Stephen King Still Owns Horror — Here’s Why No One Can Replace Him | Original Geek | S1E14

How the Master of Horror became the ultimate Geek King

Stephen King didn’t just write horror — he defined it. From Carrie to It, The Shining to Shawshank, King’s stories built an entire universe of fear, magic, and monsters that shaped every geek kid who ever stayed up too late with a flashlight and a paperback.

In this episode, Steve Scarfo and Jeff Shaw — your resident Gen X geeks — dive headfirst into the Stephen King multiverse: the books, the movies, the flops, and the freaky brilliance that made him the undisputed King of Nightmares.

Featuring Joey Quartuccio for the GEEK FLASHBACK!

“If you survived Derry, hit follow.”

Welcome to Original Geek—the podcast for anyone who rolled their first d20 on shag carpet, waited hours for a comic book JPEG to load on dial-up, and wore the label “geek” back when it got you mocked, not monetized.

Hosted by stand-up comic Steve Scarfo and Forever DM Jeff Shaw, we dive deep into what it meant to be a geek in the '70s and '80s—and how that underground culture became the mainstream multiverse we live in today.

🎙️ Subscribe for weekly episodes on Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, comic book chaos, geek court debates, and critical hits from your childhood basement.

👾 Follow us @OriginalGeekPodcast on socials and visit OriginalGeekPodcast.com for merch, extras, and to send us your own geeky tales.

 If you ever hid a Monster Manual like it was porn, you’re not alone. You’re an Original Geek. Welcome home.

Transcript

Steve Scarfo (00:19)
All right, welcome to Original Geek, the podcast for anyone who rolled dice in a basement, waited all night long to download comic book covers, and proudly wore the label of geek back when it could get you shoved into a locker. Each week, we're gonna dive into what it meant to be a geek in the 70s and 80s and how that compares to today's pop culture multiverse. We are your hosts, two of the Gen X survivors who didn't just watch geek culture evolve, we lived through every awkward phase. Hi, I'm Steve Scarfo.

Jeff (00:47)
I'm Jeff Shaw and we'll be your psychic gift unlocking today's terrifying truth. However, before we can do that, I think I need to correct something.

Steve Scarfo (00:57)
Yeah, unfortunately.

we made it a couple episodes ⁓ without one.

Jeff (01:08)
Yeah, we did. ⁓

This one's big for me because, I've talked about ⁓ my memory not always being the best. Well, this time I'm actually worried that I might have some dementia. I don't know what's going on, but when I talked about Mothra in the last episode and laying on the egg and the egg burst, of course, moths, I could not think of the term larva.

So I said snail. But larva would have been better. And then I'm like, no, snail's not quite right. So I said caterpillar.

Steve Scarfo (01:38)
you said worm.

Jeff (01:44)
and then it becomes a moth. No, caterpillars become butterflies. This was a silk moth and these were silk worms. And that wasn't just white goo it was covering Godzilla with, it was silk. All of which is incredibly obvious, but at the time, and like on one of those game shows, like the persons, the contestants like knows the answer, just can't think of it. So in a panic, I thought of...

Two terms that wouldn't work. could have said larva. I could have said worm. I said snail and caterpillar. So that is my canon correction. Sorry. And everyone disappointing in my mental acuity, ⁓ you have good reason to.

Steve Scarfo (02:21)
That's okay.

Well listen, ⁓ if I were on my game for the last episode, I could be even giving you shit right now, but I can't, because I was not. Because I was listening back to the last episode, and I made the ridiculous claim that there are no new creatures. You did. ⁓ If you were listening to the last episode, I did have a cold, and I was ⁓ not on the top of my mental acuity any more than you were. And I was.

Jeff (02:42)
tried to tell you.

Steve Scarfo (02:53)
And literally every time I'm like, but there's no new monsters. You're like, no, shape of water. And then the goro, and I'm like, yeah. And somehow I just was so stuck on this idea that there are no new like major, whatever it was, I was just out of my mind wrong about it.

Jeff (03:08)
Right, and then all the

Kaiju in all of these films, a lot of them are new.

Steve Scarfo (03:12)
Every, dude, there's like a hundred examples of why

I was wrong and anybody who was listening to the last episode before this can of correction will be questioning my sanity. ⁓ So I apologize as well. ⁓ I will blame the cold, but I just was not there.

Jeff (03:22)
Bye now.

No mistakes to

made today though, because our topic today, we're gonna nail it.

Steve Scarfo (03:33)
Yes. Today is a topic. And you know, we've talked about this a lot. We're talking about Stephen King, people. This is one of my favorite authors. I can't say I have one favorite because, you know, to me, an author for a fantasy novel like Robert Jordan is a lot different than a horror master like Stephen King. So I would never pick one over the other. But at the top of the horror list for me is in suspense is definitely Stephen King.

⁓ This is probably one of the very first non-fantasy related authors that I read. I remember distinctly when I was in the Army, ⁓ someone had a copy of the Stand and we were on a bivouac as they call it. We were out in the woods for a couple of weeks doing a maneuver so when you had downtime there was not much to do.

and someone had this copy of The Stand and it went through like 12 of us reading it and it was the first one I read and I absolutely fell in love with him and the storytelling. And let's not even, well we will, but like that doesn't even include the movie TV adaptations which we're going to talk about more today.

Jeff (04:47)
Yeah, I am ⁓ Of course now what I have how am I coughing? How dare you? ⁓ Dare you ⁓ So I think it's interesting ⁓ Is that in my recollection in our last episode of the creature double feature that I wasn't into horror and that that happened when I was a teen and I looked back on ⁓

Steve Scarfo (04:54)
I gave you a cold through the show. I don't know how that works.

Jeff (05:14)
on the movies I remember watching first. And it came out in the 83. So I don't know if I saw them in the theater. can't imagine. I would have, would have been 12 or 13 in 83. And that, I remember watching, I think it's the, the dead zone. Yeah. Dead zone was 83 and fire. No, Christine. So Christine and dead zone. I watched both of those and

I must have watched them on tape though, because I can't imagine being allowed to go in. But yeah, I think my entry into Stephen King was Christine and Dead Zone movies, not the books. ⁓ I think what probably brought me into the books was, because I liked fantasy, was he wrote a fantasy book called The Eyes of the Dragon. And I think that's what, I'm like, well.

