Stephen King Wrote A Disturbing Vampire Movie Starring Hellboy's Ron Perlman

Stephen King's books are adapted for the screen pretty frequently, which sometimes overshadows the movies and TV shows he's penned directly. Indeed, although it's less discussed than other facets of his career, the acclaimed horror author is an accomplished filmmaker and screenwriter in his own right. And even then, much more's been written about his debut as a screenwriter on the '80s horror movie "Creepshow" than his script for 1992's "Sleepwalkers," a vampire flick co-starring "Hellboy" actor Ron Perlman.

"Sleepwalkers" tells the story of a mother-son vampire duo that go around sucking the life essence out of innocent living humans. Perlman, meanwhile, plays Captain Soames, a sheriff who gets his fingers chewed off during one of the film's gnarliest scenes.

Is "Sleepwalkers" one of the best horror movies of the '90s? Probably not — heck, it isn't even the best King project of the decade, which saw adaptations like the "IT" TV miniseries and the film "Misery" come out and ultimately achieve legendary status. "Sleepwalkers" is, however, an entertaining flick that will appeal to fans of King's work, even if it isn't necessarily his crowning career achievement. With that in mind, what possessed the author to turn this story into a screenplay instead of writing it as a book?

Stephen King wrote "Sleepwalkers" with one goal in mind — to scare people. However, it seems that the author was also keen to end debates regarding whether adaptations of his stories are better than their literary counterparts. As he explained in a 1992 interview with the Los Angeles Times:

"I'm pretty happy with it. The thing is, it's mine. One of the bonuses about this project is that there aren't going to be any fans who'll come up and say, 'The book was a lot better,' because there isn't any book."

These days, most studio execs would probably bend over backward to make movies with King's name attached to the project and trust his vision. However, "Sleepwalkers" seemingly had them worried in the '90s, as the vampire-like beings at the heart of the film's terror have an ambiguous back story. To quote King on the matter:

"There are several executives at Columbia, who I won't name, who kept asking me 'They come from another planet, right?' And I'm saying, 'Well, why do you care where ... they come from?'"

Overall, though, King seems pleased with how the Mick Garris-directed movie turned out. What's more, horror fans ought to check it out to see if they can spot the various cameos by some of the genre's most acclaimed filmmakers.