Stephen King: Uncollected, Unpublished - Revised & Expanded Edition

by Rocky Wood

  Carl Willys was an old man and a wildcatter so this find would appear to have been his last chance at riches, but he has apparently become inescapably trapped. Other miners had done well by selling the pink cubes – Ben Dauphine found good deposits of the pink cubes on Asteroid 1004D and made $4 million selling them and Frank Jamieson also found the cubes on Asteroid 731A and made $1 million.

  All we know of Charlie is that it is very big and, while it looks like black jelly, red flashes are visible through its nerve system or synapses.

  It is a real shame the manuscript ends in mid-paragraph. While it is far from King’s most interesting story and science fiction is not King’s greatest strength, it would have been interesting to understand the direction the story would take next. Will Willys escape somehow? Will he be driven insane? Why does “Charlie” want the pink cubes, for instance are they the “eggs” of its species? Does Charlie want them at all, or is it just attacking an alien intruder? Will there be a supernatural or other horror intervention? Or did Charlie just eat Willys, as King told Winter?

  It seems unlikely King will ever revitalise and publish this unfinished story.

  King and Science Fiction

  King has written only a small number of purely science fiction stories and most critics suggest these are not the best of his works. King may agree, as he has not allowed many of his shorter science fiction works to be published. Clearly influenced by the lurid tales he read as a boy and young man they often tend contain relatively unsophisticated science. In the case of one, The Jaunt, King agreed his original science was “wonky.” However, there are many other stories with a science fiction angle or connection and these tend to be the more satisfying tales.

  The following stories represent King’s science fiction output, or stories with a significant science fiction component. It should be noted that some of these stories may actually represent a connection with The Dark Tower cycle, which is generally recognized as fantasy. Such definitions are fluid and the list below represents the authors’ opinion.

  The Aftermath Battleground

  Beachworld Cell

  Charlie Code Name: Mousetrap

  Crouch End The Dead Zone

  Donovan’s Brain Dreamcatcher

  The End of the Whole Mess Everything’s Eventual

  Firestarter From a Buick 8

  Golden Years Graduation Afternoon

  Home Delivery The Hotel at the End of the Road

  The House on Maple Street I am the Doorway

  I Know What You Need I’ve Got to Get Away/ The Killer

  I Was a Teenage Grave-Robber/ In a Half-World of Terror

  The Jaunt The Langoliers

  The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill/ Weeds The Mist

  Mobius Night Surf

  The Regulators/ The Shotgunners The Reploids

  The Revelations of ‘Becka Paulson The Running Man

  The Stand The Sun Dog

  They Bite The Tommyknockers

  Trucks Under the Dome

  Ur

  45 Stephen King: The Art of Darkness, Douglas E. Winter, p.18

  Children of the Corn – Unproduced Screenplay (c.1978)

  Children of the Corn was originally published in Penthouse for March 1977. King rewrote it for its appearance in the 1978 collection Night Shift, that rewrite mostly involved cosmetic wording changes although there are specific factual changes. In addition, King wrote a screenplay of the tale. In total, this means King has created three versions of this one tale.

  One of his most original stories, Children of the Corn has twice been produced as a film and has spawned more “adaptations” than any other of his works. Most, though, are barely connected and that only by the use of the title (see feature panel).

  The first adaptation was the 1983 short film, Disciples of the Crow. It is best described as a very ordinary movie. It can be seen as one of two movies on the videocassette Two Features from Stephen King’s Night Shift Collection (1991); or on A Trilogy from Stephen King’s Nightshift Collection. The screenwriter and director for this version was John Woodward; Eleese Lester played Vicky and Gabriel Folse portrayed Burt.

  The much better known film version is 1984’s Children of the Corn, which is widely regarded as one of the worst King adaptations ever! It was the first feature movie made from a King short story. Fritz Kiersch directed, Peter Horton played Burt Stanton and Terminator co-star Linda Hamilton portrayed Vicky. John Franklin appeared as Isaac. Also known as Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, it is available on DVD.

