Horrid Movie

Rating: 10/10 (27 March 2009)

Stephen King is one of the greatest American novelists in the past century. While he is dubbed a "horror writer," he is much more than that. He is a character writer, and while his novels are intended to scare, characters are the central point of the novels. They rely so heavily on backstory that the characters are practically real. However, this is very hard to do on film and it can result in making the story seem unimportant. So, as you can expect, I was not eager to see how they could ruin The Shining. Well, after reading the spectacular novel, I moved onto the film. After watching the film, I was flaming mad. The film The Shining does not fail from their overuse of backstory. These characters are completely shallow and you don't care about them. King novels are hard to adapt, but they can be done well. Carrie is an example of that. However, this movie is an awful adaptation. Kubrick basically took some character names, some locations, and made his own "scary hotel" movie. Why he couldn't just make his own "scary hotel" movie, I don't know. The acting is, for the most part, garbage. Shelley Duvall gives one of the worst performances I've ever seen. She's just so awful that you want her to get killed, as opposed to the novel. I just felt that I didn't care about anybody in this film. It felt empty and like there was no point to anything in the end. King said that he doesn't like the film because it doesn't make you feel. I agree completely with that. I felt nothing other than lack of interest when I watched this stinker. It wasn't even passable as a good stand-alone film. I hated every minute of this film. It was supposedly psychological horror, but it didn't make me think at all. This movie is horrible, and I hope book readers never have to witness an adaptation as bad as this atrocity...well, okay, there is the '97 TV movie, but even that's not as bad as this crap!