Among the myriad movies and shows based on Stephen King stories, “Haven” stands out for linking a number of his novels together. And this cult series is now available to watch for free online.
“Haven” was initially developed as an adaptation of King’s 2005 novella “The Colorado Kid,” a murder mystery about a body found on the coast of Maine hours after the victim bought a cigarette in Colorado, halfway across the country. Rather than directly adapting the story, however, “Haven” creators Sam Ernst and Jim Dunn drew on the novella’s mysterious vibe to make a supernatural detective drama. The five-season series follows FBI agent Audrey Parker, who is sent to Haven, Maine, to solve a mystery — but instead comes face-to-face with paranormal events, known in the series as “The Troubles.”
Parker stays to help the police department protect the townspeople from the Troubles and each other, and she soon discovers that her past somehow links to Haven itself. But the show is far more than an adaptation of “The Colorado Kid.” Across the show’s five seasons, there are multiple easter eggs from King’s novels and novellas, including references to Shawshank Prison, Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and even the tricycle from “The Shining.” If you’re a fan of King’s books — or supernatural mystery shows like “The X-Files” or “Supernatural” — you will love this series, which you can stream for free on YouTube, The Roku Channel, Pluto TV, The CW, and Plex.
To begin with, Haven was not a supernatural drama
Speaking to The Philadelphia Inquirer in 2010, Sam Ernst explained that “Haven” was initially a direct adaptation of “The Colorado Kid.” “Initially, our idea was to stay close to the book, so it had no supernatural element,” Ernst said (via The Ventura Country Star). “But when King read it, the first thing he said was, ‘Where’s the supernatural element?'” So, they changed the series into a monster-of-the-week show, in which each episode follows a different townsperson facing a supernatural problem.
Though “Haven” enjoyed strong ratings to begin with, critics did not receive the early seasons well. The first season holds a Rotten Tomatoes critic score of 35%, with critics saying the show is too bland and feels like a poor copy of other supernatural horror TV shows. Later seasons received more praise from critics, eventually reaching 80% on Rotten Tomatoes in Seasons 4 and 5 (albeit from only a handful of reviews in each case).
But this was also when the audience started to turn on the show. Audience scores began decreasing after Season 3, and fewer than a million people tuned in for the final season. Although the series was cancelled before its sixth season, the fifth was twice as long as previous seasons, allowing the writers to give the story an emotional yet somewhat convoluted ending.