Wow, this isn't horror. It's not, you know, so he writes more than horror. And I think he often gets, you know, pigeonholed into horror. But like the Dark Tower series is fantasy, it's sci-fi, it's Western, it's got elements from a variety of topics. And then Stand By Me, that movie, based on his short story, The Body, and that's not.

Steve Scarfo (06:30)
Yeah.

Jeff (06:41)
I mean, there's a dead body, yes, but like it's not a horror movie. Like it's just a coming of age type movie. And ⁓ so he writes a lot of different genres. And ⁓ then ⁓ finally, even when it is horror, it has these other elements to it where it's not just about like a jump scare. Because the dead zone, like that whole concept, like he can touch someone, the

Steve Scarfo (06:49)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff (07:10)
the main character can touch someone and see their future, right? That's the concept, yeah. So like that's more of like an X-Files type thing.

Steve Scarfo (07:15)
Yeah. Yeah, and...

Yeah, and in that one, it was all about someone who would become president and destroy the world, right? Which isn't a horror type of thing. There's no creature, there's no vampire or, you know, Godzilla from last week. It's, most often the horror of it, the evil of it is, sometimes there's some supernatural to it, like the ability to touch and see isn't, it's not what it's about, but that's what causes it.

Jeff (07:32)
yeah, yeah.

Steve Scarfo (07:48)
And that's where he always has that twist. And I loved Eyes of the Dragon, but even that had a, it has that Stephen King touch. He just wrote another one, not, last year came out, which was awesome too, called Fairy Tale. I don't if you've read that one. ⁓ That's a phenomenal book, but same idea. It's not truly a horror, but it's got his dark touch to it. You know, some of the characters in the fairy tale world ⁓ have different appearances and they've been touched by evil a bit. ⁓

Jeff (07:54)
Yeah.

Yeah,

and I love the X-Men comic books and Firestarter kind of reminded me of a mutant movie, like a superpower that gets out of control.

Steve Scarfo (08:26)
Yeah, I mean, even Christine was, it was a car. Now they, you know, the theory, or I guess the through line is that it's been possessed, but it's a car that has a mind of its own. And, you know, it's just a car, but it can do other things that cars can't do. ⁓ He does have his, you know, Salem's Lot is a traditional, not traditional, but it's a vampire story. So he does do all that.

Jeff (08:36)
Mm-hmm.

Yes. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (08:55)
but I think that's one of the reasons why I hold him apart from other horror. ⁓ I've honestly not read other horror authors. I've seen a lot of horror movies, but when it comes to suspense, the bizarre, the evil, and even in The Stand, which I found, I've actually read, I think I've read it three times. I read the original version once and I've read the extended version twice.

And then there were two different TV shows. It's one of my favorite stories from him. But it starts off with us doing it to ourselves. It's a pandemic. And then this power rises from that and how do people survive it? And there's a couple, there's like a good versus evil that arises from it, but ⁓ it's not about horror specifically. All right. ⁓ We do have a guest coming in here for the next segment. So do you have anything else you want to do just for Steve in general?

I call him Steve, like I know him.

Jeff (09:49)
Yeah, no, but I it's funny when you mentioned that you don't really read a lot of horror That's true for me too. Like when I go into a bookstore Back when we did the bookstores when I go into the nook store online ⁓ I'm gravitating towards other genres not horror and So somehow like he broke through and I think he broke through for a lot of people that his ⁓ He's so prolific

And he writes in different genres. it's not, and he was, don't think he, like other than, yeah, Salem's Lot, some of those are classic horror stories. But I think a lot of it is psychology. it's, you know, like one of the reasons a lot of people like Shakespeare and why he survived for hundreds of years is because of an understanding of the human mind, the psychology. And we just need, like, how does this happen that someone could snap?

So we're reading Hamlet, you know, centuries later, and I would not doubt that Stephen King's legacy lasts in a kind of a similar fashion. Not all 100 of his books, maybe, but there are certain, you know, certain books that I think stand the test of time and things like The Shining. And ⁓ it's just that ability to kind of express our, you know, the human psychology.

and tap into what makes us tick. I think that really, ⁓ that's really his success.

Steve Scarfo (11:25)
Yeah, yeah, I've been trying to figure out where to tuck this in. We talked about it before we started recording. So I was trying to get a list to talk about today, a complete list of Stephen King movies and books. And if you've been listening at all, you know I'm a fan of GPT, chatGPT. So I went to my study buddy, my research assistant, chatGPT, and said, hey, give me a full list of every movie or TV show based on Stephen King.

And Chat GPT got confounded. Stephen King is so prolific. This is actually what I said. I can't pull together every single film adaptation of Stephen King's work into one full list. There are dozens, including very obscure ones, but here are some major ones with years for your reference. Stephen King has so many movies and TV shows based on his works. ⁓ And then I asked for a list of books, same. It wouldn't give me a full list of books. It directed me to Wikipedia.

But apparently it's like 65 novels over 200 short stories. So when you can break AI as a human author, to me that is the epitome, right? That's phenomenal. I think that's hysterical and I love it. All right, we are gonna jump into our geek flashback. We have a guest coming in and we'll have him here in a second.

Jeff (12:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (12:46)
All right, as I mentioned, we have a guest with us today. This is Joey Quartuccio, a good friend of the family. His kids and our kids go to school together, but also, and more importantly, a big Stephen King fan. So Joey, this is my buddy Jeff. Jeff, this is Joey. I'm gonna go like that.

Joseph (12:58)
Yeah.

How's it going, man?

Jeff (13:02)
Hey, Joey.

So, ⁓ Joey, either your genes are just superior to ours or are you not Gen X? you? Have we invited another generation in?

Joseph (13:15)
I might be a little younger, but not a whole lot, not a whole lot.

Jeff (13:19)
Okay.

Steve Scarfo (13:20)
I think you're saying that to make us feel better, Joe. And I appreciate it, but you have. If you're more than 35, I will fall off this chair.

