Stephen King offers ups scares with 'Under the Dome'

Stephen King is one of those authors that you either love or hate.

I happen to love him – especially his early work. I’m a big fan of ‘Carrie,’ ‘It,’ ‘The Shining’ and ‘Salem’s Lot.’

Adapting King’s work to the big and small screen has been a mixed bag.

For example, I happen to think that Stanley Kubrick’s big screen version of ‘The Shining’ was pure genius. It’s actually my favorite horror movie of all time.

King himself didn’t like it – and he gave his blessing for a miniseries several years ago. I wasn’t a fan of the miniseries.

For every King work success (‘Carrie,’ ‘It’), there is also a King work disappointment (‘Christine,’ ‘Salem’s Lot’ the miniseries).

 

You can’t argue that King is a prolific author, though.

A lot of his more recent work has been hit or miss for me. The ‘Dark Tower’ series is fairly

interesting, but ‘The Colorado Kid’ is a disappointment.

‘Cell’ was a lot of fun but ‘Duma Key’ was really boring. You know what I’m saying.

That’s why I was so surprised by ‘Under the Dome.’ The book was a fun character study about what happens when people are cut off from society – and it’s every man for himself? What happens when this happens, but the rest of the world is still watching?

That’s the basic premise of ‘Under the Dome,’ which finds the denizens of a small town cut off from the rest of the world when an invisible dome descends on their small town and they’re trapped inside.

The story was adapted for television shortly after its release, and it’s hitting CBS at 10 p.m. Monday as a limited run series.

Like most King miniseries, ‘Under the Dome’ has managed to attract some interesting actors. Mike Vogel plays the central character Dale ‘Barbie’ Barbara, kind of the everyman in town. Britt Robertson plays Angie McAlister, while Dean Norris takes on the big bad role of James “Big Jim” Rennie. Rachelle Lefevre and Mackenzie Lintz also star.

The book managed to keep my attention for its duration – which given its length, is pretty much a marvel – so I’m actually looking forward to the series.

That being said, I’ve gotten excited for King adaptations before and been sorely disappointed. Here’s hoping that ‘Under the Dome’ is more ‘It’ than ‘Dreamcatcher.’

What do you think? Will you tune in to ‘Under the Dome’?