Wow, this is going to be hard for two reasons. On one hand I'll find it tough to rank my very favorite Stephen King movies because the ones I love ... I really love. On the other hand there's been a whole LOT of rotten King flicks churned out over the years -- and I actually like some of those, too! But as a lifelong King kook I think I'm able to separate the wheat from the chaff -- even if, yes it's true, I actually sort of enjoyed Tobe Hooper's The Mangler. (It's just so enjoyably stupid!) So with that I bring you my own personal picks for the best Stephen King adaptations yet (not counting TV shows, mini-series or short films).

Christine (1983) -- Yes, the book is better and sure, a few important things were monkeyed with on the way from page to screen, but there's so much I do like about John Carpenter's adaptation that it makes the speed bumps a lot easier to handle. From the filmmaker's creepy score to an excellent lead performance by Keith Gordon, the flick's just got an admirably bad-ass attitude. Stripped down to its essence, Christine is not much more than another "geek fights back" revenge-centric horror flick, but Carpenter makes the movie his own with a solid production design, a few excellent set pieces and a pace that moves at an appreciable clip. Plus that car is just so damn cool.

Pet Sematary (1989) -- Just about every hardcore horror geek I know holds Pet Sematary in pretty high regard, and just one visit with this bleak and unflinching piece of pulp horror will explain why. It's a remarkably grim and unapologetic tale of dead cats, cute kids and a patch of land that, well, it resurrects dead tissue is what it does. And if you've read even one "back from the dead" story, then you know they never end well. (Pet Sematary, both the book and the movie, packs one doozy of a dark denouement.) OK, so maybe Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby aren't exactly the rock-solid thespians you'd want for a screenplay this devilishly mean-spirited, but the pair do what they can, plus they've got good ol' Fred Gwynne supplying background color by the bucketful. (And don't forget about poor sickly Zelda! Yuck.)

Carrie (1976) -- The very first (and arguably one of the very best) of the Stephen King movies, Carrie hit the screens courtesy of a young Brian De Palma, and the director pulled out a big bag of Hitchcockian tricks to bring the story to the silver screen. It's about a socially bankrupt young girl who tries to cobble together a normal social life ... much to the chagrin of some snotty she-bullies and a resoundingly devout lunatic of a mother. Some might say the flick takes a long while to get where it's going, but between the prom night finale and the graveside stinger, Carrie more than delivers its share of grisly goods. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie make it watchable all by themselves, but De Palma is the real star here. (OK, De Palma and a young, evil John Travolta.)

Yes, I know I spelled "cemetery" wrong, but I'll take Stephen King's spelling over the Oxford English Dictionary's any day, thank you very much. And get this wild piece of intriguing yet totally unexpected casting news: Will the ultra-cool George Clooney be stepping into the role made famous* by Dale Midkiff in Mary Lambert's Pet Sematary? That's kinda what the guys at Bloody-Disgusting.com are saying, and if this scoopage turns out to be true, well then chalk one up for the gore-boys.

We've been hearing rumblings of a Pet Sematary remake for a little while now, and if the remake now has George Clooney as its anchor, well jeez, my opinion of the project just skyrocketed. (Yeah, I dig the Clooney. So what?) According to the BD boys the new version is being written by Dave Kajganich (The Visiting), Mike Werb (The Mask) and Michael Colleary (Face/Off). Paramount hasn't announced a director just yet, but hell, Clooney can do that too!

* OK, not so famous

UPDATE: Now BD.com tells us, whoops, false alarm completely. No Clooney. Now I feel like kind of an idiot for running the story, but oh well. My apologies. -- Scott

Last month we mentioned that Paramount was dusting off some old Stephen King classics for the Special Edition treatment, and it looked like those titles would be Cujo, Pet Sematary, and The Dead Zone. Now it looks like 2 out of 3 might be all she wrote.

Davis DVD brings us word that Paramount's Stephen King Collection will come with the all-new and supplementally-packed Collector's Editions of The Dead Zone and Pet Sematary, plus a pair of repackaged turkeys called Silver Bullet and Graveyard Shift ... as if anyone's clamoring for a director's commentary on freakin' Graveyard Shift. The good news is that all four discs will be sold separately.

The platters will street on September 26th ... but what happened to Cujo?

It never fails: Not two weeks ago I finally bought the the original Dead Zone DVD ... and today comes word that Paramount has that exact title scheduled for a September Special Edition release! (Meh, the bare-bones DVD only cost me six bucks, plus the movie -- which features the combined magic of Stephen King, David Cronenberg, Christopher Walken and Martin Sheen -- is just awesome, so I'm not complaining too much.)

In addition to an all-new and extra-swanky version of The Dead Zone, Paramount also has plans to polish up two more Stephen King adaptations from back in the day: Mary Lambert's fantastic Pet Sematary and Lewis Teague's not-terrible Cujo will also arrive in the form of fancy Special Editions this September. (So where's the Criterion Collection Cat's Eye DVD already?)

Other Paramount titles that have Stephen King's name on 'em include Silver Bullet, Graveyard Shift, and Tales from the Darkside: The Movie ... which probably helps to explain why Cujo was among the three flicks chosen for the SE Treatment.