King vs Kubrick

Rating: 10/10 (29 December 2004)

This movie shows that Kubrick was a genius whereas King is merely a popular horror writer. I read the book, filled with cheesy sentiment and deus ex machinae, after watching the film and brother, am I glad. Kubrick stripped the tripe from what, by the end, is an uninspiring horror novel and turned it into an enduring work of art.
The movie refuses to explain or redeem the father's madness, demonstrating that Kubrick understood better than King the root of horror: inexplicable, unapologetic violence. Where King insists, finally, on preserving the parent-child bond, Kubrick wounds it irrevocably, because what is more frightening to a child than being hunted by a father who, truly, wishes it dead? Not moving topiary animals, I'm afraid, Mr. King.