Jeff (13:25)
Well, I didn't know if we're going to get a millennial angle here.

Joseph (13:28)
yeah, yeah. Probably millennium.

Jeff (13:31)
Nice.

Joseph (13:36)
I am, I'm 39. Yeah. I'm in luck there. I'm in luck there. My whole family's bald, so I don't know what's happening. It's coming.

Steve Scarfo (13:38)
Alright really? Well now I'm even more mad cause you still have all your hair.

Jeff (13:39)
Good genes, Joey, good genes.

Steve Scarfo (13:43)
Still a generation.

Jeff (13:50)
You see your future.

Steve Scarfo (13:52)
guess.

Joseph (13:52)
Yeah, it's

coming. ⁓

Steve Scarfo (13:56)
Awesome, so we're obviously we're talking Stephen King today ⁓ and ⁓ you know, you and I were chatting ⁓ before the show yesterday a little bit. tell us, ⁓ we just did our sort of intro and what brought us into Stephen King. So tell us a little bit about ⁓ your ⁓ interest with King and how you're, yeah, how you came to be part of it.

Jeff (13:56)
Nice.

Joseph (14:18)
Yeah, no.

I mean, his movies have always been all over the TV since before I was born. Like and my mom actually had a huge library dedicated to just his books, like in the downstairs of our house up in Maine. We only lived 40 minutes from Bangor where his house is. And my my mother was actually friends with Tabitha for a short period of time. I swear I met him when I was younger.

because my mom has a story of me asking him about if he ever wrote any books about dinosaurs and he just kind of laughed and patted me on the head.

Jeff (14:51)
Ha ha ha ha

Steve Scarfo (14:52)
That's awesome. Isn't that one of those things though too, right? We all have done stuff when we were kids and you look back and you go, I had no idea that that was the situation I was in. And you're like, how could you, I was just talking to somebody else, same exact kind of thing. Something happened to them when they were a kid that if it happened today, they would lose their minds over because you get to meet Stephen King and ask him.

Joseph (15:02)
Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's weird.

Jeff (15:16)
And I love that you said your mom had a

library of Stephen King and we actually just before this segment, Steve pulled up a list of of his books and collections of short stories. And yes, you could fill a small library with just Stephen King.

Joseph (15:31)
And I just,

yeah, I remember being a little kid and looking up at the shelves and just seeing Stephen King, Stephen King, Stephen King, Stephen, like she was, she's upset. I mean, she's still obsessed, but I just remember it wholeheartedly as a kid.

Steve Scarfo (15:46)
But yeah, he...

Jeff (15:46)
So was your entrance

⁓ his books? Did you start with books or did you start with films or ⁓ adaptations?

Joseph (15:52)
Now I'm more

of a film guy. The It miniseries with Tim Curry was like top tier TV when I was a kid and I was like the coolest thing. And my kids are super obsessed with that stuff too now so like we're watching all that and stuff and it's just great.

Jeff (15:58)
you

⁓ God.

So you are probably about 10 years old or not even. Oh my God.

Joseph (16:15)
⁓ Yeah, probably not even no my mom let me watch anything like we

we we went She did not care. She'd set like, know, I mean to be fair It was probably TV edited and stuff like that too, but she definitely had Yeah, so I mean there wasn't anything Yeah, there wasn't anything too horrible going on. But ⁓ you know anything I didn't understand whatever

Jeff (16:29)
It was made for TV. yeah. Yeah, it was regular broadcast TV.

Yeah, no, totally. And like one thing we had mentioned last week is a lot of like horror didn't show you that like the knife going into the body and neither did that. So I just I was just rewatching that classic it from, I think, 1989. And, you know, the first girl that disappears, you see the clown, then it cuts and you see the the turned over bike with a little bit of blood on it.

Joseph (16:54)
Yeah.

yeah.

Jeff (17:10)
And that's

Joseph (17:10)
Yeah, yeah, that's it. It's very, very, ⁓ very easy going compared to stuff now. So it's not a big.

Steve Scarfo (17:11)
Yeah.

Jeff (17:17)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (17:18)
goodness, Yeah, Georgie in his yellow slicker, the rain slicker.

Joseph (17:22)
Mm-hmm.

Which, Bob, yeah.

Steve Scarfo (17:25)
⁓

Jeff (17:25)
Yeah.

Good for you.

Steve Scarfo (17:27)
So

did you ever go back and read it after seeing the TV shows So Young?

Joseph (17:28)
there.

⁓ I actually never, I've read a few of his books, but surprisingly not it. I might have to, my wife read it and she, she, it took her a while too. He's a thousand page book. It was, ⁓ yeah, it's pretty good. It's definitely a lot different than the movie from what I've heard.

Jeff (17:47)
Yes.

Steve Scarfo (17:51)
yeah. Yeah, there's something about the way it's presented, and we talked about this in the first segment a little bit about how he's not always straight horror. It's not always creature and, this one is a little bit more about fear, and typically the fears of kids revolve around some creature type stuff, but ⁓ it's more intense, I think, in the book because you, you know, in his writing,

Joseph (18:05)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Scarfo (18:16)
really dives into the psyche of each character and you get to know each one of these people a lot more so than when you're watching. So yeah, definitely. ⁓

Joseph (18:25)
He's a good character

creator.

Steve Scarfo (18:29)
They always have some weird thing.

Jeff (18:29)
So,

Joey and for our listeners and viewers, a sneak peek into our ⁓ debate, which is what's better, the adaptations with the films and the series or the books? It sounds like you're landing on the side of what I'm going to be arguing, that those film adaptations and movie TV adaptations are fantastic. Do you have a favorite adaptation?

Joseph (18:49)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, this is.

I like the older one better just because childhood nostalgia, obviously, but also Tim Curry. ⁓ He brought he brought a level of comedy to it that the new ones, obviously they wanted away with the comedy aspect of it, which I get. But at the same time, that gives it a better personality that he was goofy. mean, he was a clown. You're supposed to be kind of goofy, I'm assuming, right? Like.

Jeff (19:04)
⁓ I know.

Yeah.

