Stephen King's The Shining (1997)

King's flop makes Kubrick's masterpiece shine

THE DIRECTORS: Stanley Kubrick was a film artist. I am not sure what Stephen King is when it comes to film, but I am pretty sure it is not respecting it as an art form.

Kubrick's film is rich in themes and motifs: Doubling, repetition, lights, mazes, mirroring, Indians, Europeans, white settlers, the American flag. The discussion is far too long to have here. King's films, by comparison, are all what-you-see-is-what-you-get. This one is no different. To be sure, with Kubrick's version there have been connections made and meanings inferred that were merely the result of accident or continuity error, as happens in every film, and not something that Kubrick ever intended. But I would rather watch a movie that gives me a reason to wonder about something that may or may not be there than a movie that leaves me with nothing to wonder about at all.

It's too bad King doesn't acknowledge his limitations and leave well-enough alone. So what if Kubrick's film was only loosely based on his book? Lots of films are only loosely based on books. King's story is in print for all of eternity. People will probably be reading it 1,000 years from now. Isn't that enough?

THE HOTEL: The Timberline Lodge, which Kubrick used for the exterior of his hotel, is located near the top of Mt. Hood. From the aerial views in the opening shots, it looks like it is part of the mountain. It looks like a place where a madman might dwell, and it seems remote and isolated long before the snow has begun to fall. King's pretty white hotel is as scary as a picture on a postcard.

HORROR MOVIE OR FUN HOUSE? "You shut up! You can't hurt me...you're just spooks!" Well said, Rebecca, and exactly the point. The movie you're in is Leave-It-To-Beaver meets Casper The Unfriendly Ghost.

King's spook-house has all of the standard horror movie tricks: Ghosts in ghoulish make-up, doors that open and shut on their own, scary masks, and boogeymen that jump out of nowhere and threaten to gobble you up! Kubrick stayed far away from any typical haunted house tricks. To his credit, he managed to scare the audience with the simple and the ordinary.
Kubrick's elevator gushes a torrent of reddish-black blood. King's elevator gushes confetti and underwear.

217 v. 237. This scene scared me about as badly as taking my child shopping at the Halloween Superstore in October. And how hard is it to scare a child? Film Bathtub Woman scared the s--- out of an axe-murderer! Series Jack leaned against the wall and rattled an aspirin bottle. Did she give him a headache?

The hedge animals in King's movie could have been effective. Did they just move? Maybe they did or maybe they didn't. Maybe the hotel is starting to get to Jack and he imagined it all. But the scene is spoiled by playground objects that do come to life while you're watching them.
And why does series Jack pick a croquet mallet for a weapon? There is an industrial-sized kitchen in the hotel filled with shiny, silver weapons at his disposal. A meat cleaver would have been scarier. The introduction of "Denver Croquet" at the beginning of the film and the references to it throughout lessened whatever impact it might have had, anyway.

Film Jack plants the axe into O'Halloren's chest and then hobbles through the hotel after his son with the axe dripping blood. Series Jack makes "bonking" noises as he pretends to hit himself in the side of the head with the mallet and jokes about Dick being "a publisher's clearing house winner."

THE SCRIPT & SCREENPLAY: It's a terrible death to be talked to death. And it's a terrible movie, too. All the domestic drama ruined it for me. A haunted hotel that is trying to prevent three people from leaving it is not scary when it is discussed and debated out loud for four hours.

Imagine you were in such a situation. If you were stuck with someone somewhere and things were going downhill. That scariest part is not when you are talking to them. It is the moments of silence, the time you spend by yourself wondering in your own mind what is going to happen next and what you will do. What is it like to walk down that long empty hallway by yourself and turn the corner? The tension builds and you hear your heart thudding. But King's movie? Wendy points at the hedge animals and exclaims, "Look! Why aren't they covered in snow"? She talks to Jack in the garage and says "Danny's too little! Whoever did this is stronger! Much stronger, Jack!." "...This sounds so insane, no listen to me, Danny thinks that the hotel is using him to cut off all our ways out of here!" Thank you, Ms. De Mornay. I could never have perceived any of those things on my own had you not pointed them out to me.

"Mom, what's Redrum?" "Rum?" "No, Redrum." "Hmm, I don't know. Sounds like something a pirate might drink." Sounds like a peanut butter commercial to me, or maybe an ad for children's nighttime cough and cold medicine. Now, if we have that settled, Danny can smile sweetly and snuggle down into bed for the night. But, wait...mom leaves the room and then Danny turns, eyes wide, mouth open, and sees the word "Redrum" on the wall again! Still, that doesn't quite compare with...Film Wendy wakes up to Danny's catatonic screaming, sees "Murder" written in red letters on the door in the mirror on the other side of the room and a split second later hears Jack's axe slam into the wood.

In Kubrick's Shining we didn't hear the dialogue between Danny and Dick. And that was good. We didn't need to know what was being said, if anything was being said. Maybe it was only a vision that Danny projected to Dick from halfway across the country. Or maybe something else. Assuming we live in a world where psychics exist, part of the intrigue for non-psychics is in imagining what it is like to experience psychic phenomenon, not knowing what it is like. As with the rest of the movie, too much information is given.

And too much is seen. Dick jumps around like he is being tasered, his nose bleeds, and bystanders fuss over him. Compare these antics with the look of sheer terror that spreads slowly over Crothers' face. It is the horror of the hotel that Crothers reacts to, not what Danny says or how loudly he says it. Maybe Danny wasn't even trying to make contact, but Dick just picked up on it? A testament to Danny's shattered state of mind by this point and not to how strong his psychic abilities were.

