With the premiere of “Castle Rock” on Hulu there comes another entry into the ever-expanding universe of Stephen King adaptations. Given that he has written just under 100 novels and too many short stories and novellas to count, it shouldn’t be surprising that his work provides a ton of material for directors and creators. “Castle Rock,” with its three-episode release, works like “Stranger Things.” It’s not a faithful adaptation of the Castle Rock novels–Cujo (1981), The Dead Zone (1979), The Dark Half (1989, and Needful Things (1991). Instead, it relies on the feelings associated with the world of Stephen King.
Having read the majority of those near 100 novels, I can tell you that the Stephen King universe is tangible. If you’ve read enough King, you can open any of his novels and feel at home. The success of “Castle Rock” comes from a meticulous attention to detail in creating that world in a visual medium. Moreover, the series, much like a King novel, builds its characters at a slow pace. There are very few characters in King’s world that can be typecast. They all are built with the care of an artisan designing a one-of-a-kind piece. “Castle Rock” plays out like a novel, and the slowly burning horror of the show is inherent in its attention to detail.
Check out the official trailer for Hulu’s “Castle Rock” here:
With all that said, “Castle Rock” is just another product of an expanding Stephen King Cinematic Universe (SKCU), so watch out Marvel. And if that is the case, if King’s world of horror is coming back with a vengeance, why is it? Why have we decided to dive back into the master of horror with such fervor? I’m not complaining. Trust me. Gerald’s Game (2017), 1922 (2017), and IT (2017) have had me crying with tears of joy on multiple occasions and, yes, they helped me lick my wounds following The Dark Tower (2017). There is an amazing article in The Outline that spoke about the generation that grew up reading Stephen King and how they are reclaiming the work that frightened them. I totally agree. But I want to go further and expand upon this point. It’s not only that King’s fans are grown up, it’s that King’s fiction is about the secrets that we keep from one another and how those private thoughts can be terrifying when they are finally revealed.
Bill Skarsgard as the mysterious stranger around whom the secrets swirl
Privacy went out the door around the same time as VHS and CDs. Once we broke ground on the social network and decided that even our most private thoughts deserved the subjective scrutiny of our friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, we lost a fundamental separation in our society. The unspoken and ever present respect of neighborly independence is gone. If I want to know your beliefs, your thoughts, your hatreds, and your passions I just need to read your feed. I don’t have to know you. I don’t have to care about you. We’ve become so transparent that neo-Nazis can walk the streets without fear of being targeted and gain a great degree of press coverage to top it off. We’ve hit a point in our society where the election sign you stick in your yard will give me a pretty good understanding of your age, religious beliefs, education level, and career path. We’ve broken each other down into our smallest parts and allowed these perceptions to determine our understanding of one another. The secrets are out. The darkness we used to hide spins around us like a cruel specter, a constant reminder that who we are is already known by those we meet.
Night of the Living Dead poster
You’ll find horror sitting in the front row of every cultural shift. Films are paired off easily with their respective cultural debate: Dracula (1931) and the fear of immigrants, Night of the Living Dead (1968) and racism, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) and the plight of the American worker, and It Follows (2014) and STDs. I would, however, add one more to this list: Stephen King and secrecy. Most of King’s work is centered in small town America, the microcosm of our society. His fiction features places like Castle Rock, where the town is beautiful, the people are welcoming, and the secrets that brim beneath the surface elicit a terribly horrific fate. The resurgence of these adaptations has everything to do with the intricate lies that we tell ourselves in order to keep the secrets that comfort us. The little lies that we can’t put on social media, because they would be too real, too frightening. Derry, Maine ignores the disappearances and murders of children in order to continue its isolated, untouched existence. The town must remain pure. We continue to ignore the shots that ring out in the hallways of schools as children die and disappear before our eyes. The constitution must remain pure. These are the secrets that remain. Despite (or is it because of?) the spreading transparency of our networked and 24-hour society, the secrets that we can only confront alone, in the dark, remain.
Andre Holland as Henry Deaver, who is endeavoring to solve some of the mysteries of Castle Rock, but who is himself surrounded by secrets
The resurgence of King adaptations definitely comes from artists looking to reclaim the material that they loved. But it also comes from the ability of the author to capture something timeless and true of our society: as we continue to broadcast our private thoughts and feelings out into the world, the secrets that we keep to ourselves have only continued to get darker and more terrifying. I suppose there is comfort in the fact that King usually allows his heroes to triumph, regardless of the terror that surrounds them. But, then again, it didn’t work out so well for George Bannerman or Thad Beaumont or Johnny Smith. Castle Rock swallowed them right up.
Ethan Robles is a M.A. student at Lehigh University who studies the horror genre in fiction and film. He also has worked in the digital humanities. Outside of academia, he is a creative writer and higher education consultant. You can follow him on Twitter @Roblecop and on Instagram @Robo_gramm.
Ethan has written for Horror Homeroom on Gerald’s Game, Annihilation, and horror documentaries.
For more of Horror Homeroom’s coverage of Stephen King, see posts on “The Raft” from Creepshow 2, The Mist, Cell, Pet Sematary, and “Father’s Day” from Creepshow.
