The Kingcast

The topic once again turns to 11.22.63, Stephen King's epic time travel story in which an average every day teacher is recruited to travel back in time to stop JFK's assassination. It's a tricky thing, messing with time. Turns out the timestream doesn't want to be tinkered with and all sort of weird things happen to our hapless protagonist as he investigates Oswald and a good many of the conspiracy theories before time runs out.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a somewhat overlooked King book about a young girl who gets lost in the Maine wilderness and must survive the elements and maybe even a cruel minor deity in the form of a savage bear as she either stumbles upon rescue or dies trying. A dyed-in-the-wool Red Sox fan, our young protagonist starts imaging her idol, Red Sox's closer, Tom Gordon, is there with her giving her advice along her journey.

The Mist is one of the best Stephen King stories and Frank Darabont made a hell of an adaptation. Both are up for discussion in this week's episode. Also, make sure you head over to Fangoria to cast your ballot for the 2023 Chainsaw Awards (aka the Oscars but with way cooler movies up for awards) by going to https://www.fangoria.com/voting/

Stephen King's The End of the Whole Mess is a slightly different take on the apocalypse from his previous massive entry, The Stand. Here, we're wiped out by the good intentions of a scientist seeking world peace and that he does, but at a pretty dire cost.

Today's episode is brought to you by Blumhouse Productions' There's Something Wrong With The Children (https://www.blumhouse.com/tv) currently available on digital and digital on demand.  The topic of this week's show is Cujo. This story of a lovable family dog that turns rabid and tortures a poor mother and her young son in a tiny Ford Pinto holds up very well and today we dive into why we think that is.

Back in 1992, Mary Lambert followed up her popular adaptation of Stephen King's Pet Sematary with a sequel that is flat out bonkers. Tonal shifts that are so abrupt you'll get whiplash, an already checked out tweenage Eddie Furlong in the lead, a totally confused Anthony Edwards in the kindly dad role, bizarre sex dreams involving naked women with dog heads and that's just the tip of the iceberg. 

What would you do if you could type in any phrase into a mysterious (and janky) computer and it would become reality? '80s Stephen King posits that the best thing to do is totally erase your jerk family members and replace them with a new loved ones.

Cycle of the Werewolf began life as a calendar that evolved into a novella penned by Stephen King and illustrated by the late, great Berni Wrightson. King himself penned the screenplay for the 1985 adaptation that the hosts of this show think is pretty good, but wasn't accepted by critics or audiences upon release. 

Wizard and Glass is a demarcation line in Stephen King's magnum opus: The Dark Tower. At the forefront is a tragic story of young love that left the series's lead character a cruel, empty shell of a man. Book IV of The Dark Tower series ups the stakes and bonds our beloved Ka-Tet even further.

Battleground is a simple story of a hitman fighting a bunch of revenge-seeking little green army men toys that King originally published in Playboy before rolling into his short story collection Skeleton Crew.