Really, if not for Reiner's "Stand by Me," the prestige-picture potential of a King tale might've been blotted out completely.

This was the Hollywood state...