Stephen King’s ‘Dollar Babies’ scheme has been letting up and coming filmmakers adapt his short stories for the nominal sum of $1 for over 40 years. Frank Darabont did one when he was about 20 and he’s not done badly since. A couple of years ago American screenwriters Jeffrey Stackhouse, Richard A. Becker, and Wendy Lashbrook acquired the rights to King’s 1978 short story I Am the Doorway and the now completed film has been directed by our very own Simon Pearce (Judas Ghost, Horizon web series).

For those who don’t know the story, an astronaut returns from an expedition to Pluto only to find eyes growing in the palms of his hands with entirely unhilarious body-horror consequences.

The short will be premiering at Sci-Fi-London in May but here at STARBURST we’ve already seen it (of course we have) and we can confirm that it’s good atmospheric stuff and that Pearce has done his usual trick of making it look like he had rather more money to spend than he did. While the Scottish location of Carrick Shore is used particularly effectively, we may never know how he managed to afford that close orbit of Pluto.

Sci-fi-London runs from 1st May to 7th May (date of premiere not yet known) but you can catch the I Am the Doorway trailer here:

I AM THE DOORWAY (2018) Short Film Trailer from Falling Shadows Productions on Vimeo.