The Shining (miniseries)

Promotional Poster

**The Shining** is a 1997 American supernatural horror miniseries based on the 1977 novel of the same name. It is the first show in the The Shining franchise.

Directed by Mick Garris from a screenplay by novel author, Stephen King. The show stars Steven Weber, Rebecca De Mornay, Courtland Mead, and Melvin Van Peebles.

## Plot

Author Jack Torrance works as caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, during the winter. He lives there isolated with his wife Wendy and his young son Danny. Jack Torrance's alcoholism and explosive temper have cost him his teaching job at Stovington, a respectable prep school. He is also on the verge of losing his family, after assaulting his young son Danny Torrance in a drunken rage just a year earlier. Horrified by what he has become, Jack tells his wife Wendy that should he ever start drinking again, he will leave them one way or another, implying that he would rather commit suicide than continue living as an alcoholic.

Now, nursing a life of sobriety and pulling in work as a writer, Jack and his family take on the job of looking after the Overlook Hotel, a large colonial building in a picturesque valley in the Southern Rocky Mountains. Hoping to succeed and move on as a writer, Jack is happy to take the job as it will provide desperately needed funds and the time to complete his first Play.

On October 8th 1997, it is closing day. Upon entering the Overlook and meeting its head cook, Dick Hallorann, Danny discovers that his psychic powers grant him a form of telepathy. Hallorann tells Danny that he too "shines", and that Danny can contact him telepathically anytime he needs assistance.

Starting on November 1st, it gradually becomes evident that the hotel's ghosts are more than figurative and far from peaceful. There is a force within the building that seems determined to use Danny for an unknown, possibly sinister purpose. This force manifests itself with flickering lamps and spectral voices and eventually a full-on masked ball from the Overlook's past.

Danny is the first to fully notice the darker character of the hotel, having experienced visions and warnings that foreshadow what he and his parents will encounter over the winter. Jack's character becomes progressively darker, first by scolding Danny for violating his rules that he was to stay out of the guest rooms, then eventually returning to his drunken self (the ghosts supplying an open bar for Jack prior to their ball).

In order to achieve its goal, the hotel takes over the person dearest to Danny: his father. Halloran, who had been contacted telepathically by Danny, travels from Florida to Colorado only to be assaulted by Jack with a roque mallet and left for dead. Danny telepathically communicates with his father, who finally breaks free of the ghosts' grip, then realizes the boiler has been neglected. Danny, Wendy, and Halloran (who had only been stunned by the attack) escape to safety as Jack runs to the boiler room to sacrifice himself by allowing the boiler to explode and destroy the Overlook. 10 years later, Danny graduates from high school (we see that Tony is Danny's adult self) with his mother and Hallorann present at the ceremony, as well as seeing the ghost of his father being proud of him.

Back in Colorado, the Overlook is being rebuilt as a resort for the summer, as the ghosts of the original hotel start to wait for more potential victims.

## Production

### Development

The creation of this miniseries is attributed to Stephen King's dissatisfaction with director Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film of the same name. In order to receive Kubrick's approval to re-adapt The Shining into a program closer to the original story, King had to agree in writing to eschew his frequent public criticism of Kubrick's film, save for the sole commentary that he was disappointed with Jack Nicholson's portrayal of Jack Torrance as though he had been insane before his arrival at the Overlook Hotel. ABC's success with previous miniseries adaptations of King's work made them more than willing to offer the author to work on the screenplay for The Shining miniseries with small Broadcast Standards and Practices enforced.

Steven Weber was finally cast as Jack Torrance after the casting team went through a rough time finding an actor for the character.

The casting team had a very difficult time finding an actor for the role of Jack Torrance as most of the considerations who rejected the role worried about being compared to Nicholson's performance in the Kubrick version. Two of the many actors considered included Tim Daly (who had starred with Weber on the TV series Wings) and Gary Sinise. King got very impatient, threatening to "wait another 18 years" if the role for Jack Torrance wasn't booked. Finally, via a suggestion from Rebecca De Mornay, Weber was chosen for the role four days before filming began. Weber accepted the offer because he was a fan of the Mick Garris-directed miniseries for The Stand and found the script he read to be "multi-layered" and relatable. King was the one who chose De Mornay for the role of Wendy. The producers approached her in 1994, and she accepted the role, enjoying the script for being "creepier, more disturbing, and more entertaining," and closer to the novel than the Kubrick version.

