“The most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity.”
This Pet Semetery quote will be the question on everyone’s mind when 36 largely unseen Stephen King short story film adaptations are released to the public for free at the Stephen King Rules 2022 film festival.
Barker Street Cinema, a Prince George based production company, have brought Stephen King Rules out of a virtual setting and into a headlining role at a major Iowa festival later this month.
Barker Street’s Norm Coyne is ecstatic to be bringing this festival to life, after initially only hoping for online screening rights like the 2021 festival.
“This year, we approached Stephen King again for those same rights. He also added on the option of screening it in person because the pandemic restrictions had eased. So, our little group of Prince Georgians is headed to Iowa!”
This journey started for Coyne and Barker Street four years ago, when they were approved by Stephen King to film an adaptation of his short story ‘The Doctor’s Case’ as a part of King’s Dollar Baby program.
“You approach Stephen King with a pitch about how you would adapt one of his short stories, and if he approves you, you get the rights for a single American dollar.”
According to Coyne, this program has been in place for up and coming film makers since 1977, and really gained popularity after ‘The Shining’ in 1980.
When Barker Street Cinema was touring film festivals with ‘The Doctor’s Case’ they encountered other dollar babies in their travels, and slowly started to form the idea of a dollar baby film festival.
“There is a real sense of community. The real benefit for folks to make these movies is to screen at festivals” Coyne said. “We approached Stephen King himself to host the Dollar Baby program as its own festival, and he approved it.”
The festival launched online last year from Prince George and was an immediate hit, with tens of thousands of viewers across 28 countries.
“I always get super jacked up about taking Prince George to the world. It is a great chance to be ambassadors of everything Prince George has to offer.”
This year, the stage is bigger and in the physical world at the Alternating Currents festival in Davenport Iowa from August 19-21.
The festival will take place in over 20 venues across those four days.
Every film that is screened at the festival will also be streamed from Barker Street’s YouTube channel and will be available to the public for free.
For more information on the film festival, click here.