Actor Thomas Jane has appeared in a trio of movies based on the work of horror author Stephen King, but how do these movies rank in comparison with one another? Carrie creator Stephen King and Thomas Jane are something of a winning duo, with the actor having appeared in King movies like 2007’s The Mist – a cult horror from director Frank Darabont – 2003’s Dreamcatcher and the more modest period horror 1922 from helmer Zak Hilditch.
Each of these projects has its unique strengths and weaknesses, and their critical receptions have varied wildly. The Mist was well-liked by critics upon release (doubly so when Netflix produced a lesser television adaptation of the same name), but the movie was a relative box-office disappointment. The ambitious Dreamcatcher, in comparison, flopped hard with critics and at the box office, barely recouping its budget and earning worse reviews than most Stephen King adaptations. 1922, being a Netflix production, doesn’t have such a clear-cut financial performance to compare with the earlier Jane/King pairings, but it did receive solid reviews upon release in 2017.
It’s certainly an interesting trilogy, so here’s a ranking of every Tom Jane / Stephen King movie to date.
Dreamcatcher (2003)
Despite being the most ambitious of the King/Jane trilogy, Dreamcatcher is also, unfortunately, the worst of their movies by a long stretch. The theoretically simple story of reunited childhood friends whose hunting trip goes horribly awry in a remote cabin, this muddled adaptation begins as a scatological spin on The Thing before incorporating Stranger Things-style shadowy government conspiracies, scenes set inside a character’s mind, possession, aliens, and a poorly-handled disability subplot. Despite some striking imagery such as the memory warehouse and a strong cast, including a rare villainous turn from an agreeably hammy Morgan Freeman, Dreamcatcher struggles due to a convoluted story that King himself admitted was heavily influenced by the prescription-strength painkillers he required at the time of writing due to a life-altering accident.
1922 (2017)
The polar opposite of Dreamcatcher, the disarmingly simple story of 1922 is a Poe-inspired tale of a man who murders his wife and is subsequently driven mad by the guilt. There’s a strange subplot about his son becoming half of a Bonnie and Clyde-style pair of bank robbers, but for the most part, this novella adaptation is a sparse horror that makes the most of its Depression-era setting. With only a few interesting visual flourishes, such as the wife’s gruesomely decayed ghost or a cow left stranded in an eerily ruined farmhouse kitchen, 1922 relies mostly on Jane’s central turn. It’s just as well the actor puts in an appropriately intense performance, bouncing between campy Tales From the Darkside-style theatrical leering or stoic reserve without ever leaning too hard into one extreme.
The Mist (2007)
Comfortably the best of the Tom Jane / Stephen King trio, The Mist is a compelling, terrifying, and smart monster movie that also acts as a stellar siege story. Charting the gradual breakdown of social bonds amongst a group of survivors who hole up inside a supermarket to hide from the eldritch horrors contained in the titular mist outside, The Mist uses both religious zealotry and creature attacks to serve up its scares. Marcia Gay Harden is superb as the monstrous Ms. Carmody but there isn’t a weak link in the cast or a wasted minute of screen time in this slow, dark horror tale, whose gut-punch ending is amongst the best of any King movie (so much so that Stephen King himself admitted he wished he had thought of it for the original novella from his collection Skeleton Crew).
