Launched in 2024, You Like It Darker is considered one of Stephen King’s finest quick story/novella collections (which is saying quite a bit when understanding that his bibliography additionally contains Totally different Seasons, 4 Previous Midnight and Skeleton Crew). Each terrifying story is fascinating in its personal particular means – however no title is as clearly cinematic as “Danny Coughlin’s Dangerous Dream,” which is why I’m over the moon that it’s being tailored by The Rule Of Jenny Pen author/director James Ashcroft.
I had the prospect to talk with the Kiwi filmmaker late final week, and a good portion of our dialog was devoted to a dialogue of Stephen King – together with each his ideas on “Danny Coughlin’s Dangerous Dream” and the affect/impression of the legendary creator on The Rule Of Jenny Pen (which is a fully terrific movie and is now in restricted launch). This portion of the interview is on the coronary heart of this week’s version of The King Beat, and there’s plenty of good things, so let’s dive in!
The Rule Of Jenny Pen Director Is Adapting Stephen King’s Danny Coughlin’s Dangerous Dream, And I Couldn’t Be Extra Excited
Once I learn You Like It Darker final summer season, I keep in mind by no means wanting “Danny Coughlin’s Dangerous Dream” to finish. It’s an incredible instance of all the pieces that’s nice about Stephen King’s current tales: it units up a compelling thriller, options fascinating and sophisticated characters, and manages to incorporate a drip of the supernatural whereas protecting the vast majority of the story grounded in actuality. I might see the film adaptation taking part in in my head as I learn the novella, and I received the sense from James Ashcroft that he felt the identical means.
Information that the filmmaker was creating a Danny Coughlin’s Dangerous Dream movie discovered its means on-line a couple of weeks in the past, so I felt compelled to ask Ashcroft about it throughout our dialog. He was upfront about not having the ability to say an excessive amount of about venture, however he additionally expressed a ardour for the fabric and an pleasure about digging into its themes:
I can not actually speak an excessive amount of about that, however I’ll say I really like that story, as does [The Rule Of Jenny Pen co-writer] Eli Kent, who I work with. And I believe it is a actually particular story. It felt each kind of basic Stephen King and really, very topical, very related, and likewise had an exquisite reflective high quality to it. Like all these tales, truly, in You Like It Darker. So I am very keen about that story, and I hope to have the ability to speak extra about that quickly.
The titular character in “Danny Coughlin’s Dangerous Dream” is a custodian at a highschool in Kansas who sees his total life disrupted due to a random nighttime imaginative and prescient. He has a dream a few useless physique buried at a fuel station, and whereas he has by no means had any psychic occasions in his life, he can’t shake the fact of what he noticed. Investigating particulars he remembers, he is ready to discover each the fuel station and the physique, and he does the appropriate factor by alerting the police… however doing the appropriate factor has tough penalties.
Unable to elucidate how he discovered the physique with out referencing the supernatural, Danny turns into the prime suspect in a homicide investigation, and the lead detective on the case, Franklin Jalbert, is greater than just a little unhinged.
James Ashcroft is at the moment engaged on an adaptation of the Alex North novel The Whisper Man as his follow-up to The Rule Of Jenny Pen, however we’ll hopefully be taught extra about Danny Coughlin’s Dangerous Dream very quickly.
The Rule Of Jenny Pen Director Discusses The Affect Of The Shining And Stephen King’s Response
Stephen King personally reached out to James Ashcroft about his curiosity in adapting Danny Coughlin’s Dangerous Dream, and the rationale for that outreach is tied to the creator’s love of the filmmaker’s newest characteristic. King had the prospect to see The Rule Of Jenny Pen final fall across the time when it had its world premiere at Unbelievable Fest, and he was effusive in his response – Tweeting that it was “top-of-the-line movies” he’d see that 12 months and actually urging movie-goers to test it out. Earlier than he took to social media together with his public critique, nevertheless, he first despatched Ashcroft a private message.
