Book-To-Movie Review: "The Shining"

Credit: Pixabay

It's the fourth weekend of the month and so time for another Book-To-Movie review! In a Book-To-Movie, we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation. This weekend is also Mardi Gras/Carnival weekend! That’s the weekend before Shrove Tuesday which is the day many parts of the world, especially the west and Latin America, celebrate with big parties, dancing and total weirdsville, far out costumes. And in Stephen King’s classic book, "The Shining" and the Stanley Kubrick movie adaptation, you get some of that. Both book and movie have ghosts partying the night away and a lot of literal carnival. After all, “carnival” derives from the Latin word for flesh. And in this story a lot of that flesh is human and diced, if you know what I mean. The book and movie don’t only make great reading and viewing for a Carnival weekend, but also for a cold, winter night. The story is set during the freezing season. 

Both “The Shining” novel and movie probably contain the scariest storytelling in modern pop cultural history along side “The Exorcist”. In fact, the movie is so terrifying, I didn't even watch it in full until I was in my late 20s! I didn't read the novel until another 5 to 10 years after and found it scarier yet. It was better in some ways but the movie had elements in it that the book didn't which made it just as good if not better. Yet the movie left out a lot of scenes from the book. 

The Book

Published in 1977, "The Shining" was Stephen King's third novel and one of the works that heightened his literary career. The story is that the Torrance family stays the winter at a secluded hotel called the Overlook. Jack Torrance takes a job there as temporary caretaker after being told that a caretaker in the hotel's early days went insane and hacked to death his wife and twin daughters. Jack assures the interviewers that the hotel’s brutal past does not bother him. However, it turns out that the place is haunted by the earlier caretaker’s ghost, and the evil of the hotel has a bad influence on Jack, driving him to insanity and making him a deadly threat to his wife, Wendy, and son, Danny. 

Stephen King does a great job showing us the minds of the characters, including the Overlook Hotel. This last one he does by describing the building as a living entity like what so much gothic horror does. He goes in depth into the characters' background lives without info-dumping. Almost every page has something in it that foreshadows upcoming terror making the reader want to continue reading. The scenes and action are vividly described, and the psychology of the characters intensifies the horror. One of the few things I didn’t like about the novel, however, was the ending. It dwelled too much on the more content lives of the surviving characters after the terrifying events ended. This subtracted from the horror too much. 

The Movie

The movie adaptation of “The Shining” has been considered to be one of the most horrifying films. It's been a popular film ever since its release in 1980. The character of Jack, convincingly  portrayed by Jack Nicholson, has become a pop cultural horror icon in a way similar to Boris Karloff's Frankenstein’s Monster. The image of his mad, grinning face glaring through a hole that he axes into a door has been used on tee-shirts and posters both as a tribute to the film and as memetic humour. Yet, critics have downgraded the movie, especially while comparing it with the book. Even the novel’s author himself hated the film feeling that it fell short of his novel. A person can understand why. 

As great as the movie was filmed, several parts and elements from the book get left out. Some of these are an attack by a swarm of wasps, an animal-hedge attack, and an elevator that unexplainably moves on its own waking the Torrances in the middle of the night. This last one, in my opinion, was the creepiest scene in the book. Yet, another scene that is omitted, is one which I'm actually glad was: the ending scene that shows the surviving characters moving on with their lives. In the movie, the characters reuniting and escaping the Overlook is optimistic within itself. Shortly after that, the movie ends. This manner of ending gives the viewer the impression that the surviving characters will be okay from there on but that the horror remains in the secluded hotel. 

Stanley Kubrick has a very distinctive style of directing. The camera’s long and wide shots show the overwhelming vastness of the Overlook. The long shots are especially done really good in the hotel's corridors almost making them appear infinite. The isolated, forbidding setting is presented really good, especially during the blizzard that obscures all light sources and gives a shadowed look to the looming hotel. The movie’s soundtrack is performed successfully with its otherworldly and chaotic melodies, making the setting even more forbidding. 

The acting was convincing, but Jack Nicholson's makes the movie what it is. He is both convincing as a loving dad and husband as well as a recovered alcoholic who is ready to break any moment. Even at his friendliest there's a tinge of disturbance showing through. 

A lot is put into the movie adaptation of “The Shining”. Its terrifying effect on the audience makes it successful in its storytelling like the novel. However, if Kubrick would have put in the omitted scenes from the book, save for the extensive ending, the movie would've been better yet and maybe even exceed the novel’s quality. No offense, Stephen. 

Have you read Stephen King's novel, "The Shining", or seen the Stanley Kubrick movie adaptation?

Until next time . . .