Give Me What I Want, and I'll Go Away Quiz

Answer: It

'It' was a 1990 made-for-TV mini-series. It starred Tim Curry as Pennywise the clown (It). It also starred Harry Anderson, Dennis Christopher, Richard Masur, John Ritter, Tim Reid, Richard Thomas, Seth Green, and Annette O'Toole.
Ben Hanscom's brother Georgie first encountered Pennywise and was drowned. Ben felt responsible and began to stutter. He was given a sentence to say to help him overcome the stutter. Ben and five other small town kids became friends but eventually grew up, moved away and grew apart. They came back to town to face their fears and Pennywise. 'It' had to be killed before any other kids were harmed. At the time it first aired, this two-part show made history as the fifth and second highest rated programs on Sunday and Tuesday.
King talked about the thrusting fist phrase in his non-fiction work, 'Danse Macabre'. He mentioned it was repeated in the 1942 science fiction novel 'Donovan's Brain'. There is also an articulation exercise that goes like this 'Amidst the mists and coldest frosts, with stoutest wrists and loudest boasts, he thrusts his fists against the posts, and still insists he sees the ghosts'.

Answer: Misery

'Misery' was a movie released in 1990. It was directed by Rob Reiner and starred James Caan and Kathy Bates. Caan played author Paul Sheldon who wrecked his car in a blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. Bates character, nurse Annie Wilkes, found him and took him to her isolated home where she began to nurse him back to health.

When Wilkes found out that Sheldon, her favorite author, had penned the death of her favorite heroine Misery, she plotted a way to get him to bring Misery back to life by writing his next novel according to the way she wanted it.

She broke additional bones in Sheldon's body to assure he couldn't leave her home on his own while he was supposed to be writing his next great work. Like Alfred Hitchcock, King likes to make cameo appearances in his movies but didn't do so for this movie, but the director does play a helicopter pilot (fulfilling a fantasy or budget constraints?).

Answer: Salem's Lot

'Salem's Lot' was a mini-series actually made for television twice. In 1979, Toby Hooper produced the vampire and haunted house show with David Soul as the primary good guy, Ben Mears, and James Mason as the primary bad guy, Richard Straker. In 2004, Mikael Salomon directed the story with Rob Lowe as the good guy and Donald Sutherland as the bad guy. Rutger Hauer played the vampire in 2004 version.

The good guy writer, Ben Mears, returned to his small home town of Salem's Lot to write a book.

A spooky old mansion had been bought by two mysterious gentlemen. Straker was an antique dealer who made arrangements for his vampire master to move into the mansion. Once that happened, the town folk were turned into a food source. Two brothers were out one evening and encountered the vampire. One brother, Danny, was bitten and presumed dead.

He became a vampire and attempted to enter his best friend Mark's home. But Mark was a horror maven and knew better than to invite Danny in. In 1987, Larry Cohen directed 'A Return To Salem's Lot', which was a sequel written by Cohen and King.

Answer: Silver Bullet

'Silver Bullet' was a movie released in 1985. It's based on 'Cycle Of The Werewolf', a novella by King. It starred Gary Busey with Corey Haim and Megan Follows as his nephew and niece who believed there was a werewolf in their tiny town. There had been a series of unsolved and grisly murders in their small town. Uncle Red built a wheelchair for his paraplegic nephew and gave him some fireworks for a fourth of July celebration.

The boy shot off some of the fireworks and then he spotted what looked like a werewolf.

He hit the wolf in the eye with a pyrotechnic projectile. The kids went through town the next day; they looked for a human with an injured eye. The local minister had a patch over one eye. Uncle Red came to town to kid-sit and the kids tried to convince him that the minister was a werewolf.

He didn't really believe but had some silver melted down to make a silver bullet. In a conversation with some of town folks, Uncle Red delivered the line above.

Answer: The Shining

'The Shining' was a TV mini-series in 1997 and a movie in 1980. Steven Weber and Rebecca DeMornay played John and Winifred Torrance in the television version, while Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall took on those roles in the cinematic version. Torrance took a job at the Overlook, a beautiful and isolated hotel in the Colorado mountains.

He moved his wife and son in with him while he became the caretaker of this magnificent hotel and in his spare time, he tried to abstain from alcohol and write the great American novel. Only trouble was, not everyone left the hotel at the end of the fall season.

The previous caretaker, his twin daughters and some hotel guests remained. Oh, did I mention, they're all dead. As the snow fell, which made leaving impossible, Torrance became crazier and he would sit in front of his typewriter and type, day in and day out.

His wife checked some of the hundreds of typed pages only to find the quote above, typed over and over and over.

