The Shining

Well, I just watched that one for the first time in... two decades? Something like that. And I know it's blasphemy but it just isn't very good. This movie lives entirely off Jack Nicholson's total crazy. Any other actor and the film would be an empty shell.

There, I said it. I mean it's by no means a bad horror flick. But it's just not worth the cult status it enjoys. For me it lacks two things:

1. WTF is happening? Why is this happening? I usually don't need explanations but there is not much that would justify Jack going all out maniac. Also, he does the crazy even before things start to go south. Like, in the very first scenes when nothing is creepy and the hotel is full of people.

This is of course up to interpretation. Voices in his head, hallucinations brought on by god knows what. I cannot remember the book at all but I think it does at least make some sense. There is the final frame from 1921 but why? What happened?

2. The timing is completely off. Not Kubrick's work of course. The whole script. I can see this stuff happening thanks to complete isolation but the movie never delivers on that front either. It's happy family in one minute and Creep Fest 1980 the next.

It's just not fleshed out very well. We never get a sense how this marriage, the family, work. Whether they are happy with the hotel job. If they are happy at all. It there were problems before it all started. All we get is creepy son (great acting!) with his half assed Shining and talking to his finger. The rest is heavy symbolism thanks to outstanding production design.

I get what Kubrick was going for. He had a knack for spinning other people's stories but here, he failed in my humble opinion. Stephen King is not one to just let people interpret at will. According to himself in ON WRITING, he may have no idea where his stories are going when he starts writing them but in the end, the reader usually knows WTF just went down.

Kubrick did the same thing with SPACE ODYSSEY. But there, it worked. Not as a real movie but as a meditation on film. It worked because the script was developed together with Arthur C Clarke and parallel to the book.

Watch it again. Maybe you'll see more than I did.

IIRC Stephen King was unhappy with Kubrick's adaptation of "The SHINING"1

Back in 1997 or 1998, a mini-series was made based more closely & much more loyal to the original novel.

I remember it starring Tim Daly(?) and Rebecca DeMornay as the Torrences.

IIRC from at the time, King was happy with the mini-series adaptation.

Jack also had The Shining.
As did his father.
There was a whole subplot in the novel with Jack remembering his dad being a violent drunken bastard.
In "Dr. Sleep", Danny inherits his father's and grandfather's alcoholism, and kicks it with AA.
So, the drunk gene and the Shining gene go hand in hand down Danny's family tree.

Kubrick being both artsy-fartsy, and thumbing his nose at King's ending.

The book and miniseries both had the hotel get blown up and burnt down by the boiler overloading.
Jack comes to the good side just long enough to sacrifice himself so that the boiler does go.

Kubrick has the hotel still standing, but Jack gets absorbed into the ghost collective.

Kind of like the Force Gene in the Skywalker Family?

Yep, exactly.

I like both the book and the movie, personally. Don't much care for the miniseries adaptation, though, which was a little too family friendly considering the source material. The film is its own thing, and for me it's all about the creepy vibe. It's one of the few horror movies I actually like.

You have to detach Kubrick's film from King's book. I think the film is one of the creepiest movies ever made and, certainly, many scenes from Kubrick's film have become part of the cultural zeitgeist.

The mini-series was shit and was essentially a fan-wank for King and his drooling minions.

I never thought either filmed version was as good as the book, which scared the living heck outta me.

Shining, Pet Sematary, and IT are his scariest ones, and none of the movies live up to them.
Pet Sematary probably comes closest.

The tv version with Steven Weber (whoever said Tim Daly got the wrong Wings costar) was better. King had always complained that in Kubrick's version, Nicholson's character just sort of "goes crazy" while in his story, the madness is a metaphor for alcoholism.

I though this thread was going to be about a remake, I'm so glad that's not the case. I love the movie. Yes it rides on Nicholson's performance, but I don't care.

No they are not. But they are clearer.