  The screenplay for the movie was credited to George Goldsmith. In fact, King wrote a screenplay on which Goldsmith’s was allegedly based. King was denied a writer’s credit by The Writer’s Guild of America and, after the movie flopped, was glad of it. He even told Cinefantastique magazine, “The picture was a dog.” In the September 1985 issue of Castle Rock King gave his opinion in an article titled Lists That Matter (Number 8). In this piece he lists his ten worst movies of all time. At number six is Children of the Corn:

  Here is another horror movie, and to me the most horrible thing about it is that it was based on one of my stories. Not very closely – just closely enough so the producers could call it Stephen King’s Children of the Corn, which it really wasn’t. In the movie version, the creature appears to be some sort of gopher from hell. There are some classic bad lines in this movie. “Outlander, we have your woman!” is one I like; later on the hero scooches down beside the little kid and says in a friendly voice, “Just what did this monster look like, Jobie?” I understand this gobbler made money, but so far I haven’t seen any of it, and I’m not sure I want to. It might have corn-borers in it.

  King’s second draft screenplay is summarized in this chapter. It appears to have been written about 1978 as, in an interview with David Chute (published in Take One for January 1979 and later reproduced in Feast of Fear46), King comments that he had written a screenplay of this story, “not because I thought a movie would come of it but because I needed some practice.”

  The basic storyline of this America Under Siege story is well known to King fans but in this version King makes a number of significant changes, which are summarized later.

  In the tale two travelers are sacrificed to a savage god. In about September of 1968 a bizarre cult of children sprang up in the town of Gatlin, Nebraska. The children slaughtered the thousands of adults in the town and began to worship a creature they called He Who Walks Behind the Rows. This evil entity was old when Jesus was “unborn,” according to Isaac, one of the Children. It was huge, with a shifting manta shaped outline, huge green eyes and a hell-fire red mouth.

  In 1980 one of the children tried to escape Gatlin. However, eleven year old Joseph was caught in the corn by the other Children, his throat was slit, and he was pushed into the road where he was run down by a Thunderbird. In shock, Burt Stanton, the car’s driver and his wife Vicky stopped and picked up the body. Fatefully, they then decided to drive into Gatlin to report the accident.

  Burt Stanton had served at least three years in the Special Forces of the US Marines in Vietnam, returning from 61 patrols, winning the Congressional Medal of Honor and holding the rank of Captain. He and Vicky, residents of Boston, had been married for six years but they were facing marital problems at the time they drove into Nebraska. Vicky was beautiful, with long hair and a “dynamite” body and had been the Prom Queen.

  The Stantons arrived in the apparently abandoned town but quickly realized something was wrong – for instance, there were skeletons on the roof of the Town Hall! In the Bureau of Registrations there was a gigantic portrait of a vulpine Christ-like being with corn hair.

  Suddenly, vicious Children appeared and surrounded the couple. The Children quickly captured and killed Vicky and left her crucified body in the cornfields as a sacrifice to their “god.” After initially escaping the mob, Burt headed into the cornfields where he found himself at dawn in a clearing in which his wife’s body and the crucified skeleton of the tow
n’s police chief had been left. The Children called this place “the clearing of the Blue Man,” a reference to the dead cop’s uniform.

  He Who Walks Behind the Rows then killed Burt. Until this point all Children over the age of 18 (the so-called “Age of Favor”) had walked into the corn to their fate at the hands of the creature. To appease He Who Walks Behind the Rows after the incident with the Stantons the group’s “Seer,” Isaac immediately reduced the Age of Favor to 17 and a group of more than twelve boys and girls were required to walk into the corn.

  In updating the storyline from the two versions of the short story to the screenplay King made a number of very important changes. Burt and Vicky Robeson become Burt and Vicky Stanton. The date of the initial killings and takeover of the town by the creature and its disciples moves from about August 1964 to about August 1968; and the arrival of the Stantons to July 1980 from the original July 1976 for the Robesons (maintaining the twelve year gap).

