Based onStephen King’s horror novel of the same name,The Shiningwas brought to the big screen by legendary filmmakerStanley Kubrick. Although it received mixed reviews at the time of its release, the film has since been hailed as one of the greatest and most influential horror movies ever made – though not everyone seems to agree. One ofThe Shining’sharshest critics has always been the book’s own author.
Stephen King loathed Kubrick’s adaptation, an opinion that he still holds today 43 years later. According to King,The Shiningis the only adaptation of his work that he can ever recall hating. But how can King despise a film that’s so universally praised? Let’s take a look at some of the reasons that the prolific author has listed over the years.
King Was Disappointed with the Filming Location
Nomovie hotel is more iconicthan the Overlook HotelfromThe Shining. King’s hotel of horrors was inspired by and modeled after The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. King was disappointed that the film wasn’t shot at the place that influenced his story.
Instead,The Shiningwas filmed at the Timberline Lodge in Oregon. Fun fact: the management at Timberline Lodge asked Kubrick to exclude room 217 from the film, which is the actual forbidden room in King’s novel. Kubrick changed the number to 237, a nonexistent room at the hotel. But ironically, room 217 is requested more than any other room in the Timberline Lodge.
King Also Disliked Wendy and Jack Torrance’s Depictions
Actress Shelley Duvall plays Wendy Torrance inThe Shining,one of the film’s main charactersand one of its few living souls. King hated how Kubrick depicted her. Wendy is portrayed as a strong, independent character in the novel.
But in the movie, she comes across as feeble and weak-minded. “She’s basically just there to scream and be stupid, and that’s not the woman that I wrote about,” King elaborated in an interview with BBC.Duvall also apparently endured mental and emotional abuse from Kubrickwhile filming. She was isolated from others on set and was forced to do an exhausting number of retakes in order to make the horror feel more realistic.
Most of Stephen King’s problems withThe Shiningstem from his main character Jack Torrance. Jack starts the novel as an ordinary, likable, level-headed character. He’s also a recovering alcoholic, who struggles with his addiction – an autobiographical detail from King’s own life and a point of sympathy in the novel. King wanted an “everyday” sort of actor to play Jack Torrance and had suggested Superman himself, Christopher Reeve, for the role. Instead, Kubrick famously went with Jack Nicholson, who deliversone of the most iconic performances in cinema.
King, however, wasn’t a fan.“I don’t like the arc that Jack Nicholson runs as Jack Torrance,” he told theNew York Times.“Because it isn’t really an arc — it’s a flat line. He’s crazy from the jump.” And he’s not wrong. From the beginning, Nicholson’s Torrance is cold and distant and already has a demented aura about him, which doesn’t generate much sympathy for the character. King’s novel also focuses more on the supernatural forces that change Torrance during the story. While Kubrick’s film does contain supernatural elements, Jack always feels like the movie’s primary antagonist, not the Overlook itself. The evil doesn’t come from the hotel; it seems to come from Jack, a point that’s emphasized by the movie’s ambiguous final shot.
The Book and the Movie Are Fundamentally Different Stories
Because of the discrepancy between novel Jack and movie Jack, King felt that Kubrick’s adaptation wound up being a totally different story. “The movie has no heart; there’s no center to the picture,” he explained. “I wrote the book as a tragedy, and if it was a tragedy, it was because all the people loved each other … here, it seems there’s no tragedy because there’s nothing to be lost.”
AfterThe Shining,King fought more artistic control over adaptations of his work. Seventeen years later, he finally got the chance to tellThe Shininghis way: in a 1997 three-episode television miniseries. Althoughit’s a more faithful adaptation to the novel, the mini-series lacked Kubrick’s artistic flair and Nicholson’s magnetic presence. In the end, it just doesn’t hold a candle to Kubrick’s 1980 original.
It’s been 43 years sinceThe Shininghit the big screen. King still isn’t fond of the movie, but his opinion has dulled over the years. “Let’s put it this way, I dislike the film. I always have,” he told theNew York Timesin 2020. “I admire the film, and I admire Kubrick as a director, which sometimes gets lost in the mix when people who absolutely love that film take me to task. I love Kubrick as a filmmaker, but I just felt that he didn’t have the chops for this particular thing.” But no matter what Stephen King says or thinks,The Shiningremains one of the most iconic and artistic films to ever grace the horror genre.
