Stephen King: 'I Want You to Care'

Nov. 15, 2007— -- Best-selling horror novelist Stephen King doesn't particularly like the new wave of graphic horror movies. Lots of body parts, but no heart, he says.

"The problem with a lot of the so-called 'splat-pack' films is that the victims are so much baloney to be sliced, that's it," King told ABC News' "Nightline" for a profile to air Friday evening. "There's nothing there. And that walks up to a line that's very close to what they call torture porn, sadism, that sort of thing."

King talked to ABC News on the eve of the New York premiere of Dimension Films' "Stephen King's The Mist," based on a short story first published in 1980.

The film tells the story of a small community in Maine terrorized by a spooky fog that descends upon the town. The hero, David Drayton, and his son are stuck with dozens of others inside the local supermarket as they try to hide from terrifying creatures who live within the mist — a task that soon becomes impossible.

"One of the things about what I do is, I'm always more interested in the people than I am in the monsters," King said. "And I'm interested to see how people react under conditions of extreme stress.

"In my stories, the most important thing is that you see genuine human feeling in the characters in the books, and I want you to care. Whether it's the writer who's chained to the bed in 'Misery,' whether it's the woman with her son trapped in the car in 'Cujo,' or whether it's David Drayton and his little one in the market in 'The Mist.' I want you to care about those people, and I want you to like those people."

It's for that reason that King says the adaptations of his books that he likes are "The Mist," "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Stand By Me," based on his short story "The Body."

And it's why he never liked director Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of his book "The Shining," calling it "cold."

"If I can make you feel for my characters, and if you worry that something will happen to them — instead of rooting for something to happen to them, for their head to be blown off, or for Freddy to get them with his nails — then I got something going.

"In the case of 'The Shining,' Kubrick seemed to be in charge of an ant farm. He had turned his people into ants, saying, 'Well, what happens if they do this? What happens if they do that?' I didn't care for that."