The Shining: Book and Film


  The Shining is a great movie, and it's a great book. But those are two very different things. The ending is so different that it would be better to say that the film was INSPIRED by the book rather than an actual adaptation.

The book focuses on the little boy, who is called "Doc" throughout most of it. He is the one with The Shining, which is the name of the book after all. The shining is his ability to talk to people telepathically and to kind of "know" what's going to happen next. The book is very well written and a little scary, but not one of the scarier books I've read. The ending in the book is VERY different than the ending in the movie. I highly recommend reading the book, and then read the sequel Dr. Sleep, which was the best book I read the year it came out. 

The movie is a work of art. It's beautiful, it's terrifying, and the acting is superb. Jack Nicholson is at his unhinged finest. Shelly Duvall actually suffered greatly during the filming, and it shows. Her performance is definitely worth more awards than she received. Scatman Corothers plays the chef from the hotel in a very underrated portrayal of a key character from the book. And Danny Lloyd (which is a funny name since the little boy in the movie is named Danny and the creepy bartender is named Lloyd) does an amazing job as the little boy with The Shining. The Dr. Sleep movie is pretty good, not it's not Stanley Kubrick good.

I recommend reading them all and watching them all, but be warned - all four have nudity, sex, strong violence, and strong language.

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