The Shining.
I can’t believe that there exist people who prefer the book. It is so by the numbers and bland. It has no self awareness, takes itself waaay too seriously, has little to say and the fantasy/horror elements are laughable.
The film takes this weak kernel of a story and creates a rich masterpiece that achieves everything Stephen King could only dream of.
I love how Kubrick males the family dynamic a representation of the current American nuclear family. He really digs into how this family unit dynamic has rotted away. The way Jack slowly transitions into the antagonist is believable, subtle, tragic but also amazing to watch. None of Stephen King’s melodramatic cheesy none sense.
Everything about the film is about as close to perfection as possible.
I could go on and on about how amazing the film is and sub par the book is, but you get the point. The only real criticism I concede about the film is Danny who can be hard to put up with, however that’s only in parts and the actor does a much better job in the second half.
Also the whole thing about American colonialism and genocide of the natives looming in the background was fantastic. I love how it plays a quiet role in showcasing why this American nuclear family unit is eroding in the current day. Also says a lot how much of this message was blatantly ignored when it first came out. Reminds me of films like Fight Club or Starship Troopers. The general audience and even film critics seem unable to catch on to when they are the subject of criticism themselves, or they do take on but reject it.
And if you needed anymore proof how much Stephen King missed the boat here go and attempt to watch his own tv mini series version of the book. Painful to watch, has little to nothing to offer. Again melo dramatic to the extreme and is cheap and not in the slightest bit scary, an absolute wooden bore.
I wish I could agree. After reading so much hype about it on here and other places I finally paid the heavy price for it on eBay a few years ago.
Absolutely loathed it, just about everything about. Could barely get past 100 hundred pages.
I feel like I can’t give a full review because I barely even got more than a quarter way into it. But I feel so strongly about what I did read I’m going to anyway.
Straight off the bat I really disliked how kind of flimsy and almost tumblr/blog post esque the narrative is written. Comes off amateurish and really cringey.
Which I guess does fit with the fact that the main character is exactly that snd so much more. Hated everything about the protagonist, found the attempts to humanise him and then glorify his punk/‘sexy women banging’ lifestyle head bangingly stupid.
Was not at all impressed by the attempts to build tension or what I think was meant to be some form of fear. Was again cheap and amateurish.
The writers inability to write anything close to a human or relatable character on top of their inability to understand what actually is and isn’t effective scare/horror writing made the book impossible for me to continue. Frankly the whole thing angered me, and even just flipping through the cheap editing trick sections I had zero interest in continuing you it to make it to that section.
Total flop in almost every sense. Made me feel like a grumpy old man wincing at what the new generation think is good quality content… yet Im almost 30 years younger than the author.