I'm Gilbert Cruz, editor of the New York Times book review, and this is the book review podcast. It is October. It is my favorite month of the year, both because of the weather here in the Northeast, but because it's time for Halloween, which as far as I'm concerned, should just be the whole month.

I don't know why we haven't done this yet.

It means scary movies.

It means scary books.

And there's one person who's known for both, and that is Stephen King.

Since his first novel, Carrie, which was published in 1974, which was made into a hit film two years later,

his work has been ripe for screen adaptation.

And while he's obviously known as a Master of Horror,

some of his more interesting work,

and some of the most popular movies made from that work,

have nothing to do with clowns or vampires or haunted houses

or haunted hotels or haunted cars.

I have the perfect person here with me this week.

Talk about all this.

Sean Fennessey is a longtime Stephen King enthusiast.

And one of the best movie commentators out there.

He's the co-host of the Big Picture podcast,

which according to my Spotify raft from two years ago, I listened to

for 8,334 minutes, Sean.

That is terrifying.

How do you feel about it?

That's 40 hours.

...