HORRIBLE PRAISE

Stephen King gets scary when he assesses the film adaptations from his horror novels: “I liked ‘Carrie’ the best. Director Stanley Kubrick had no idea what ‘The Shining’ was about--he did things that the ‘Friday the 13th’ producers wouldn’t do. I felt like ‘Firestarter’ missed the chance to be really awful like ‘Myra Breckinridge’ or ‘Mommie Dearest.’ When Martin Sheen said, ‘This ability to light fires may only be the tip of the iceberg,’ I thought we had the makings of a classic.”

King is in Wilmington, N.C., making his directorial debut with “Overdrive,” adapted from a story called “Trucks” in his “Night Shift” anthology.

“I decided to direct a movie because I figured I could do as good a job as the directors who had destroyed my books,” joked King.