On a less auspicious note, 1986 also marked the nadir of the cocaine addition phase of King’s career in the form of Maximum Overdrive, the first, last and I think it’s safe to assume, only, adaptation of Stephen King’s work to be directed by Stephen King himself. In Hollywood’s Stephen King, King says, with characteristic self-deprecating bluntness, that he was“coked out of [his] mind all through its production, and [he] really didn't know what [he] was doing.”
That comes through loud and clear in every frame of the movie. King is credited as director here but this might be another case of a giant bag of cocaine becoming sentient and deciding to direct a movie that reflected its sensibility in its purest form. King is one of our greatest storytellers, but a movie about a crazy world full of Southern-fried assholes where all the machines suddenly become sentient and try to kill all humans sure seems like the kind of idea a sentient bag of cocaine would come up with.
Carrie: The Musical was also around that time. It was one of the biggest flops in Broadway history. I would not be at all shocked if cocaine played a big role in Stephen King okaying a musical based on Carrie.
King pretty famously gave the thumbs up to pretty much anyone who wanted to adapt certain stories. It was the "Dollar Baby" program and it ran from the late 70s/early 80s to about 8 months ago.
Some dude also just made a horror game based off of called decimate drive, where cars try to run you over at night. Kind of spooky but weird that I just watched this recently: