Stephen King Digs STRANGER THINGS so Much That He's Coming Up With THE INSTITUTE

We're honestly not surprised.... After all, King spoke highly of STRANGER THINGS given the revitalization of the sub-genre of kid horror and the resurgence of the sleeper hit IT sweeping the nation. So what is this new book THE INSTITUTE all about?

Here's the Scoop on THE INSTITUTE

At 576 pages, the rundown of it on King's site states:

In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis's parents and load him into a black SUV. The operation takes less than two minutes. Luke will wake up at The Institute, in a room that looks just like his own, except there's no window. And outside his door are other doors, behind which are other kids with special talents -- telekinesis and telepathy -- who got to this place the same way Luke did: Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and ten-year-old Avery Dixon. They are all in Front Half. Others, Luke learns, graduated to Back Half, "like the roach motel," Kalisha says. "You check in, but you don't check out."

In this most sinister of institutions, the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff are ruthlessly dedicated to extracting from these children the force of their extranormal gifts. There are no scruples here. If you go along, you get tokens for the vending machines. If you don't, punishment is brutal. As each new victim disappears to Back Half, Luke becomes more and more desperate to get out and get help. But no one has ever escaped from the Institute.

As psychically terrifying as Firestarter, and with the spectacular kid power of It, The Institute is Stephen King's gut-wrenchingly dramatic story of good vs. evil in a world where the good guys don't always win. 

I'd say there's some good influence here from the King of horror, particularly when this looks so much like Josh Boone's THE NEW MUTANTS with elements of LEGION thrown in. Still you can't get away from the power of IT minus a certain clown, and a setup that's reminiscent of a gang of kids working together for the greater good. It just makes for great storytelling.

Who's Going to Want a Look at THE INSTITUTE? Me.

Duh. It's Stephen King, for crying out loud. And here he is churning another brick of butter filled with literary genius and terror for all of us to stomach. Bring it, man. I dug FIRESTARTER as well, so if we're getting to look at some kids with freaky mutant powers, I'm game.