The buzz is big for Stephen King's "Under the Dome," which premieres June 24 on CBS. But buzz always seems to accompany screen adaptations of the books by master horror storyteller Stephen King. The finished product just doesn't always live up to the hype. Here are five of the worst Stephen King book-to-screen projects.

1. "Maximum Overdrive" (1986): The old saying about not giving up one's day job really applied to Stephen King on this one. His turn as film director went really badly on his adaptation of the short story "Trucks." The acting, led by Emilio Estevez, was terrible. Ditto the dialogue. Why bother summarizing the plot -- it was predictable. The only saving grace was that this film was over in 97 minutes.

2. "Pet Sematary" (1989): King once revealed that he shelved this book and only unboxed it to meet the requirements of a book contract. Too bad the film producers failed to take note and keep this one off the screen. The characters looked absurd. The demonic cat felt cartoonish, followed too quickly by a demonic toddler who seemed more revolting than sinister.

3. "Silver Bullet" (1985): Even Gary Busey couldn't save this one about a paraplegic who investigates his small town's murders, committed by a werewolf. The movie was so poorly done, film critic Roger Ebert gave it three stars because he thought it was a parody of King's work. Way too slow and way too campy, the film climaxed with a confrontation that was way too flat.

4. "The Stand" (1994): This had the earmarks of being a great television miniseries, especially with an impressive cast that included Molly Ringwold, Rob Lowe and Gary Sinise. Acting aside, this miniseries about the survivors of a flu epidemic just didn't work. The mammoth book was too unwieldy for only six hours of screen time. Too many plot lines and characters that made the book so richly layered ended up on the film's cutting room floor. And the special effects' team took too seriously the "hand of God" conquering evil.

5. "The Langoliers" (1990): Perhaps the biggest special effects blunder came in the adaptation of this novella, about 10 passengers who awoke on a cross-country red-eye flight to find the crew and other passengers had vanished. These 10 eventually realized they were caught in a time rip where creatures devoured the past world that was left behind. What played as a great twist in the book failed to materialize on the screen because of creatures that looked like a cross between beach balls and angry Pac Mans.