The Stephen King Novel That Will Never Get An Adaptation
The most successful horror author of all time has given fans dozens of novels and scores of short stories and novellas to pore over, with many of them becoming feature films or television series. With serial killers, vampires, possessed cars, and killer clowns being cast from his written word onto the big screen, one might wonder what limit the writer might put on what works would cross the line for a cinematic adaptation. As Rage writer Stephen King has noted in multiple interviews and on his official website, the aforementioned story has been left intentionally out of print because it’s about a school shooting which has since inspired real shootings.
Rage
Rage is the story of frustrated high school senior Charlie Decker, recently suspended for hitting his chemistry teacher in the head with a blunt object and causing them to be hospitalized.
At the end of his suspension, Decker is spoken to by his principal and begins to berate the administrator. This prompts the principal to expel the teen, setting off a series of violent events that begins with Stephen King penning about Charlie grabbing a handgun from his locker and ends with his commitment to a mental institution.
Real Shootings
After setting fire to his locker, Charlie marches into a classroom and successfully shoots and kills his algebra teacher and a history teacher that enters the room to try to intervene.
Rage sees Charlie continue to inflict damage on his peers in true Stephen King fashion as he holds the students hostage and makes a game out of getting them to turn on each other.
The subject matter of Rage has been reported to have influenced real-life school shootings in the United States. The first incident occurred in 1988, 11 years after Stephen King published the novella.
Jeffrey Lyne Cox took a rifle to his San Gabriel, California high school and held his humanities class hostage before being tackled and disarmed by a fellow student.
Fatalities
While several subsequent incidents allegedly inspired by Rage were also fortunate to not have any casualties, an event in January 1993 broke that streak.
East Carter High School student Scott Pennington took a revolver to his Grayson, Kentucky high school and shot and killed his English teacher Deanna McDavid and school janitor Marvin Hicks. Like Cox and others before him, Pennington was influenced by the Stephen King character Charlie Decker.
The Bachman Books
Rage was originally written under the Stephen King pseudonym Richard Bachman and published in 1977. Eight years later, the novella was joined with Roadwork, The Long Walk, and The Running Man into a compendium titled The Bachman Books. Rage was allowed by its author to fall out of print, though it was still available in the compendium for quite some time.
King Took It Out Of Print
Newer editions of The Bachman Books have Rage omitted, however, as Stephen King noted in 1999 that a school shooting in West Paducah, Kentucky prompted the best-selling author to contact his publisher about taking the story out of print entirely after three students were shot dead in their high school by teenager Michael Carneal, a mentally disturbed young man who also had a copy of Rage in his locker.
Though Rage won’t be adapted any time soon, there’s plenty of great Stephen King material adapted for the pleasure of his fans, including the October 2024 remake of the horror film Salem’s Lot.