Joseph (19:21)
But

the Bill Skarsgard ones, which are good, don't get me wrong, he did a very good job, but he's too reasonable and scary as opposed to Tim Curry just being kind of a maniac, just screwing with these kids. Yeah.

Jeff (19:34)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (19:36)
Well, and I think the Tim Curry version, and maybe again it's because of the nostalgia and I read it so long ago, I think it jives better with the ⁓ characterization because he was a clown and he was trying to tease these kids into, so to come out just menacing would only scare them away, but I feel like in the book he drew them in and then terrified them. ⁓

Joseph (19:47)
OK, yeah.

Steve Scarfo (20:03)
So I just still remember his laugh. ⁓ like it was so deliberately awkward ⁓ that it was just amazing.

Joseph (20:07)
Hahaha ⁓

You know Me and

my wife actually met Tim Curry at a comic-con like I want to say Six or so years ago to at the Boston Comic-Con So that was cool There we got a picture

Jeff (20:19)
Wow.

That's awesome.

Steve Scarfo (20:24)
that would have been awesome.

Jeff (20:27)
Was he there presenting any specific work? Okay.

Joseph (20:30)
No, I think it was just

him, just him there, know, icon.

Jeff (20:35)
Yeah,

that's awesome

Steve Scarfo (20:38)
It's funny in the way of King is with the writing, he's just one of those people, it doesn't matter what he's there for, people are just gonna wanna see him because he's done so much. ⁓

Jeff (20:49)
You know, rewatching that old, um, it series, the original one from 89, I can believe Seth Green was in that. I don't know if you know that actor, Seth Green. Like, yeah, he was one of the kids. Right. And yeah, he was a comedian, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's like perfect. But yeah.

Steve Scarfo (20:49)
I loved him in this for sure.

Joseph (21:00)
yeah, yeah, little kid. He was like the oldest kid. ⁓ Richie. Was it Richie? Yeah, he was the smartass, yeah.

Steve Scarfo (21:05)
I didn't know that.

my God, that's awesome.

Joseph (21:14)
I know,

think that's one of his first roles and it's a perfect role for him.

Jeff (21:20)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Steve Scarfo (21:21)
That's fantastic.

All right.

Thank you for joining us. It was a quick visit, but ⁓ love your perspective and the histories. ⁓ Listen, just for the record, the books are better. Jeff and I are about to fight that out.

Joseph (21:35)
I mean, maybe

I, yeah, I was gonna say I need to do some reading. I'm very lazy when it comes to reading, sadly.

Jeff (21:43)
No, for my own point of, for my case. You've made my case, Joey. Thank you. Because you had all those books at your fingertips and you chose the movies. Nice.

Joseph (21:48)
Yeah

Steve Scarfo (21:50)
it is kind of funny.

Joseph (21:54)
I did, did. I had all the books,

Steve Scarfo (21:55)
Hehehehe

Joseph (21:56)
probably

multiple different versions, and I was like, you know what? Tim Curry's looking pretty good right now. I think I'm gonna go that way.

Steve Scarfo (22:02)
That's the best. All right. Well, thanks for joining the show. We will talk to you soon. Don't jump off just yet though.

Joseph (22:10)
Awesome.

Yeah. Have a good day, Yep.

Jeff (22:11)
All right, thank you, Joey.

Steve Scarfo (22:22)
All right, well, we talked a little bit about it with Joey. ⁓ So here we are, book versus movie, the ultimate throwdown. I know which way you're going, so I'm gonna let you do your best. I'll let you start this one off.

Jeff (22:35)
Really? Okay, so I have to defend

the adaptation. So let's be clear here with what the ask is, because I think, what, you know, if I can't defend all the movies and all that, like there's over 70 and, a fair amount of them are misses. They are just not as good as the original material in, and, you know, we're going to.

talk about and so I'm gonna bury this one right away. The Dark Tower is our epic fail. You're not allowed to bring that one up because we've got to talk about it ⁓ However, there are some that do a fantastic job. In fact, I think in some cases are better than the story it's based on. Stand By Me, is there. So there's a short

Steve Scarfo (23:06)
He's burying the lead.

The dark tower. Okay.

Jeff (23:30)
story called The Body about a group of boys that discover a body in the woods. And Stand By Me takes that and blows it up. So I think the reason a lot of his movies aren't as successful is because when you try to take a thousand page book and make a two hour movie, you're going to miss so much content. But when you take a 20 page short story and you turn it into a two hour movie, you're able to get

deeper into the characters and their motivations and really develop the story Shawshank Redemption. Same thing based on a short story. So my primary evidence is movies like Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me being able to be better than the written source. And then we do have a few.

adaptations that I feel are as good as the source material and in some cases improves upon it. It the second series with the Skarsgard as Pennywise the in the book. The way they defeat Pennywise that is where the movie's better. So Stephen King admits that he is a gardener writer.

Steve Scarfo (24:37)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff (24:50)
He plants the seeds and he lets it grow and it's kind of organic and he's not an architect that he knows how it's going to end. And I think he maybe he doesn't admit it with 'It' But I know in general he has admitted that he doesn't always care about the endings and he just wraps things up. But the ending of 'It' like before they can defeat it in the book they have underage sex so that they can get empowered.

Steve Scarfo (25:16)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff (25:19)
And then they literally, yeah, exactly. So, and then they literally like tear, physically defeat Pennywise and the eggs of Pennywise's brood. But in the movie, they don't do that underage sex thing of empowerment and coming of age, coming of age. they, instead, they psychologically,

Steve Scarfo (25:19)
Well, it's their coming of age moment.

Jesus.

Jeff (25:47)
you know, conquer their fears and that conquers Pennywise. So that's my evidence. I can't offend all of the adaptations. I can only bring up some evidence, which I think is what this court case is about, that there are adaptations that are as good or better than the books. Your turn.