Eh....the miniseries is a mixed bag for me.
It's interesting to see it be more devoted to the book, and to see scenes like the hedge lions they couldn't pull off in the early 80's, but it just isn't scary at all, and the very ending is syrupy shmaltz tacked on after the novel ends, and contradicts "Doctor Sleep".
Worth checking out once if you're a King fan that has to see everything.

I was never a fan of that movie, and I am not a fan of Jack Nicholson. The miniseries held to the book more, but kings works don't seem to translate well onto film. I cannot watch misery as it is shit to me having read the book beforehand. The stand as a minute miseries was watchable, but the extended edition was so much better along every emotion.

To make his stories into a movie you have to take some huge liberties. It it very evident in his short story trucks. Trucks had a tv movie made of it that stuck to the story line, and it had a full-blown movie made from it called maximum overdrive which king cameos in. Maximum overdrive is a great apocalypse movie, but the made for tv movie which held much more true to king's story just fell flat. The written story was good also, but it is not maximum overdrive.

Even when you adapt his short stories to a short bit like what was done with the raft and it's corresponding adaptation in creepshow it falls short. I was terrified by the written story, but seeing it played out on the screen took something out of it for me.

Um, SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION?
GREEN MILE?
THE LAST STAND mini?
The IT 2-parter, even though deeply flawed?

King books are basically films on paper anyway. Un-complex them and put them on film 1:1. Unfortunately most directors don't seem to realize how easy this could be. Not even King himself as proven by the gawdaful MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE which he didn't only cameo in but directed himself.

I've said it many times and I still believe it. King has a horrendous time ending his stories. He can get away with this on the written page by providing a huge amount of expository material but onscreen way too many of his works seems to simply "end"

Not to mention that although King has written a lot of material a number of his more famous works is simply retelling the SAME STORY over and over.

I haven't read the books, but the movies seem to write themselves into a corner. Pet Cemetery is probably the best one though.

Christine worked well as a film.

!!!!!


And the Overlook Hotel was built on an Indian graveyard. The Shining was one book that had me reading facing the doorway so no one could sneak up on me. I liked the movie. Shelly Duvall was great, as was Scatman Crothers.

One of my favorite "little" King films is Firestarter. I just find it very enjoyable, and very true to the book. And I think The Dead Zone is probably at about the same level of goodness.

We caught the recent remake of Carrie on cable a few weeks ago. While the lead actress was very good, the rest of the cast seemed to just be faceless, personalityless golems going thru the motions, reciting lines from the book without anything behind it. The original may have been smothered with 80s schmalz, but it had a lot of heart and personality.

Uh, btw, thanks for mentioning the SHINING miniseries @The Esquire of Gothos . I did not know this even existed. Watching the first part right now. That's not bad at all! Sure it doesn't have the production values of Kubrick's version but it has something much more valuable: time. It's what this story needs to make sense. Also, it's not so full of symbolism that it basically beats you over the head with it in every single frame. It's more realistic while Kubrick went for extremely overstylized.

Maybe it's a language barrier or cultural issue, but Kubrick's film makes perfect sense to me. I actually saw it before I ever read King's novel, and had no difficulty following or understanding the movie.

Also, we're forgetting the best version of King's novel put to celluloid:

I mean that in the sense I laid out in the OP. It moves too fast and doesn't offer a compelling reason why Jack goes maniac. There is a slight allusion to alcoholism in the bar scene but it's kinda random. Just mention that he's a recovering alcoholic somewhere along the line and boom, suddenly it all makes sense!

Um, insanity doesn't need to make sense. That's why it's called insanity.

Well it does have to if you make a movie about it

And while we're at it: what's up with the cook? He makes his way back just to get murdered within three seconds? Another change that makes no sense. As far as I remember the book Halloran is the key to stopping Jack. Which is how it should be because otherwise, telling his story is useless.

FTFY

I love the original because it's soooo 70s.