234: Remembering Scott Wampler

Night Shift is King's first short story collection, published in 1978 and compiling a ton of his nudie magazine stories published before he hit fame and fortune. Night Surf is the standout for our guest and that one is more of a chill story about a group of friends hanging out on the beach as a super flu spreads across the world, taking humanity out person by person.

Pet Sematary follows a young doctor and his family who move into a small Maine town with a terribly busy road that likes to claim the lives of pets and small little boys chasing kites. Beyond the Pet Sematary is a deadfall that conceals a sour plot of land that might help you bring a loved one back, but at a cost. 

Holly follows one of King's favorite characters, Holly Gibney, as she's faced with a monstrous duo who are snatching people for horrific reasons. It's up to Holly to honor their victims and stop them from hurting more as she slowly uncovers the truth behind these disappearances. And Creepshow is King and George A. Romero teaming up for a loving EC Comics tribute anthology film that contains pissed off undead father's wanting their damn cake, a man just itching to off his horrible wife, a dude that probably shouldn't have touched the meteor that fell into his backyard, and a jealous husband torturing his unfaithful wife and her lover.

Scott Wampler passed away Friday afternoon from natural causes. Aside from being the dedicated co-host of this show, he was a certifiable smart-ass on social media, a bully to bullies and those who abused power, and champion of all the people and art that touched him. This emotional conversation pulls back the curtain on Scott as a person and what's in store for the shows that he was so passionate about.

Tim Curry scarred a whole generation as Pennywise The Dancing Clown in Stephen King's IT and Brian De Palma's Carrie inspired a whole generation of genre filmmakers. Both are classics of the respective forms and both have proven to be hugely important in keeping King in the cultural zeitgeist.

One For Road is Stephen King's short story sequel to 'Salem's Lot in which a family man runs out of gas in the middle of a snowstorm, leaves his family in the car while he goes to look for help, and then wanders into a bar where the locals pretty much tell him he broke down in the wrong place and there are vampires around. Scary, tense, and with a final couple of pages that will stick with you long after reading.

The Shining is one of the most hotly debated Stephen King adaptations. Did Kubrick screw up King's book? Is all that talk overblown? It always serves as a good backdrop to a conversation, especially when your guest is as fun to talk to as our guest this week.

Stephen King's short story, Graveyard Shift, is about a Maine textile mill that has something of a rat problem. Like, a big rat problem. Literally. But are the rats the biggest problem facing these workers or the slave style conditions they have to work under? Both are bad news, but put them together and you have a creepy King corker that once again focuses on blue collar workers facing true evil.

The Running Man is one of the darker stories to escape the mind of Stephen King. Originally published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, the story follows Ben Richards as he attempts to evade deadly stalkers in order to win a boatload of cash in order to save his sick family. The Arnold Schwarzenegger movie adaptation is pretty different, but both interpretations of the material ended up being strangely prescient.

What would you do if you fell asleep on a flight and woke up to find a damn near empty airplane was still chugging along? That's the premise of Stephen King's novella The Langoliers and it remains one of his most fun, pulpy stories, despite a rather sketchy TV mini-series from the mid-'90s.