Steve Scarfo (26:08)
I could almost hear like a now you have to understand counselor. I can hear you going ⁓ So I don't disagree with with that. I do think that some of his endings are weaker ⁓ and again, he does make fun of himself sometimes for it, but ⁓ The exact reason you feel like some of those movies are misses is the reason why I like the books better ⁓

I do love the adaptation. The Skarsgard did a great job. That was a great series. We're gonna talk about the new series here during our random review, but which is brand new content, which is even kind of a new thing, right? It's based on his stuff, but it's not based on an actual thing he wrote. I'm honestly not even sure how much he's had involved with the specifics of that particular version, but when you read those books,

And I talked about it, we talked about it when Joey was on, that something about the way he evolves the story, the way he writes his prose, the characters that he creates, their little idiosyncrasies, he develops characters in a way that very few other writers that I've read anyway can do. Where you feel like you fully know these people because you, it's like when you sit in a room with somebody and you notice they have like a little nervous tick, like in a movie they wouldn't show that because it's not.

know, germane to big screen adaptations, right? But in the story in the book, that little tick might become something huge later in the story because that's the reason this happened. And it's a tick because of this situation that you don't find out till page 876. And I mentioned it earlier on, like, I love the stand to the point where I've read it three times. And it is just such a well-written book. Now will say there's a little bit of self-servingness in that too.

It's part of that story starts off in Kennebunk, Maine, and they go down through Berwick, and he literally describes streets we've been on. And there's a realism to me about, okay, this is a story of an apocalypse that starts right near our hometown of Wells, Maine. And that part was also like an amazing twist. And they talk about it in the movie. They did a TV show, I think it was on Showtime a couple years ago, ⁓ which was one of the.

Jeff (28:10)
Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (28:30)
It was better than the original movie that they did, that adaptation of The Stand was great. ⁓ But yeah, I think the fact that you miss some of that in the adaptations is why I prefer the books. I'm not gonna say I don't like the adaptations, but I do prefer the book. I think book wins just because you lose so much. And it's not just Stephen King. I think that's true of most adaptations. ⁓ I will always prefer the story from the book. And in fact, some of them, I think we've talked about.

just completely missed the mark. And obviously there's a lot of his that have as well. ⁓ I do in a weird ⁓ kind of crossover and I think it was called Four Past Midnight Was The Collection was where I first read the story of the Langoliers. And it's one of my favorite short stories. I was ⁓ at one point someone who thought they might be able to write a script and have realized that I just don't have the discipline for it. Thought that this would make a great movie.

Jeff (29:15)
Yep.

Steve Scarfo (29:28)
and then they went ahead and made a movie of it. ⁓ So ⁓ it was very cool to see that connection between material that I really enjoyed and wanted to see visually that they then went and made. And I think they did a really good job on that one. That had Bronson Pinchot as the character. I forget the the character's name, but he was the one that ends up going the most crazy.

Jeff (29:50)
Yeah.

natural 20.

Steve Scarfo (29:57)
Natural 20.

I think it's funny. I just saw you ⁓ kind of holding up your shirt and I didn't actually, I didn't do this on purpose. I, Roland Dice builds character and you have a dice Roland shirt on too. That's hysterical. All right, the, ⁓ well, and we all know the history there.

Jeff (30:02)
Yes, I'm representing Roland Dice. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, and it says because I'm the DM.

Steve Scarfo (30:20)
So this is our second random review and ⁓ we liked it so much. Hopefully you guys enjoy the segment. If you missed the last one, here's the deal. We have a chart. There are 12 categories, ⁓ all based on the die roll of a D20. And whatever I roll, Jeff will have to pick that and defend the question that came with it. ⁓ For those of you who might be interested in watching.

I am going to share my screen so you'll get a sense of what it is we're doing. So here's our list. It's our random review. ⁓ I jumped off random review. There we go. So here we go. This is the things we're gonna talk about. So depending on what we roll, we talk about what's the topic and then we'll answer the question. All right. I'm on the stop.

Jeff (31:17)
Go

for it. Roll me up.

Steve Scarfo (31:18)
Here we go, Jeff.

I'm gonna roll who I rolled you an 11. I don't know how blurry that's gonna be. There it is. It's an 11. So for an 11, it's a performance check, Jeff, for the 1960s aesthetic and the score. Can you analyze the period specific details, clothing, music, cars? Did the show successfully recreate 1962 or did it feel like really generic?

Jeff (31:26)
Hey.

Uh, this absolutely, um, I think is a, is a, is a great performance. So I rolled an 11, succeeded my performance check and so did it. Welcome to Derry. Um, it does have, it definitely feels like that time period. Uh, there's the, um, you know, right from, you know, kind of the, the, the get-go in that, in that movie theater and they're, they're watching it they've got this usher that comes down. He's got a flashlight and.

⁓ the kids running away and he's hitchhiking, this little kid is hitchhiking, trying to get out of Derry and he gets picked up by this old card, all the costumes. ⁓ The music score at that time is The Music Man, which I've never seen. ⁓ And when they're talking about, and you talk about placing it in a moment, but also connecting it.

in a way to today. I always love these reminders that we have to think, today, kids have these stupid things they say like six, seven. And then that song score and the music man, they're saying things like, swell, aren't they? And they're buckling their knickerbockers below the knees. And you hear them chewing their gum. And it's like, we got trouble. It starts with a T. And it's

Steve Scarfo (33:04)
Yeah.

We got trouble right here in River City.

Jeff (33:13)
all the whole rant about the young kids these days, and none of it is that bad. And I just think, you flash forward to people like six, seven, it's such a, it is a stupid thing to say, but I mean, like we've always had those complaints. So I feel like it was really great job there. And then plus ⁓ the layer of menace in that culture that also gets

magnified by the racism that's there ⁓ because of the way they treat the black characters. that was something that they had to worry about. just because, and I'm not saying that that doesn't happen today, but I mean, it was just so prevalent. And ⁓ it was a bit of that menace.

and I felt like they really created the 1962 really well. So that's my random review. It's a win.

Steve Scarfo (34:16)
I

love it, that was great. The only thing I wanna add that I liked, I don't think we have a question about it, so I don't think I'm gonna hurt anything, is in the movies they show the Paul Bunyan statue in current Derry, and I love that in the show they show it being built.

Jeff (34:27)
Yeah.

⁓ nice. Yeah, that is cool. All right, I'll roll for you.