  Norman Staunton, the 7-year-old preacher from Vicky Robeson’s childhood becomes Norman Stanton, from Vicky Stanton’s childhood. Very strange indeed! The population of Gatlin varies from Penthouse (5431) to Night Shift (4531) to the Screenplay (5438). The Police Chief also acquires an ironic name: Samuel Cross.

  In the earlier versions the Children chased Burt into the corn, eventually driving him toward the sacrificial clearing. In the screenplay they were afraid to go into the corn and did not follow him until Isaac had given them clearance. He Who Walks Behind the Rows’ eye color changes from red to green. Originally Isaac reduced the Age of Favor from 19 to 18; in the screenplay he reduced it from 18 to 17.

  In the screenplay King also deliberately and specifically links Children of the Corn to a number of his other works. In Scene 16, Vicky tells Burt that the road forks ahead (the fork is at a point after Joseph was hit by their car). “One fork goes to a place called Gatlin, the other one goes to a place called Hemingford Home.” Hemingford Home, described as just a wide place in the road, was not mentioned in either version of the original short story. It is the town near which Abagail Freemantle lived nearly her entire life in The Stand. In the Original version of that classic novel the superflu hit in June 1980; in the Uncut version it struck in June 1990. In this script the Stantons arrived in Gatlin in July 1980 so this version cannot be in the original timeline of The Stand.

  Of particular interest is that in the Complete and Uncut version of The Stand (but not the original) Stu Redman dreamed of crucifixions along Highway 6 near Hemingford Home. Of course, there were crucifixions near Gatlin. King was clearly linking these stories when he updated The Stand.

  Hemingford Home, Nebraska is also mentioned in It (Benjamin Hanscom lived there between confrontations with Pennywise) and The Last Rung on the Ladder (Larry and Kitty grew up there). Gatlin, Nebraska is also mentioned in It, where it is described as a small deserted town on the road to Hemingford Home.

  While this script was not produced and it is most unlikely it will ever be published, its importance lies in revealing King’s intent for the film version (compared to the dreck that was actually produced); its renaming of characters and its deliberate linking to other King stories and locales.

  Children of the Corn – The “Sequels”

  A series of sequels to the 1984 movie Children of the Corn have been released. However, they have little more connection to the original short story than the name of the series. In the movie industry such sequels are known as a “franchise” and it never ceases to amaze that these movies, some of which are execrable, ever reached production let alone release! Not one of these movies even makes a 4 rating out of 10 at the world’s leading movie database, www.imdb.com. Key details of each production follow.

  Children of the Corn II: The Final Sacrifice (1993). Follows on from the events of the first film and released direct–to-video. IMDB rating: 3.7. Screenplay – A. L. Katz, Gilbert Adler and Bill Froehlich; Director – David F. Price. Actors – Terence Knox (John Garrett); Paul Scherrer (Danny Garrett); Ted Travelstead (Mordechai). DVD: 2000.

  Children of the Corn III: Urban Harvest (1994). Released direct-to-video. IMDB rating: 3.1. Screenplay – Dode B. Leveson; Director – James D. R. Hickox. Actors – Daniel Cerny (Eli); Ron Melendez (Joshua); John Clair (Malcolm). DVD: 2003.

  Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering (1996). Made for video. IMDB rating: 3.7. Screenplay – Stephen Berger and Greg Spence; Director – Greg Spence. Actors – Naomi Watts – later an Academy Award nominee for 21 Grams – (Grace Rhodes); Emmy award winner William Windom (Doc Larson); Karen Black – also an Oscar nominee – (Julie Rhodes). DVD: 2003.

  Children of the Corn V: Fields of Terror (1998). Released direct-to-video. IMDB rating: 3.6. Director and Scriptwriter – Ethan Wiley. Actors – Stacey Galina (Alison); Alexis Arquette (Greg); Eva Mendes (Kir); Fred Williamson (Sheriff Skaggs); David Carradine (Luke Enright). DVD: 2001.

