‘The Institute' Is a Solid Stephen King Adaptation

Gizmodo

08-07-2025

Stephen King is easily the most-adapted horror author; his books are so popular, many of the biggest ones have been adapted multiple times. Right now, there's both a Carrie series and a feature take on The Stand in the works, and Edgar Wright's The Running Man just dropped its first trailer. With the same titles seemingly caught in Hollywood's revolving door, it can be tempting to forget King is still regularly publishing new stories.
That's one reason The Institute is such an intriguing new arrival: it's based on a book that came out just six years ago. Along with The Life of Chuck—a non-horror tale based on a 2020 novella—it seems like King's more recent creations are finally being added into the mix.
That said, The Institute contains quite a few of King's familiar trademarks, especially its blend of 'kids with powers' and 'kids working together against evil.' The new series adaptation arriving on MGM+ remains mostly faithful to the page, with a few tweaks, most notably aging its main character, Luke Ellis (Joe Freeman), up a few years from 12 to 14. That makes the physical and mental trauma he endures easier for the viewer to take.
Just a little bit easier, though. He goes through a lot, as do his peers at the title facility, where he wakes up one morning having gone to sleep in the cozy home he shared with his parents, nice folks not quite sure what to make of their son's genius brain. The slippery team running the Institute, including Mary-Louise Parker as head administrator Mrs. Sigsby, has an excellent idea of what they'd like to use it for, though they're actually more interested in Luke's budding telekinesis.
From the moment Luke opens his eyes, it's clear we've entered a Bad Place in that classic King tradition. Luke quickly bonds with the other young 'recruits' in what feels like a locked-down hospital ward, except the kids have a lot of freedom within its walls, and they all have psychic powers. Imagine variations on Carrie and The Shining's Danny Torrance, except kidnapped and forced to undergo painful tests designed to draw out their abilities. What (clearly sinister) purpose this serves is The Institute's central mystery, along with the adjacent plot of Luke using his impressive intellect to start puzzling through an escape plan.
Elsewhere in The Institute, we follow the parallel story of Tim Jamieson (Ben Barnes from Westworld and Shadow and Bone), who drifts into the small town of Dennison River Bend, Maine, intent on leaving a devastating ordeal behind. He's hired as a 'night knocker'—presumably a Stephen King-coined colloquialism—which basically means he's a police-adjacent night watchman. On his first patrol, he meets Annie (Mary Walsh), the local eccentric, whose warnings about what 'they don't want you to know' seed The Institute's thematic dives into heightened awareness, paranoia, and X-Files-style conspiracy theories.
Though Tim is very insistent that he prefers to mind his own business, we can quickly see he and Luke are destined to meet, especially when Tim takes an interest in that weird old 'infectious disease lab' perched in the woods outside town. But even if The Institute's plot feels mapped out from the beginning—and honestly the story's a bit familiar even if you're not a King junkie—it's still entertaining, even if it lacks the stylistic flair of Stranger Things, which came out before the novel but famously borrows a lot of those King-honed story points.
Amid the cast, Barnes and Parker are the most recognizable faces. Barnes is believable as a nice guy with a bad past, but Parker is the standout. Mrs. Sigsby is a quirky prison warden type who was probably once a decent person but has long since tilted her moral compass in the worst possible direction. The Institute—a secretive Cold War relic chugging along despite a constant staffing problem, run by a powerful yet faceless boss who checks in via conference call—fosters tension among co-workers, and Sigsby clashes with everyone. Though they're ostensibly serving the same cause, there's no trust among the ranks, with the cadaverous Mr. Stackhouse (veteran horror actor Julian Richings) a particularly worrisome wild card.
As Luke, Freeman (the son of actor Martin Freeman) makes an impression; he's a kid with haunted eyes and a mind that never stops working. The other young actors are also good, which is important since they do most of The Institute's emotional heavy lifting.
This might not quite be the Losers' Club uniting to take on Pennywise, but The Institute spells out similar lessons about learning to lean on your friends when you need help, as well as the importance of working together to beat the odds. We've seen it in King stories before, but there's a good reason for that: few arcs are more satisfying. And this one also happens to involve superpowers.
The Institute premieres July 13 on MGM+.
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