When it comes to modern horror, few creators compare to Stephen King. As one of the most frequently-adapted authors in history, his popular stories have been transformed into some of the most successful genre films out there. However, they can't all be masterpieces, and many of them don't live up to their strong starts. This list contains ten of the best Stephen King films that just couldn't stick the landing.

Each of these famous adaptations, sequels, prequels, and remakes has something to offer, but their conclusions hold them back from greatness. Sometimes it's the filmmaker's mistake, some endings have just aged poorly, and sometimes fans must accept that even Stephen King is fallible. This list of flawed but fascinating films helps illuminate what makes a great story, and how easy it is to fall short of perfection — even for the master.

Stephen King's It would be challenging for anyone to adapt. For this tale of childhood friends reuniting to fight an entity that manifests their deepest fears, one needs fourteen great performances for the old and young versions of seven heroes — and the FX must be excellent.

It's creative team was leery of Stephen King's monster movie conclusion, in which the gang fights a giant spider, and no one was satisfied with how they brought it to life. Actor Tim Reid addressed the struggle humorously in a Yahoo TV interview celebrating the adaptation's 25th anniversary.

Even Mary Lambert chased her excellent 1989 adaption with Pet Sematary 2, about teens (Edward Furlong and Jason McGuire) who foolishly use the burial ground's resurrection powers to fix their tragedy-stricken families. The film is occasionally moving, and Clancy Brown steals the show as a zombified stepdad, but ultimately the story falls apart.

The zombies of his best friend's abusive stepfather and the town bully crash the party, diluting the message about a youth learning to accept mortality. Lambert claimed that the original hero of Pet Sematary 2 was Ellie Creed, the first film's sole survivor, but Paramount didn't believe a teenage girl could carry the movie. That choice could have produced a more focused story.

When author Thad Beaumont retires the pen name he uses on grisly pulp novels, his literary alter ego George Stark manifests in the flesh, demanding that Thad continue their collaboration. George A. Romero's The Dark Half: ancient mythology and medical anomalies combine confusingly to explain Stark's existence, adding up to a muddled conclusion.

In a Washington Post interview, the author made a telling remark about the Bachman books that may explain his less satisfying endings.

Stellar performances from major horror stars uplift the most unpleasant of all Stephen King adaptations: Apt Pupil, in which a sociopathic high school student matches wits with a Nazi war criminal. Todd (Brad Renfro) blackmails the aged Dussander (Ian McKellen) into discussing his horrific past, and their mutual excitement inspires fresh crimes.

In the original Stephen King story, Todd commits a mass shooting, illustrating the way violence ultimately consumes its perpetrators. Bryan Singer's cynical adaptation is true to life in its own way, but this reading is profoundly disturbing in light of the many criminal allegations against the filmmaker.

— As Shooter becomes increasingly dangerous, Rainey realizes that this is all in his own mind. Finally, the Shooter personality takes over and restores his desired "ending": the murder of Rainey's estranged wife.

Secret Window starts strong with the mystery of whether Rainey could have plagiarized Shooter without realizing it. In the original King story "Secret Window, Secret Garden," Shooter is a supernatural presence who impugns Rainey's sanity.

There he experiences deadly delusions, some involving his daughter's tragic death. After destroying the room, he plays his wife a recording of a ghostly voice imitating their child, proving the haunting was real. But is that really the moral of the story?

The former two endings exist because the latter tested so poorly, but when endings can be changed arbitrarily, it suggests that the story itself doesn't have a major point to make.

In The Mist, a small-town supermarket is the last stronghold against a Lovecraftian horror that descends on the United States. The film plays like a pulse-pounding supernatural thriller with some cheeky political commentary, up until a jarring tonal shift rips the rug out from under the audience.

King's 1980 novella The Mist ends with a small group escaping the supermarket in hopes of finding other survivors. Downbeat endings have their place, but with Darabont's breezy action movie style, the mercilessly tragic conclusion feels unearned.

The underrated Pet Sematary: Bloodlines has a lot to offer — up until its uninspired climax. In 1969, the town of Ludlow is fraught with drama; while families lose their sons to the Vietnam War, the Indigenous American community suffers as they have since the settler days.

While the original Pet Sematary is truly great, it is sadly synonymous with the problematic "Indian burial ground" trope. Pet Sematary: Bloodlines actually includes Indigenous main characters (played by Forrest Goodluck and Isabella Star LaBlanc), and addresses the effects of American imperialism at home and abroad.

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining was famously disdained by Stephen King for its shallowness. When Mike Flanagan chose to adapt the sequel novel Doctor Sleep, about the grownup Danny Torrence grappling with his powers, King declared the haunted Overlook Hotel must not appear in the film. However, Flanagan felt that directly addressing The Shining was unavoidable, as he told Entertainment Weekly.

Flanagan was right to revisit the Overlook to meet viewer expectations (the novel's climax occurs where the hotel once stood), but Danny's new adventure doesn't convincingly connect with The Shining. It is also troublesome that Danny's psychic teen sidekick (Kyliegh Curran) is so powerful that it ultimately lowers the stakes.

In The Boogeyman's best scene, a haunted man (David Dastmalchian) claims his family was destroyed by "the thing that comes for your kids when you're not paying attention." This supernatural being preys on the mental anguish of bereaved families, a sophisticated modus operandi that should call for an equally sophisticated defense...which makes its actual weakness a bit of a letdown.

When the Boogeyman roosts in the home of grieving teen Sadie (Sophie Thatcher), she goes on an often-thrilling odyssey to learn how to defeat it before it devours her family. At the end of all her travails, it turns out that the creature is easily dispatched with a blowtorch. Disappointing as this may be, the real problem with The Boogeyman is that it simply does not have enough David Dastmalchian.