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Topics: Film and TV, Stephen King, Books
Britt Jones
Topics: Film and TV, Stephen King, Books
Sometimes, calling a film boring can cause a stir online when loyal fans catch wind, even if it was an adaptation of your own book.
Nobody is exempt from criticism, not even renowned horror writer Stephen King.
But it might have come as a shock to many when he slammed a film based on his book which has gone on to become a cult classic.
As of right now, King has had his works turned into over 100 projects, including the likes of Carrie, Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, and It.
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It seems there's nothing the author has produced that hasn’t become an instant hit, and he’s truly become a legend in the genre.
However, there is one movie that he branded as ‘boring’ and fans were not happy with his remarks.
According to Far Out Magazine, there's a lot of things King liked about the film adaptions of his books, but others just didn’t live up to expectation.
He began: “Several honourable adaptations have come from this 30-year spew of celluloid.
“And the best of those have had few of the elements I’m best known for: science fiction, fantasy, the supernatural, and pure gross-out terror.”
King added: “The books that do have those elements have, by and large, become films that are either forgettable or outright embarrassing.”
However, if you’re a fan of The Shining… It’s bad news.
The writer went on to say: “Others, I’m thinking chiefly of Christine and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, should have been good but just, well, they aren’t. They’re actually sort of boring.”
He added: “Speaking for myself, I’d rather have bad than boring.”
It appears that King’s dislike for Kubrick’s adaptation is a badly kept secret, and even though The Shining's 83 percent Tomatometer and 93 percent Popcornmeter score on Rotten Tomatoes, proves that people love it, it’s just not for him.
One fan wrote: “One of the best ghost stories and Kubrick's meticulous recreations of the source material. This movie deserves to be a 99%+. Ignore the 'official' critics that give this movie a rotten rating. I've read a lot of them and they are pretentious to say the least.”
Another said: “This film is absolutely perfect. It perfects the depiction of insanity by amazing performances and intense scenes.”
In a 2016 interview with Deadline, King said he thought Jack Nicholson's character got progressively 'crazier' as time went on.
However, the 1980 movie apparently lacks the depth that the book had.
King explained that the novel depicted Nicholson’s character to be a struggling man who finally ‘loses it’.
He shared this was ‘the real tragedy’ of the story.
King added: “In the movie, there’s no tragedy because there’s no real change.”
Another difference between the flick and book is that the hotel blows up at the end of the book, but Kubrick changed this to the hotel freezing in time.
Nonetheless, the author noted: “I met Kubrick and there’s no question he’s a terrifically smart guy.”