It was number one on our Top 10 Horror Movies Ever Made list last week, but it is still the least favourite film of the The Shining‘s author Stephen King. In the past, King hasn’t minced his words about Stanley Kubrick’s version of his book and this latest quote is certainly no different.
In an in interview with Rolling Stone, King said, “I don’t get it. But there are a lot of things that I don’t get. But obviously people absolutely love it, and they don’t understand why I don’t,” he told the magazine. “The book is hot, and the movie is cold; the book ends in fire, and the movie in ice. In the book, there’s an actual arc where you see this guy, Jack Torrance, trying to be good, and little by little he moves over to this place where he’s crazy. And as far as I was concerned, when I saw the movie, Jack was crazy from the first scene. I had to keep my mouth shut at the time. It was a screening, and Nicholson was there. But I’m thinking to myself the minute he’s on the screen, ‘Oh, I know this guy. I’ve seen him in five motorcycle movies, where Jack Nicholson played the same part.’ And it’s so misogynistic. I mean, Wendy Torrance is just presented as this sort of screaming dishrag. But that’s just me, that’s the way I am.”
King also wasn’t keen on documentary Room 237, which dissected various interpretations and theories about the film, “Well, let me put it this way – I watched about half of it and got sort of impatient with it and turned it off. These guys were reaching. I’ve never had much patience for academic bullshit. It’s like Dylan says, “You give people a lot of knives and forks, they’ve gotta cut something.” And that was what was going on in that movie.”
What do you make of Stephen King’s comments?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL18yMRIfoszH_jfuJoo8HCG1-lGjvfH2F
Originally published November 5, 2014. Updated November 7, 2019.
