Iconic horror author Stephen King will see several of his stories transformed for TV and the big screen in the coming months.

Stephen King fans know film and TV adaptations of his books are hit-or-miss — “The Monkey” is one of the good ones.

Stephen King is one of those prolific writers whose scope of work is so vast, and whose better projects are so beloved, that it’s easy to forget about the stuff that isn’t so good. The same is true for all the movies based on his short stories and novels—so many of them,

That introspection served “Longlegs,” one of the best horror films of 2024, well. But “The Monkey,” based on a Stephen King short story, about the son of an absent father who is now a distant father to his own son, seems cheaper. Its thick layer of offhanded glibness masks a profound emptiness of spirit.

With “The Monkey,” there's flashes of what makes director Oz Perkins and original storyteller Stephen King so interesting.

Stephen King entered the zeitgeist of American storytelling a half-century ago, and he has not left it since. Decade after decade, Hollywood has returned to the well that King created and continues to fill it with stories that tap into the fears all around us.

One of the lesser-referenced universal certainties outside of life, death and taxes is the guarantee of at least one new Stephen King adaptation being lined up for an upcoming movie schedule or TV time slot.