Mar 30 2009
STEPHEN KING’S THE SHINING
The way it should be seen.
PLOT
Jack Torrance (Steven Webber) loses his Vermont teaching job due to his alcoholism, which caused him to attack a student. We also learn that he once attacked his son Danny and his wife Wendy (Rebecca De Mornay) is only giving him one more chance. He accepts the job of a winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel, which closes in the winter because no one can reach the place. Danny’s imaginary friend Tony warns him about the trip and the dangers that lay ahead. Danny also meets Dick Hallorann, the chef at the hotel who sees that the boy has the shining and tells him to call if he needs help. Things start off slowly, but the whole family realizes that there’s something wrong with the hotel. As the ghosts draw closer, Wendy becomes the savior as she attempts to keep herself and her child safe until the spring.
TRIVIA
Shawnee Smith from the Saw franchise has a bit part in this movie. She also had a role in the Stephen King TV miniseries The Stand.
Frank Darabont had a cameo role in the movie; he directed both The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile, two other Stephen King movies.
King himself played Gage Creed, Creed being the little boy from Pet Semetery who killed a helluvalot of people.
Tim Daly was originally approached to play the role of Jack. When he turned it down, he suggested his friend and former co-star Steven Webber.
King has always stated that he was unhappy with the original version produced by Kubrick, which he claimed left out too much material and made too many changes. He served as a producer, actor and writer on this production to ensure everything was satisfactory.
THOUGHTS
I know that a lot (a lot) of people have love for Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining, but I have a lot of love for this version. If you’ve ever read the book, you know just how long and drawn out it is and it’s impossible to get the whole version crammed into two hours. If you have 4-5 hours to kill, you should really watch this one. I’ll admit that there are parts of the movie that moves a little too slow and things I could really do without, but it’s still pretty damn good. Given that it’s a TV movie you won’t see a lot of violence or big scares, but it still manages to be interesting.
Yeah the tv version is more in depth like the book, but you can’t beat Jack Nicholsons “Here’s Johnny!!!”
The sad thing is that I’ve seen the TV version more times than I saw the original, even though it’s really long!