King's edition:
As JackMetal said, this version is great and portrays the book very well.
Better acting, closer to the book, makes more sense, explains a lot more stuff... Steven Weber loses it rather then be all crazy / psychotic like Nicholson, Rebecca De Mornay is pretty good, Cynthia Garris is scary as hell, Steven Weber does a much better job then Lloyd...
Kubrick edition:
Don't like Jack Nicholson (never did, never will), Shelley Duvall (poor, mediocre, really bad), Danny Lloyd (wasn't appealing at all, even annoying), bottom line, I didn't like Kubrick version. It had good moments and nice camera scenes, but in the end... it's just not my cup of tea.
"With everything to work with, director Stanley Kubrick has teamed with jumpy Jack Nicholson to destroy all that was so terrifying about Stephen King's bestseller.
In his book, King took a fundamental horror formula - an innocent family marooned in an evil dwelling with a grim history - and built layers of ingenious terror upon it. The father is gradually possessed by the demonic, desolate hotel.
With dad going mad, the only protection mother and child have is the boy's clairvoyance - his 'shining' - which allows him an innocent understanding and some ability to outmaneuver the devils. But Kubrick sees things his own way, throwing 90% of King's creation out.
The crazier Nicholson gets, the more idiotic he looks. Shelley Duvall transforms the warm sympathetic wife of the book into a simpering, semi-retarded hysteric."
"If you go to this adaptation of Stephen King's novel expecting to see a horror movie, you'll be disappointed. From the start, Kubrick undercuts potential tension builders by a process of anti-climax; eerie aerial shots accompanied by ponderous music prove to be nothing more than that; the setting is promising enough - an empty, isolated hotel in dead-of-winter Colorado - but Kubrick makes it warm, well-lit and devoid of threat. Granted, John Alcott's cinematography is impressive, and occasionally produces a 'look behind you' panic; but to hang the movie's psychological tension on the leers and grimaces of Nicholson's face (suited though it is to demoniacal expressions), while refusing to develop any sense of the man, is asking for trouble. Similarly, the narrative is too often disregarded in favour of crude and confusing visual shocks. Kubrick's unbalanced approach (over-emphasis on production values) results in soulless cardboard cutouts who can do little to generate audience empathy."
"All the tension creation in this film relied on the "eerie music", the film didn't flow well, it all seemed choppy and stop start. The characters were developed terribly, The character of Wendy, who was orignally supposed to be torn between love for her husband and love for her child but essentially a strong woman willing to do whatever it takes, is turned into a dithering arm flapping moron and Jack's transformation is not subtle and slow it's crude and way too blatant. In the space of five minutes, he goes from frustrated to obviously insane..
No flow to this film, actors were terrible (Duvall in particular), and the individual stories (Jack's writing, Wendy and Danny and Dick Halloran in Miami) were all much too disjointed. "
"I had some problems with Stanley Kubrick's ("Full Metal Jacket"/"Paths of Glory"/"Barry Lyndon") adaptation of Stephen King's terrifying second novel (King has stated in interviews that the book was meant as a metaphor for his own struggle with alcoholism, and took exception to the way Kubrick filmed it), which almost completely changed the book to make it more audience friendly (throwing out most of its originality but still retaining its banality). It became less of a frightening ghost story than it was in the book (in fact Kubrick and the cowriter, American novelist Diane Johnson, showed ambivalent feelings about the horror film genre and tried to make it less of a horror story by redefining the genre and instead used as their theme the disintegration of an American family when trust goes out the window--the wife never trusts hubby after he was in a drunken stupor and broke their son's arm and the hubby never gets over his guilt-feelings). It's arguably the talented director's least appealing film, as it feels empty and soulless--relying far too much on studio-based shock effects to have much of a deeper psychological impact. Though cinematographer John Alcott keeps it visually striking, the music by the likes of Bela Bartok, Gyorgy Ligeti, and Krysztof Penderecki is sometimes effective in striking the right scare mood and the film has its few ironical moments of triumph about a failed marriage, it nevertheless suffers from a miscast over-the-top absurdly hammy performance by Jack Nicholson as the leering psycho who never lifts his character from being cartoonish, a Shelley Duvall characterization that's reduced to only whimpering and acting hysterically semi-retarded, and under Kubrick's vision it strays from a conventional classic horror story to look more like a cheesy crowd-pleasing (did a great box office) version of The Exorcist (1973). By using images such as the elevators full of blood, naked women ghosts coming out of a bathtub and mirrors that reveal ghostly signs to get cheap scares and erotic thrills, the film never builds in psychological tension or allows the frustrated couple to be sympathetic characters that the audience can empathize with."
Frequently bought together
$65.10
FREE Delivery
Only 1 left in stock.
+
Total price:
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Choose items to buy together.
What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Top reviews from Canada
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
Reviewed in Canada on October 25, 2015
Verified Purchase
Reviewed in Canada on November 10, 2015
Verified Purchase
Reviewed in Canada on June 19, 2020
Verified Purchase
Reviewed in Canada on November 12, 2016
Verified Purchase
Top reviews from other countries
dontpanic42
The Real Shining
Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2023Verified Purchase
Ef.Es
Die bessere Buchverfilmung
Reviewed in Germany on August 29, 2023Verified Purchase
RAmazon Customer
Great service and film
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2022Verified Purchase
Carmen
Perfecto
Reviewed in Spain on January 5, 2020Verified Purchase
Danny
なんてことだ！
Reviewed in Japan on March 1, 2022Verified Purchase
Danny
Reviewed in Japan on March 1, 2022
【以下ネタバレ含みます】
感想は、まず唖然とした。
キューブリック版では感じなかった「感動」がこちらは感じられる。しかもそれはとても大きいです。
ここまで泣くとは思わなかった。
勿論、キューブリック版も原作を活かし上手く調理した名作中の名作だと感じる。しかし、私はこのキングの監督したバージョンが親子愛、「愛」に満ちた作品だとよく伝わった。
ほぼ原作通りのシナリオは、小説の軸を曲げる事なく観客に伝えます。終盤ディックvs庭園動物のシーンが端折られていたのは流れ的に自然だと感じました。
個人的な感想にすぎませんが、私はこちらの作品の「親子愛」(原作の良さでもある)が伝わる所がキューブリック版より断然、好きです。圧倒的名作！
Images in this review