Steve Scarfo (34:34)
which connects the two together, which is really cool.

All right,

roll for me. Let's see what we got.

Jeff (34:43)
Let's see, you, ⁓ Steve, you failed your dexterity check with a five, sorry, five, yes, sleight of hand failed. And this is the Dick Halloran crossover. Did including a character from The Shining feel like a genuine tie into the Stephen King universe? Or was this just a cheap Easter egg that didn't serve the plot? So, ⁓

Steve Scarfo (34:50)
⁓

Jeff (35:11)
You can talk about this either way. You can go mixed. Is this a cheap Easter egg or is it complex? Does it actually serve a plot function with his psychic gifts utilized by the military? Or is this just a gimmick, a nod to the super fan? Your choice.

Steve Scarfo (35:32)
Do you know, so here's the best part of this question for me. I actually didn't make that connection right away. That it was the same character. That the Dick Halloran character, like the psychic, the use of a psychic component in Stephen King is pretty prevalent, right? He has a lot of characters who have some kind, we were talking about it with the dead zone. you could, there's a psychic component, so it didn't necessarily click to me right away, because I.

Jeff (35:41)
Yeah

Steve Scarfo (36:01)
It's been forever since I've seen The Shining. I don't think I've ever actually read The Shining as much as I love the books. ⁓ So I didn't make that connection that Dick Halloran was the same character. And so I think in that way it maybe was a little more nod to a lower level of subculture for folks who are ⁓ maybe a little bit more into the connections between the books. ⁓ I just pointed out one not thinking it would be a...

A crossover to this question, but it turns out it kind of was. the connect, I like the connection between the two. Obviously this is an it to it connection I was talking about. But the idea of that psychic connection is I think very much at the root of this particular story. It has to be, ⁓ it's what brings it to that Stephen King level, right? There's this malevolence of some sort in the town. And we see that from the minute the show starts.

Jeff (36:32)
Ha

Steve Scarfo (36:59)
I was hoping one of us would have gotten one of the gory questions in talking about some of that stuff. But I love the fact that they're giving it a grounding, and I'm gonna call it a grounding, in more reality of there's a guy who's like, know, psychics help the cops all the time. Well, the Army has a psychic trying to get them to figure out where is this energy or power coming from?

Jeff (37:02)
Ha

Steve Scarfo (37:25)
and they do talk a little bit more about it. So I think they're trying to give Pennywise in this evil a history. ⁓ We should have started with a spoiler alert. Just because this is an ongoing show, when we record this episode three just dropped last night. So I still haven't watched episode three. So I love it. I think the connection is good. I missed the connection to The Shining. ⁓

But I'm happy to know that it's there because again, I love crossover stuff. We've talked about that before. But yeah.

Jeff (37:56)
Well, yeah, and

so I'm just gonna kind of build on that and agree with you because Stephen King himself does this all the time. He has a connected universe. mean, the whole concept of the Dark Tower book series is how everything is connected in his universe. Like these books stand alone that you don't have to read. Yeah, you wouldn't have to, you know, have read The Shining.

or seen it to appreciate it, welcome to Derry. But for those who did and made the connections, which I also, ⁓ when I've watched the very first episode, I'm like, what's up with that guy? I didn't know who he was, so I looked up what his character was, like, ⁓ he's from The Shining. But it's been so long since I read and watched the movie, I don't remember him saying like he was in the military, like, so I don't know. But I'm okay with it if this was.

not what Stephen King intended for his Halloran character because it's true to his universe having these interconnections. And I wouldn't be surprised if we see something else pop up in one of these later episodes. So I think it's true to Stephen King, true to his universe. I think it works.

Steve Scarfo (39:13)
All right, so there we go, random review. if you like our review, jump online, give it a like, give us a follow, ask any questions. OriginalGeekPodcast@gmail.com, check out OriginalGeekPodcast.com. And we have a new Stephen King inspired shirt that it will drop ⁓ today.

Jeff (39:34)
It's so good.

Steve Scarfo (39:36)
Huh?

Jeff (39:36)
It's so good.

Steve Scarfo (39:38)
This is one of my favorites. I'm gonna do a quick screen share for those of you watching. You guys have got to check this one out. ⁓ This is our new merch. It is the King of Nightmares. And if you're just listening, it's a silhouette of somebody sitting. You just see glowing red eyes with a show of Raven on his shoulder. He's all black in the shadows. He's sitting on a throne of paperbacks.

Jeff (39:41)
Ha ha.

Steve Scarfo (40:04)
and books all around him with the typewriter out front and video tapes. And it says, raised on paperbacks and panic, we're all geek down here, which is a beautiful nod to it.

Jeff (40:14)
We're all geeked down here

is my favorite part.

Steve Scarfo (40:17)
⁓ Definitely jump on, check out our King of Nightmares shirt. ⁓ One of my favorites that we've been able to come up with. Thanks for listening to our review

Jeff (40:37)
All right, and Stevie mentioned the last segment about you wish we got one of the grotesque, know, gory questions. And we can certainly bring that up here because one thing I wanted to say, and I thought about it last week when we were talking about creature double feature and horror is, and it made me like, I'll bring it up during Stephen King. So Stephen King wrote an essay, I think about the dance macabre about Edgar Allan Poe.

Steve Scarfo (40:37)
Awesome.

Jeff (41:07)
in being influenced by Poe. So we talk about evolution where his introduction to horror and how he took writing, and then you can see it evolve into Welcome to Derry. I know it's inspired by his work, right? there's two types of horror, and it's the arabesque and the grotesque. And the arabesque, this is, you he's

kind of rephrasing Poe, is that psychological horror, the suspense. ⁓ And that is where he considers, that's like the bread and butter. That's where, of him, like that's true, true horror isn't the grotesque. But the grotesque is there too. And the grotesque is there, ⁓ but its impact, ⁓ its scare isn't as significant.

as the Arabesque, the psychological. And so he tends to, he uses it, he leverages it, but that's not where the majority of the horror comes. It's that psychological. And so I feel like when we look at the evolution, and I know this was a question in a random review, is like, was that too grotesque? Was that too over the top, right at the beginning?