### Filming

Aside from the motive behind the creation of the miniseries, the 1997 rendition featured an important set piece that helped to inspire the original story: The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. King used the hotel that inspired him to write the book as the miniseries' location, with some interior shots in stages also in Denver. Garris tried to make the hotel feel as "enclosed" as possible to add a vibe of claustrophobia when in a closed hotel; the crew did this by emphasizing the "darkness" of the hotel, painting some of Stanley's areas that had recently been painted white, brown.

The production team began shooting at the Stanley Hotel in March 1996, the date chosen as it was Denver's snowiest month. However, on the day filming began, they realized the hotel as well as most of Estes Park was in a "snow shadow," meaning it garnered the least amount of snow out of all Denver areas. As a result, they spent $100,000 in snowmaking machines sent from Los Angeles while lucking out on "three or four" shooting days with actual snow falling on Estes.Producer Mark Carliner attributed the lucky snowfalls to a Ute shaman doing a ritual at the highest peak of the Rocky Mountains. The cast and crew, such as Cynthia Garris, Mick Garris' wife who plays the woman in Room 217; and Dawn Jeffrey-Nelson, Courtland Mead's acting coach claimed paranormal experiences occurring at the hotel during shooting.

Some of the cast enjoyed working on The Shining. Mead "wasn't scared" as he had acted previously in horror films like Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996); John Durbin enjoyed the "madness" he got to portray with his character of Horace Derwent; and Stanley Anderson, who accepted the part of Delbert Grady based on his disappointment with the Kubrick version, tried to play the character "real" but with "a sense of distance to [his] view of the other and the world, so it comes out as irony or wryness." However, it was tough for Weber to play his character; because the scenes were not shot in chronological order, it was very difficult to master the character's mental state deterioration, due to it occurring gradually as the story progresses. The miniseries was filmed for a total of 72 days.

### Post-production

#### Effects

Steve Johnson and his XFX team were responsible for the effects of The Shining. When it came to the moving topiary animals, both live static and computer-animated versions of them were made. For the more-than-80 dead extra characters in the ballroom, Bill Corso came up with the idea to add black marks on their cheeks and foreheads to make them look dead. A special-effects-predominant ballroom sequence wasn't in the final version, where Gage Creed and his orchestra "run like tallow," in King's words. Garris' reason was that it slowed down the miniseries' pacing and wasn't as "close to the real world" as the other scenes.For the makeup of the woman in Room 217, thin shells of Saran Wrap were first glued on to certain areas of the actress' body via K-Y jelly. Then, "some really milky-looking flesh tones" were added over the wrap and purple tones under it, before thin latex was covered over the entire body with certain areas ripped off. Foam latex was also used to slightly alleviate how "creepy" the woman's make-up looked. As Johnson explained what the effects team were going for with the dead lady, "the idea was to try to do something that was different, that would look cool, play in the scene and be allowed on TV.".

## Cast

* Steven Weber as Jack Torrance
* Rebecca De Mornay as Wendy Torrance
* Courtland Mead as Danny Torrance
	+ Wil Horneff as Tony; adult Danny
* Melvin Van Peebles as Dick Hallorann
* Pat Hingle as Pete Watson
* Elliott Gould as Stuart Ullman
* John Durbin as Horace M. Derwent
* Stanley Anderson as Delbert Grady
* Cynthia Garris as Lorraine Massey
* Roger Baker as Roger
* Frank Darabont as Vito Giannelli
* Stephen King as Gage Creed
* Lisa Thornhill as Rita Hayworth look-alike
* Jan Van Sickle as Albert Shockley
* Michael O'Neill as Doctor Daniel Edwards
* Miguel Ferrer as Mark James Torrance
* Tomas Herrera as George Hatfield
* Shawnee Smith as a waitress
* Sam Raimi as Howard Cottrell (gas station attendant)

## Trivia

* It is the second adaptation based on the The Shining.