Poets & Writers Theater

“He’s been such a mirror for pop culture, but now he’s his own pop culture.” In this trailer for King on Screen, a documentary about the many film and television adaptations of Stephen King’s stories and novels, directors and screenwriters discuss what makes King the master of horror.

The Fall of the House of Usher is a gothic horror drama miniseries created by Mike Flanagan based on the short story of the same name and other works by Edgar Allan Poe. Starring Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, and Mary McConnell, the eight-episode series follows the demise of the uber-wealthy Usher family, as their heirs mysteriously die one after another.

In this Charis Circle virtual event celebrating the essay anthology It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror (Feminist Press, 2022), editor Joe Vallese speaks with contributors Sumiko Saulson, Richard Scott Larson, Addie Tsai, and Jude Ellison S. Doyle about the relationship between horror and queerness. The collection is featured in The Anthologist in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

For a haunting Halloween treat, watch the trailer for Bones and All, a film adaptation of the award-winning 2015 novel of the same name by Camille DeAngelis. Directed by Luca Guadagnino with a screenplay by David Kajganich, the film stars Taylor Russell, Timothée Chalamet, and Mark Rylance.

Looking for something eerie to watch? The Haunting of Bly Manor is a supernatural horror drama loosely based on Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. The Netflix series created by Mike Flanagan stars Carla Gugino, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, T’Nia Miller, Victoria Pedretti, Kate Siegel, and Henry Thomas.

Dracula is a new BBC/Netflix television adaptation of Bram Stoker’s classic 1897 gothic horror novel. Created by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, the three-episode miniseries stars Claes Bang in the title role, along with Morfydd Clark, John Heffernan, and Dolly Wells.

In the Tall Grass is a film adaptation of a novella of the same name written by Stephen King and his son Joe Hill, first published in Esquire magazine in 2012. The horror film, which follows a brother and sister as they venture into a field of grass in Kansas and find themselves trapped, is directed by Vincenzo Natali and stars Laysla De Oliveira, Harrison Gilbertson, Avery Whitted, and Patrick Wilson.

Stephen King’s novel Doctor Sleep (Scribner, 2013), the sequel to his 1977 classic The Shining, has been adapted into a feature film directed by Mike Flanagan. The movie picks up the story several decades later as a grown-up Danny Torrance, played by Ewan McGregor, meets a young girl with psychic powers similar to his own that he tries to protect from a supernatural cult of murderous nomads.