  Children of the Corn 666: Isaac’s Return (1999). Released direct-to-video and set back in Gatlin. IMDB rating: 3.2. Screenplay – Tim Sulka and John Franklin; Director – Kari Skogland. Actors – John Franklin (Isaac); Nancy Allen (Rachel Colby); Golden Globe winner Stacey Keach (Dr. Michaels); Natalie Ramsely (Hannah). DVD: 1999.

  Children of the Corn: Revelation (2001). Released direct-to-video. IMDB rating: 3.1. Screenplay – S. J. Smith; Director – Guy Magar. Actors – Claudette Mink (Jamie Lowell); Kyle Cassie (Armbrister); Michael Ironside (Priest). DVD: 2001.

  A new television adaptation was released in 2009, titled Children of the Corn (or Stephen King’s Children of the Corn). Yet another flop, directed and written by Donald P. Borchers, it starred David Anders (Burt Stanton), Kandyse McClure (Vicky), Daniel Newman (Malachai) and Preston Bailey (Isaac). A DVD was released in 2009.

  46 Feast of Fear: Conversations with Stephen King, Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller (editors), page 79

  Chinga (1998) and Molly (1997)

  King originally wrote a screenplay for an episode of the hit FOX television series, The X-Files titled Molly. Chris Carter, the creator of the series, added and significantly changed material and both writers were credited with the new teleplay, Chinga, making Carter one of King’s few collaborators. The episode is also known as Bunghoney in the UK and some other markets (the change of title for non-North American markets was caused by the belief that Chinga can mean “fuck” in Mexico in certain circumstances).

  While the screenplay has not been published copies freely circulate in the King and X-Files communities. There is also the possibility that all The X-Files scripts will see publication at some point.

  King originally approached Chris Carter to talk about writing an episode for Millennium but was convinced to write an episode of The X-Files instead, although at least one source has King becoming a fan of the program after meeting David Duchovny on Jeopardy!, later finding his kids were “junkies” and then becoming one himself after Carter sent him the first season tapes.47

  Research confirmed that the first teleplay (in two drafts) King did for The X-Files was titled Molly. King’s office also confirmed that first teleplay was not an early version of Chinga but a totally different one, which will become obvious later in this chapter. After King and Chris Carter discussed the changes Carter would want made to Molly, King went in a different direction and wrote a completely new teleplay, later further changed by Carter and filmed as Chinga.

  King super-collector Chris Cavalier kindly provided a copy of the Molly teleplay to assist with research for this chapter and a letter from Carter to King dated 8 December 1997 in which Carter sought King’s agreement for King to take credit for the teleplay of Chinga. At some point in the next two months King and Carter obviously agreed to take joint credit for the script. In one part of the 8 December letter Carter writes, “Believe it or not, yours is the first episode we’re filming that’s come from a writer completely outside the staff.” And, “To have you write Mulder and Scully, to put them through their paces, it’s been a thrill and an honor. A giant honor.�
�� Thanks go to Chris Cavalier for providing the teleplay to assist in the writing of this chapter.

  Chinga

  Chinga first aired on 8 February 1998 as an episode of The X-Files (Series Five). Among the credits are: Teleplay by Stephen King and Chris Carter; Director – Kim Manners; Actors – David Duchovny (Fox Mulder); Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully); Jenny-Lyn Hutcheson (Polly Turner); Larry Musser (Captain Jack Bonsaint); Susannah Hoffmann (Melissa Turner). The episode is available on DVD as part of The X-Files: The Complete Fifth Season.

  The X-Files ran on the FOX network in the US from 1993 to 2002 and was a worldwide sensation, winning many awards, including a number of Emmys. The series followed FBI agents Mulder and Scully (Fox Mulder, played by David Duchovny, was replaced towards the end of the franchise’s run by John Doggett, played by Robert Patrick) as they investigated the strange and paranormal while “hidden forces” worked to impede their efforts. A huge ratings success at a critical time in the expansion of Rupert Murdoch’s US network, it is also a major syndication success and a best seller in DVD format.