And Stephen King does tend to hold off on the grotesque. He lets the suspense build first. And so when we talk about evolution, think that he, yeah, that's one area that I think he's made an impact on a lot of successful horror. A lot of the A24 horror, hereditary,

Steve Scarfo (42:42)
Yeah.

Jeff (43:03)
midsummer, it's that slow build, it's a suspense, and it's not as much, the grotesque is there. You gotta leverage it, but it doesn't matter as much.

Steve Scarfo (43:11)
Yeah, yeah, I agree with all of that. And as you were talking about it, it made me think a little bit more about those first two episodes of it. And I know the review itself is over, right? But in Welcome to Derry, there is no pull away. It actually reminds me more when we were talking about horror last week when I talked about The Walking Dead, where they seem to lean into those grotesque moments.

Jeff (43:37)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (43:38)
And not, sorry, not seem to. And again, we should have said this before, but spoiler

Jeff (43:39)
Yeah. I totally do.

Steve Scarfo (43:43)
alert, if you've not seen this episodes, they dive deep into the horror of the grotesque, right? It's truly like in the books, in the books, these kids are haunted by their worst nightmares. And that's very well established, but that what's happening to them is each one, it's individual to themselves. But when kids go missing, as they do in that story, we don't see it.

Jeff (43:47)
Yeah, it's gross.

Steve Scarfo (44:08)
You just, all of a sudden, there's a kid being confronted by something that terrifies them, and then they're gone. And the next chapter starts with a missing poster or something like that, right? It's, ⁓ know, Georgie has disappeared. In this version, we see what happens, and it is not pretty. Even some of the hauntings of characters that don't...

end with them missing is very, very intense. I'm thinking of the pickle jar scene was to me just horrific. And I guess that's what they were going for. And we don't usually put a pejorative, in this case, I don't know that I like the evolution. I really don't know. It's drawn me in enough that I'm gonna watch episode three when we're done, but I don't know if I dig that part of the evolution.

Jeff (44:52)
Well,

We can't, but that's the thing is like, can't

quite put that on King. I think King is still true to that notion. So this is, this is more, so one of the options and the Random Review, guess we're just, we're just gonna do it. Is that, like, it, like that's one of, that is a criticism of those who like, you know, how true is this to Stephen King? And I think it's, but I, I do also think it's okay.

Steve Scarfo (45:01)
Yes, good point.

Jeff (45:25)
Like I think I'd rather, you know, overall, I'd rather have this and not have it. I think that this is great, it's intriguing. But yeah, it's definitely, that's the filmmakers, that's their stamp. Like we're, we love the grotesque and we're gonna do it right away.

Steve Scarfo (45:41)
Yeah.

No, and that's a good point, that's good point. Stephen King's evolution has stayed true to how he writes his stories and I just read The Outsider, I guess it was a couple years ago now, ⁓ very much true to how he, ⁓ in fact I have the book but have not read, ⁓ it's a story all about the main character, ⁓ Holly Gibney, and it's just called Holly. ⁓

Jeff (46:12)
yeah!

Steve Scarfo (46:14)
So I'm dying to read that. just, my reading days are slower these days, but. ⁓

Jeff (46:16)
my God.

I totally forgot about,

what was that?

Steve Scarfo (46:23)
If it bleeds was a short story based on that too.

Jeff (46:27)
The the this Mr. Mercedes is that she's in mr. Mercedes

Steve Scarfo (46:33)
the actress? Yes. Holly Gibney, the character. I have not read Mr. Mercedes, so Holly might be in there.

Jeff (46:35)
No, the... Yeah, right?

No, the

TV show that they made on it. I know if you remember. So it's.

Steve Scarfo (46:46)
I haven't seen that. So the character

of Holly Gibney is in Mr. Mercedes?

Jeff (46:50)
I think so. feel like, but even if like, just suddenly remembered like Mr. Mercedes, I should have brought this up. That also is a like a great TV adaptation of that. Brandon Gleason, think is in it. ⁓ And ⁓ that character is, yeah, cause she's, she plays, she's, appears ⁓ in different. ⁓

Steve Scarfo (47:03)
So that's not one I've seen, I'll have to watch it.

Jeff (47:20)
Different shows she's played by the one who's the wicked witch. She's ⁓ what's that actress's name? ⁓ And wicked she's in wicked now. Yeah She isn't she's obviously amazing. So yeah, but I feel like So the ⁓ But I think also the evolution I think about impact and yes, obviously welcome to Derry is ⁓ those those creators

Steve Scarfo (47:28)
Yeah. ⁓

Yeah, I can't think of her, hold on.

Jeff (47:50)
who created it, ⁓ they did, I thought, generally a fantastic job with that. then, ⁓ similar with this series. But I love Mike Flanagan's films, who's also very influenced by Stephen King and the haunting of Hill House. And that is very much in that vein of the psychological.

and that build over the course of that series. And there's some grotesque in that as well, but he uses it sparingly. It's the shots, it's the atmosphere, it's the psychology, and then ⁓ throw in that grotesque as needed.

Steve Scarfo (48:33)
Yeah, yeah, it's a great point. Cynthia Erivo the actress.

All right, I'm gonna jump on this one first and it's short and sweet. ⁓ go read some Stephen King. That's my entire rant. ⁓ These movies shows, they peak your interest at all, ⁓ he's an amazing writer. If you love what he did and what they put on screen, you're gonna love the books even more. So ⁓ I know it's maybe a dying art form. ⁓

I was at a show just the other night and I was asking people in the crowd, because I talk about being a geek and this guy points to his wife and I'm like, what is her geeky thing? And he said, she reads. That was his geeky thing. So when reading became geek, I don't know, but apparently it is, but get out there, be a geek and read these books. They're fantastic.

Jeff (49:34)
Yeah, yeah, I highly encourage that and don't dismiss it because you think he's just a horror writer. He has other genres that he writes in. And so let that be your way in. Like I said, like I do remember as a, you know, seeing like Christine in the dead zone, but I think the first book I read was actually The Eyes of the Dragon, which was fantasy. So let that be your way in. If there's a different genre you like, grab that.

