The Regulators is the single most underrated (non-
DT) Stephen King novel I've ever read. This thing rocked in ways I could never have anticipated. Whereas its mirror book
Desperation starts off with a bang and then somewhat devolves into an overly preachy third act of stereotypical "King-isms" (and I say this while still really loving that book),
The Regulators arrives guns-blazing and somehow manages to just get crazier and crazier as it goes, culminating in one of the author's most wholly satisfying conclusions in his bibliography. This book felt utterly creatively unhinged and batshit insane just like the best of his
Dark Tower series, as if King is typing away in a delirium with a vicious grin on his face that screams, "Okay, Constant Readers: you're on MY TIME NOW." He throws so many disparate (but equally bonkers) elements into his mean stew with reckless abandon... '90s-era Saturday morning cartoons, Sam Peckinpah shoot-outs, Paul Verhoeven sci-fi ultraviolence/media social commentary, arch
Blue Velvet-esque skewering of American sunny suburbia (I saw all of Poplar Street appearing as garishly colorful as the neighborhood in
Edward Scissorhands), terrifying
Exorcist-level supernatural horror that results in some of the most psychologically disturbing chapters of King's storied career, and a fucking CARTOON WORLD(!) all vie for page-time in this postmodern satire of suburban ignorance of the growing violence invading all annals of American culture. This book had it all.
And
stephen , You are SO RIGHT: if EVER there were a novel which should've been adapted by Quentin Tarantino for the screen, it's
The Regulators. It has virtually all of his hallmarks. Not only would he revel in the cartoonish carnage, but it would also be fascinating to see how he'd comment on King's social critiques of media violence. He could've turned this into a cinematic masterpiece.