Although praised a bestselling mystery-thriller back in 2017, the book he compared to still hasn’t received its long-promised movie adaptation. Stephen King’s 66 books prove that the prolific author knows a lot about plot, character, and prose, and his bestselling writing guide/memoir On Writing only reaffirms this reality. Stephen King has a love of the craft that runs deep and transcends genre, even if the author is still best known for his horror offerings among much of the general public.

Although King has recommended plenty of horror novels over the years, in X posts, blurbs, interviews, reviews, and elsewhere, he has also shared a lot of exciting thrillers and mysteries with his followers and fans. King recommended Anthony Horowitz’s The Magpie Murders for anyone who wanted a murder mystery reminiscent of the late, great Agatha Christie’s work. A few years earlier, he recommended the darker psychological thriller You, by Caroline Kepnes, for readers who wanted to get into the mind of a surprisingly charming killer.

In 2017,, calling it the “First great thriller of 2017” and saying that readers who enjoyed Gillian Flynn’s legendary bestseller Gone Girl would enjoy the book. Interestingly, although Final Girls is the first novel by Riley Sager, it is far from the author’s first book. Riley Sager is the second of two pen names used by author Todd Ritter, who wrote the Kat Campbell trilogy from 2010-2013 and penned the historical mystery Things Half in Shadow under the name Alan Finn in 2014.

Ritter rebranded as Riley Sager before Final Girls was released, telling The Atlantic that “One could argue that editors would be willing to go with someone who had a clean slate,” rather than an experienced author with no earlier big hits to their name. The gamble paid off, as Sager’s subsequent novels The Last Time I Lied, Lock Every Door, Home Before Dark, Survive the Night, and The House Across the Lake all became huge hits too.

The latter even has a movie adaptation from Netflix on the way, while Lock Every Door earned further praise from King upon its 2021 release. The author called the book “A suspense novel that will keep you up until way past midnight,” proving that his enjoyment of Final Girls wasn’t a one-off. However, although King was a fan of You before Kepnes’ psychological thriller novel earned itself an acclaimed TV series adaptation, Sager’s first book has not been as lucky when it comes to its journey to the screen.

A movie adaptation of Final Girls has not yet been announced, although Universal Pictures bought the rights to adapt the book back in 2017, according to Deadline. The wait for an adaptation is unfortunate since . Final Girls follows Quincy Carpenter, a troubled survivor of a nightmarish killing spree that cost the lives of her college friends ten years before the novel begins.

As the title implies, Quincy is a “Final Girl” like the heroine of so many slasher movies, only she truly struggles with this role. Thrust on her by the media following her unlikely survival of the bloody ordeal, the “Final Girl” tag follows Quincy around until, eventually, another Final Girl shows up dead and a third arrives on Quincy’s doorstep. The mismatched duo must work out who is targeting them, but Quincy can’t tell how much she can trust this other Final Girl or herself.

While Final Girls never gets as violent as King’s nastiest horror stories, Sager’s novel does pack an impressive punch. The book is as violent as many of the classic slasher movies that inspired its premise, but Final Girls also boasts the twisty plotting of a great whodunit murder mystery. Final Girls blends clever commentary on slasher tropes with a sharp, unpredictable mystery story, leaving viewers guessing until the final page of its twisty story.

Despite how much potential Final Girls has, the book’s promised movie adaptation still hasn’t materialized. What makes this frustrating is the fact that the intervening decade has been a Golden Age for slashers. Happy Death Day, Happy Death Day 2 U, There’s Someone Inside Your House, Bodies Bodies Bodies, the Fear Street trilogy, Fear Street: Prom Queen, Thanksgiving, the X trilogy, Scream 2022, Scream VI, It’s A Wonderful Knife, Heart Eyes, the Terrifier movies, and the upcoming I Know What You Did Last Summer reboot have all proven that viewers still want new, fresh takes on the slasher formula.

As such, , and the story doesn’t even need to be told as a straightforward slasher movie. Its interlinked timelines and slow-burn mystery are both reminiscent of Sharp Objects and Yellowjackets, two great psychological thriller shows that were elevated by the miniseries format.

Final Girls could be a great TV series, and fortunately for the rights holders, the slasher has been flourishing on the small screen just as much as it has succeeded on the big screen in recent years. Not only is there the underrated Canadian anthology series Slasher, but 2015’s Scream, the same year’s Scream Queens, American Horror Story: 1984, 2021’s I Know What You Did Last Summer, Wreck, and SyFy’s Chucky all prove the slasher revival isn’t limited to the multiplex. King was right to single out Sager’s novel as a winning title, which makes its delayed adaptation inscrutable.

Now that Netflix’s adaptation of You is ending after four seasons, there is no better time for some enterprising creators to bring Sager’s story to life on the big or the small screen. With a twisty storyline, smart commentary on the slasher’s sub-genre’s tropes, and a genuinely surprising twist ending, Final Girls has everything readers could want from a fresh new take on the eponymous trope. Now, the book that Stephen King compared to Gone Girl almost a decade ago just needs to make the jump to screens.

Source: The Atlantic

Deadline