Yeah, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption is not horror if you like the Shawshank Redemption. Because when you read the book, you gain a different understanding of his style and a different way into his world. I highly recommend

Steve Scarfo (50:17)
Yeah, Tommy Knockers was another great one. More sci-fi than horror.

Jeff (50:20)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (50:23)
All right, ⁓ we're gonna jump right through.

All right, I think you said you have a critical hit, because you have an epic fail.

Jeff (50:35)
No, I have an epic fail.

Please go take the critical hit.

Steve Scarfo (50:39)
All right, I think I might've given away the game earlier in the show then. My critical hit is The Stand. ⁓ I don't know why. I really can't pinpoint it. To me, there's something about the way that story flows. ⁓ The original book, I think was 750 or 800 pages. He released an expanded edition of like 1,100 pages. And I read that one even faster than the original.

⁓ I think I've read the second version twice. I read one of them twice and honestly, it's been so long. I don't remember which one, but I love the expanded version. I've watched every ⁓ version of the adaptations. There's something about this ultimate battle between good and evil told the way he tells it. ⁓ Again, that nostalgic tie into where we grew up at the beginning of the story and for the record, it's a tiny part of the story, but it is at the very beginning. But to me, absolute knockout of the park.

Go read the stand, go watch the stand, ⁓ phenomenal piece of work.

Jeff (51:40)
Yeah, kind of tying into our last segment with the, read some books. ⁓ The stand, if you like post-apocalyptic fiction, if you like dystopian fiction, ⁓ this works. It's sci-fi, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, you know, as the majority of the Earth's population is wiped out by a virus. So.

Steve Scarfo (52:06)
Well,

and oddly, no creature. It's not like wiped out in their zombies, right? We're so used to post-apocalyptic including zombies, no zombies. There's supernatural elements, but no creature.

Jeff (52:12)
Correct. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so highly recommend that. So my epic fail is The Dark Tower. And The Dark Tower movie, The Dark Tower is like a thousand page book. And then there are, I should have looked this up and of course this is going to break chat GPT But if you could, while I'm doing my thing, look up how many are in the series and it's not done yet. ⁓

Steve Scarfo (52:36)
There's two or three of them.

Jeff (52:47)
So the Dark Tower is a series and it's also the first book in the series and ⁓ they made it into a movie with Idris Elba. So it should work and he is amazing in it as he is and Matthew McConaughey as ⁓ as the villain and he also it also does a great job and the the kid and I can't remember the actor's name who's the primary protagonist in it as well and he is great. Like it has great special effects. This should work. It's 90 minutes long.

for a thousand page book. And there's five books, six books, okay. seven books, okay. okay, so ⁓ now 90 minutes is not enough for a single thousand page book. But did they do that? No. They wrapped up a number of the other books, tried to make this as a standalone film.

Steve Scarfo (53:24)
7.

Holy crap, I didn't realize there were seven of these. No, eight.

Jeff (53:47)
Sony owns it and so allegedly they're trying to make a franchise, but an epic fail for a franchise. It just did not work. In 90 minutes, it's too rushed. There's no depth. There's barely any explanation as to why anything's happening. It's such a fail. I would get it if this was not a Stephen King book and they had one shot. They're like, we can't guarantee it's going to be sequel, so let's just try to do it all.

Steve Scarfo (54:03)
now.

Jeff (54:17)
like the book Aragon, ⁓ the Dragon. ⁓ There's a number of examples. Of course, they're not all coming to my head. This has happened to a number of authors. It should not have happened to Stephen King. Stephen King.

Steve Scarfo (54:21)
God, such a fail.

Robert

Jordan's The Wheel of Time was butchered by ⁓ Amazon.

Jeff (54:36)
Yeah, exactly.

But like, there was no other, like there was no evidence that Robert Jordan's work could stand in that medium, where Stephen King has, and with a Marvel cinematic universe, a DC cinematic universe, there could have been a Stephen, a Dark Tower cinematic universe, TV shows, movies, and it would have worked.

Steve Scarfo (54:45)
Right.

Jeff (55:04)
And Universal's trying to make the monster universe work with Frankenstein and Dracula and all that. And I'm not saying they're failing there, but man, they should have just, they should have had the Dark Tower. That would have been amazing. And then they could have built a Dark Tower, a Stephen King universe. I think it would have been so effective. So disappointing. That's the epic fail.

Steve Scarfo (55:08)
⁓

Yeah, I will say,

I will say I think it's seven books. There are eight, but the eighth book that came out chronologically set between four and five apparently. So if you do read them, you have to read eight after four if you wanna read them in chronological order. But yeah, I have to say honestly, ⁓ I've read the first two. I didn't realize there were eight.

Jeff (55:44)
Okay. Okay.

Steve Scarfo (55:53)
my kids and my wife make fun of me. I don't read anywhere near as much as I used to. I'm so busy running around and having fun and doing other stuff, but now I wanna go back and read all of them, because I love the first two. ⁓ But yeah, so.

Jeff (56:08)
It's

crazy.

Steve Scarfo (56:11)
⁓ I put it on the wrong side.

All right, so we're coming down to the end of the show again. Here we go. Thanks for joining us. Please let everybody know, like, subscribe, share this with your friends. We are two Gen X geeks talking about all sorts of geekdom. We are giving you our Gen X perspective, but we are here for it. ⁓ Jump on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. ⁓

and just give us a like, us subscribe. We'll be putting out content. Check out all the new merch, including our amazing new Stephen King shirt, because we are all geek down here, and it's on OriginalGeekPodcast.com. ⁓ yeah, thanks for sticking around with us, and ⁓ I guess we'll see you next time, huh?

Jeff (57:03)
Thanks OGs, see you next time. We're all geeked down here, that is for sure.



00:00 Welcome to Original Geek
01:28 Canon Correction
03:58 Todays Topic: The Influence of Stephen King
13:08 Geek Flashback: with Joey Quartuccio
22:42 Geek Court
30:19 Random Review
40:58 Geek Evolution
49:07 Geek Rant
50:55 Critical Hits & Epic Fails
56:41 Show Outro and Call To Taction
57:27 Full Video End.mp4