ACTING & DIRECTING: At no time am I ever convinced that Jack is truly angry at Wendy or that Wendy is truly scared of Jack. In King's Shining Wendy and Jack spent four hours arguing and I didn't feel like they were any more alienated from each other than they were at the start. Kubrick's Shining is a straight descent into madness. King's Shining is a soap opera. After so many false starts, would anyone be surprised if Weber had tossed the mallet aside and broken down crying, saying he was sorry and promising Wendy that they would find another way outta this, babe? I half expected it. (He did do something like that with Danny, didn't he?) Film Jack by that point? Not on your life!

Weber comes across like a bad comedian for most of the movie. It is painful to watch a B-actor trying to be scary and failing miserably at it. Weber admitted he refused to get lost in the role. It shows. Weber sounds the same at the end of the movie as he does at the beginning.
De Mornay is a marginally better talent than Weber, but the too-glamorous-for-the role Hollywood blonde doesn't convince me anymore than he does in this flick. "Run and hide, Danny!" might have worked had Weber been coming after her with an axe. But when he's got a croquet mallet in his hand and is cracking bad jokes, it doesn't. Okay, so it's not all De Mornay's fault.

We are told that De Mornay's Wendy is a Strong Womyn of the 90s. So how does that help the movie? If she's tough and she can take care of herself and her son, then why I am supposed to be afraid for her? De Mornay said of her role that Wendy "is a woman of power and intelligence." The implication apparently being that Duvall's Wendy was weak and stupid. De Mornay broke a bottle on Jack's head, kicked him in the nuts, and sliced his hand with a razor blade. Duvall hit Jack in the head with a baseball bat, sent him tumbling head over heels down the stairs, sprained his ankle, and sliced his hand with a kitchen knife. I'd say they're even. To boot, Duvall found her son and got them both into the snow cat and away from the hotel to safety, and she did it without anyone's help. De Mornay had only a wooden mallet to worry about and she needed Dick O'Halloren to rescue her.

Which Wendy is more likeable? Part of the reason that Nicholson's madness is so terrifying is that Wendy really didn't do anything to incite it. He must have gone crazy; all Wendy did was to suggest that there was someone else there with them and that they should get Danny out of the hotel. The malevolent forces of The Overlook have acted upon Jack, not Wendy. Contrast that to King's movie where De Mornay yells, threatens, accuses, and nags almost the entire length of the movie. "Daddy finally got tired of her spiteful, cowardly nagging and decided to take her to school..." Yeah, can you blame him?

King's Danny is also less sympathetic. Despite's Jack's lamenting that Danny is a "very willful boy" we never see Danny Lloyd do anything willful or bratty. Courtland Mead, however, despite being repeatedly hollered at by his dry-drunk father and warned by Tony who conveniently pops up in front of him, busts into Ullman's office, steals the keys and bullheadedly goes where he knows he is not supposed to go. "I'll go in here if I want! Go away! Leave me alone!" alternating with daddy-daddy-snivel-scenes thrown in to make Weber look like an ogre.

And Does anyone know why it is that King takes one cheesy line and makes the actors repeat it over and over and over? Get down here and take your medicine! Damn nosey little pup! Kissin', kissin, that's what I've been missin'! Just like pictures in a book! In film Shining Danny Lloyd said "just like pictures in a book" one time. Once. And that was enough. Zero times would have been enough for others. And zero would have been enough times for this remake to be done.
July 22, 2008

Just like the book

I loved this movie! I had read the book 3 times and was always disappointed the the Stanley Kubrick's version strayed so far from the the book. I was happy when this version came out because it was truly like seeing the book come to life. It is quite a long movie (approx 3 hrs, 2 discs) but I have watched multiple times and enjoy it every time. I actually got to go to the hotel where it was filmed in Estes Park, CO and take the ghost tour and see where Stephen King thought up this chilling story.

The movie is about a recovering alcoholic that takes a job as a caretaker of the Outlook Hotel (truly known as The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, CO) with his family over the winter. The hotel has its secrets that the son has a intuition about and can "see" the visions of them. They call the visions "the shining". The resident ghosts start to make their presence known through the father as they prey on his weakness as a recovering alcoholic and sort of make him go crazy and want to kill his family. Due to the fact that it is winter time the family cannot escape easily so it truly becomes a hide and seek game.

I would recommend this movie to anyone who loves a chilling ghost story. June 24, 2008

Fantastic remake of an already great movie

The original with Jack Nicholson was very good, this remake has so many extra goodies I love watching it over and over. It was well worth buying for my collection. Even though I liked the original, this one seemed to be more intense and edge of the seat. The characters are more alive and active in this one. May 29, 2008

Good movie... actually a mini-series

I had visited the Stanley Hotel and wanted to see the version of the Shining that was actually filmed at the Stanley. This version is similar and then again very different from the movie version with Jack Nicholson. I understand that Stephen King was very instrumental in the planning and filming of this mini-series. It has substantially more detail and it is a little easier to follow each character. Don't try to watch it all in one sitting! I do recommend this mini-series and would buy it again. The Stanley is a wonderful hotel in a wonderful town, Estes Park, Colorado. May 28, 2008

The Shining-Steven Webber

As a born and raised Mainer,I have been a King fan for Many years ! Although I prefer the Steven Webber version,King has done it again ! May 21, 2008

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