Although I’m pretty disenchanted with Stephen King’s work (I maintain that the Bachman stuff and short story collections are his best), I’ve been told Cell is worth reading for the carnage and the fact that it’s set in and around my hometown of Boston. Now I don’t have to bother with all that reading nonsense!

Much-hyped “horror savior” Eli Roth has answered Dimension’s call to adapt King’s latest tale of sociological terror. Roth is currently reiterating the drastic hazards of backpacking with the reasonably unnecessary quick-cash sequel to Hostel, but will plug into Cell once he’s done dismantling more hapless tourists. King’s story is a twist on the zombie genre in which mobile phones deliver an apocalyptic payload into the brains of users, creating a world of vicious, mindless killing machines and leaving pockets of low-tech survivors.

This sounds like a juicy combination to me – King in his gory glory with a skilled maverick bringing it to life. I was pretty surprised by Hostel, which I found a wonderfully raw quantum leap in Roth’s filmmaking over Cabin Fever, but I’ve always been fascinated by exposed breasts and bodily mutilation.