James Ashcroft painted an exquisite image of how he first discovered of Stephen King’s appreciation for his work, saying,
It was uncanny as a result of I used to be in Ebook Soup on Sundown Boulevard, and I used to be standing within the horror part most likely in entrance of King’s titles alongside the shelf, and my telephone pinged. And an e-mail got here up from Stephen, who wrote this very, very complimentary e-mail. I swore actually loudly. The lady behind the counter was kind of like, ‘What is going on on within the horror part?’ After which, about 5 minutes later, my telephone began blowing up with folks going like, ‘Oh, have you ever seen the Tweet? Have you ever seen the Tweet?’ And I am like, ‘No, what Tweet?’ After which I appeared it up, after which I swore once more.
Greater than being grateful for Stephen King hyping up his work, James Ashcroft was additionally usually grateful for all the pieces that the creator does to help different creatives. Those that frequently learn The King Beat or comply with King on Bluesky and/or Threads know that he’s frequently posting messages about new films and exhibits he’s watching or new books he’s studying. Ashcroft continued,
Extremely beneficiant of him, extremely significant being a fan of his work and a very long time reader. And what I do admire about King is that he has an extended historical past of supporting rising artists, whether or not that is in literature or movie or the humanities. And that is one thing he would not must do, however he actually does maintain his finger on the heartbeat with what’s on the earth. And it is a Tweet that I’ve framed… actually. It is a great endorsement. It has been extremely useful and advocating and supporting the discharge of the movie too.
The connection runs deeper than simply that, nevertheless. If one watches The Rule Of Jenny Pen with the work of Stephen King in thoughts, one can’t assist however acknowledge overt affect from Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining (I received’t spoil the Easter egg hunt for anyone, however be looking out for the quantity “237” and a sequence involving previous pictures). I particularly requested Ashcroft concerning the affect of the beloved horror movie, and he didn’t deny something:
The Shining has ruined hallways for anybody with a digicam. You possibly can’t compete. It is an enormous, enormous affect on me. I keep in mind seeing that once I was about 10 years previous. And it was on TV one Saturday night time and simply kind of most likely a type of very early examples the place I walked away going, ‘What did I simply… like, what’s this sense?’ It was identical to being bathed on this feeling and ambiguity, and components did not make sense to me, my 10-year-old mind on the time. And there was the large query mark of what’s the ending imply?
In The Rule Of Jenny Pen, Geoffrey Rush performs Stefan Mortensen, a cantankerous choose who lives in a relaxation house as he recovers from a stroke and finds himself plagued by a psychotic, sadistic bully named Dave Crealy (John Lithgow). Past the aforementioned Easter eggs, there are echoes of the notorious Overlook Resort within the movie’s Royal Pine Mews, as Ashcroft defined:
It is a type of enduring movies that’s so jam filled with a tone that’s like getting into a shower stuffed with tar. There is no means you could’t get caught. It drenches throughout you. And the factor concerning the Shining is clearly the house and the vacancy of areas which are often populated and stuffed with vitality. However after they’re emptied out, the tone of these environments develop into a really, very charged, completely different factor. And that is what I beloved concerning the concept of the remainder house, is one thing that by day may be very banal. It has a really gentile kind of facade to these hallways, these rooms, the setting. However at nighttime, it is quiet, it is deathly quiet, it empties out.
The web has dubbed this type of aesthetic “liminal house,” and it’s used with professional finesse by James Ashcroft in The Rule Of Jenny Pen. The world of the remainder house feels comparatively protected when residents are out of their rooms and in widespread areas, however those self same areas develop into haunted when they’re empty at night time… aside from Dave Crealy creeping round. The director added,
The residents are very docile, and that’s the world of Crealy; that is the world the place he takes his docile masks off and runs amuck and is aware of these hallways inside out. That kind of distinction between a lot of life filling a spot after which all of it being eliminated, and as that house modifications by way of its feeling and its isolation and loneliness, that is completely one thing that we at all times wished to seize a sense of.
The Rule Of Jenny Pen is now taking part in in restricted launch in theaters nationwide, and it will likely be out there to stream for these with a Shudder subscription on an undisclosed date later this 12 months.
Not sufficient Stephen King for you? Properly, you may also take a look at my stories from earlier this week concerning the remake of Cujo now within the works at Netflix and Edgar Wright’s feedback about Glen Powell’s efficiency in The Operating Man (arriving in theaters in November). After you end studying these tales, you possibly can anticipate my subsequent King Beat column, which is printed weekly right here on CinemaBlend each Thursday.