The Shining

Over two years after purchasing the DVD, I finally finished watching Stephen King's The Shining , and overall I found it quite enjoyable. Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining has never done much for me; I don't find it scary, and frankly Shelley Duvall's unattractiveness always distracts me.

When it comes to movie adaptations of books, I've always found it difficult to accept the movie as its own entity without comparing it to the source material; particularly if the book is one that I'm attached to.

One aspect of Kubrick's movie that has always bothered me is the lack of sympathy for the Jack Torrance character. In the book and the TV mini-series, Jack's decent nature manages to break through at the end for one final act of redemption. In Kubrick's movie, however, Jack Nicholson is a total bastard right from the start, and he only gets worse. This butchery of a vital character trait has never sat right with me.

So yes, one reason that I prefer the TV mini-series is that it remains faithful to the novel. Another advantage of the mini-seies format is that much more content can be packed into six hours than an hour and half to two hour movie. Thus we get to see more back story of the Torrance family before they become entangled with the Overlook, and a sense of how the happenings there relate to Jack's past.

Also, Rebecca De Mornay is a lot easier on the eyes.