Last, but by no means least, we have King’s terrifying 2014 novel Revival which sparked fear among some readers upon its release being dubbed the most “terrifying thing they had read.” It’s easy to see why. Its chilling narrative tells the story of rock musician Jamie Morton, who strikes up a relationship with Reverend Charles Jacobs and his family. When Jacobs’ wife and child are killed in a car crash, he denounces God and is banished from the church and town. Years later, Jamie, now a successful musician, has become addicted to drugs, and he runs into Jacobs performing an astonishing sideshow act with electricity, which has implications the men cannot possibly imagine.
What lengths would you go to to heal those you love? Revival asks plenty of difficult questions about life and love through its troubled characters and their actions, which would make for a grief-riddled, emotional ride in a film. What’s more, the Lovecraftian creatures of the afterlife known as The Null, discovered by Jacobs, would make for pure nightmare fuel on the big screen (just imagine those ants in IMAX). If the themes of grief, religion, and death immediately made you think of horror icon Mike Flanagan as the man for the job, you’d be spot-on. In 2020, Deadline confirmed that the director was set to adapt Revival alongside Intrepid Pictures. However, in the same year, he confirmed that the adaptation was no longer in development.
