The Shining (1997)

Those of us who loved Stephen King’s novel THE SHINING and hated the hatchet job that Stanley Kubrick did to it in his 1980 film version wondered if the novel would ever receive a decent rendering. While this 1997 telefilm is a drastic improvement, it still is highly flawed. King himself detested Kubrick’s film and not only wrote the screenplay for this version but produced it too. At 4 ½ hours, the film allows Jack Torrance’s (played here by Steven Weber) descent into madness more gradually (and therefore more believably) rather than the instant telegraphy of Jack Nicholson‘s madman. The Wendy of Rebecca De Mornay is given the backbone she had in the novel that was taken away from her in Kubrick’s film though, alas, De Mornay doesn’t reach the dramatic heights of Shelley Duvall in the Kubrick film which allowed her some sensational acting peaks. But at 4 ½ hours, there’s about a good 40 minutes of flab that a good editor could have pared down and the mawkish ending that replaces the dark ending of the novel has King betraying even himself. Still, as a work of horror, it’s more effective than the 1980 film and more true to King’s vision. With Elliott Gould, Melvin Van Peebles and Courtland Mead (not entirely successful but an improvement on the 1980 Danny).