Why Does Stephen King Loathe the Shining Movie?

A red bicycle. Two creepy little girls in a hallway. A flood of blood rushing out of elevators. Do you think of The Shining? Directed by Stanley Kubrick, this iconic film is one that everyone will continue talking about for years to come. When The Shining was first released in 1980, nobody seemed to like it until a few years later when people started to really understand it. But there is one person who despises The Shining movie more than anyone else: Steven King. “The Shining is like a big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it,” King says about Kubrick’s version. King is the author of many famous books including The Shining. If he wrote the book then why does he hate the self-proclaimed and legendary movie that everyone seems to love?

There are many differences between King’s book and Kubrick’s film. In the book, King never actually writes about the infamous twins in the hallway which is interesting because it is one of the scenes that is so well known and well done in the movie. The scene is haunting and distinctive to the movie. King claims that he doesn’t mind the twins in the remake but despises the movie’s depiction of Wendy, the mother of Danny and wife of Jack. In the book, King wrote her as a tough woman who protects and defends her son at all costs against the hotel and her insane husband. In the movie rendition, Kubrick portrays her as defenseless and scared. King says that she is “one of the most misogynistic characters put on film.” The movie is also much more focused on the main character Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, slowly becoming insane. However, King, whose book concentrated on the little boy Danny, hates how “The character of Jack Torrance has no arc in that movie.” He feels as though there is no character development and that Jack’s transformation into a psychopath is almost instantaneous.

While Stephen King has the right to dislike the film adaptation, the feel of the movie is completely different from the book. Though It has definitely earned its place as one of the greatest movies filmed and deserves to be seen as its own piece of art, standing separate from King’s book. Kubrick’s version is visually stunning and will go down as one of the scariest movies in history; it’s magnificent.