So vividly drawn is Stephen King’s fiction that it’s offered the basis for some 50 feature films. For half a century, since Brian De Palma’s 1976 film “Carrie,” Hollywood has turned, and turned again,

Most know Stephen King as today’s most revered horror author, the expert conjurer of the kinds of macabre souls that are embedded in our nightmares — the killer clown Pennywise from “It,” the all-work-and-no-play Jack Torrance from “The Shining” and the wackadoodle fan Annie Wilkes from “Misery.”

The Life of Chuck” is a trick. It’s a trick you’ll be delighted by, but a trick nevertheless, conjured by author Stephen King, on the page, and filmmaker Mike Flanagan,