Answer: Maximum Overdrive

'Maximum Overdrive' was written and directed by Stephen King. It was originally entitled 'Trucks' and was included in a collection of short stories under the title 'Night Shift'. The movie was released in 1986. It starred Emilio Estevez and Pat Hingle.

A group of people were trapped in a truck stop as the earth passed through the tail of a comet and all the machines came to life and terrorized the humans that made them. Wanda June was a waitress at the truck stop and was incensed when the 18-wheelers and other vehicles held her and others hostage at the truck stop. This movie began my love of all things AC/DC as they did the soundtrack and I loved every song. King did one of his usual cameos as a man at an ATM with a very funny line which can't be quoted here.

Answer: The Mist

This quote was from the 2007 movie 'The Mist'. The movie starred Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, and Andre Braugher. A group of shoppers were trapped in a grocery by unseen things in a mysterious mist. People that ventured out were heard screaming but never seen again. Over time, Harden's character (Mrs. Carmody) began to preach about the end of days. All the people in the grocery were separated into two groups, those who believed in Mrs. Carmody and the end of days, and those (like Ollie) who didn't believe in Armageddon and were quite tired of listening to Mrs. Carmody.
The end of this movie was ironic and tragic. When you look up those words in the dictionary, they should show the last few minutes of this movie.
For those of you who are fans of AMC's 'Walking Dead', you might recognize several faces in this movie.

Answer: The Stand

'The Stand' was a very long mini-series made for television in 1994. The running time on the show was 366 minutes. It was based on a very long novel by Stephen King. Although there was a huge cast for this movie, Gary Sinise starred as one of the main protagonists and Jamey Sheridan (Flagg) was the main antagonist.
A deadly virus had wiped out most of the population on Earth and the survivors were compelled to find a man and a woman shown to them in dreams. Good people were drawn to Mother Abagail in Nebraska and bad people were drawn to Randall Flagg in Las Vegas, Nevada. The story revolved around the survivors struggles to decide which direction to go and the actual journey to get there. Then the good go to defeat the bad in the final stand. Two of the main characters that tried to reach Mother Abagail were Tom Cullen (played by Bill Fagerbakke) who was mentally challenged and couldn't read so he didn't know who he had been traveling with for some time. Nick Andros (played by Rob Lowe) was Tom's traveling companion who was deaf; he couldn't speak to or fully understand Tom. Whenever Tom talked, he always spelled 'moon'.
King has a small part in two episodes of this four part series.

Answer: Needful Things

'Needful Things' was release as a movie in 1993. It starred Max von Sydow as Leland Gaunt, J T Walsh as Danforth 'Buster' Keeton, Bonnie Bedelia, Ed Harris, and Amanda Plummer. Gaunt moved into a small town and opened an antique store. If you told him what you wanted, or if he told you what you needed, he'd provide it but, since he was the devil, there was a terrible price to pay. Soon most of the town had been to see Mr. Gaunt and most of the town had something they wanted.

They also were overly jealous, violent, and just downright mean. Mr. Gaunt had manipulated everyone who frequented his store by getting people to do his bidding which sometimes resulted in murder, actually several of them. Mrs. Keeton just happened to get in Buster's way. You can tell by his remark that he wasn't too concerned about it. When Gaunt delivered the line about killing them all, I wondered if it was King's or where it originated. According to Wikipedia, around 1209 a church leader headed up the Albigensian Crusade to convert a group to Catholicism.

He was asked how he would know Catholics from others and his reply was something along the lines of 'Kill them all. For the Lord knoweth them that are His'.

Answer: Storm of the Century

'Storm Of The Century' was a four part mini-series made for TV in 1999. It starred Tim Daly as a small town constable, Debrah Farentino as the constable's wife, and Colm Feore as the wonderfully evil Andre Linoge. When Andre arrived in town, he went first to Mrs. Clarendon's house and that is where the quote came from. In his true form, Linoge was an old, old being that was dying and desperately wanted an heir.
The title of this quiz is also from the show and spoken by Andre. Can't you just feel the evil and malevolence oozing from that sentence - 'give me what I want and I'll go away'? Before he died, Andre Linoge wanted a child that he could teach to be just like him.
According to IMDB, King portrayed a Lawyer in an ad, continuing his habit of making cameo appearances in many of his movies.

If you love the horror genre and want a little insight as to why (other than believing you're just creepy), read King's Danse Macabre. You'll definitely get insight into King. It's an excellent read, a non-fiction about fiction and its influence on culture. It was originally published in 1981 and republished in 2010 with additional information.