Stephen King continues to fuel our worst nightmares today with his novels and their television and film adaptations. And you might think that the master of horror is afraid of nothing – except “losing his mental faculties to a degenerative disease,” according to a recent interview on the “Talking Scared” podcast. ”. But, as Espinof recalls, there is still a horror classic that once terrified him and continues to terrify him today.
During the “King On Screen” event dedicated to him at the BFI in 2017, the latter revealed that it was the film The Devil’s Child (1980) by Peter Medak, a film by much more psychological horror than many other feature films of the genre of the time – released the same year as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, with which the original author was never satisfied.
In the realm of supernatural horror, I like Peter Medak’s film The Devil’s Child starring George C. Scott in what may be his last major film role. There are no monsters coming out of chests: just a child’s ball bouncing down a staircase was enough to make my blood run cold.
This scene he talks about has become one of the most iconic moments (among other scenes in the film) in horror cinema and has been parodied and recreated numerous times.
Chessman Park Productions
The feature film has since inspired films such as Le Cercle – The Ring (2002) and Hypnose (1999). Alejandro Amenábar also cites him as one of his great influences for his own horror masterpiece, The Others (2001).
The Devil’s Child is currently available for streaming on the Shadowz platform, accessible via Amazon Prime Video.