A Drink of Redrum

I never really understood why people made such a fuss over The Shining. I remember when the TV miniseries was coming out (and being hyped in your face at every turn) that people were in outrage -- outrage! -- that they tried to remake such a classic movie. And on TV no less! (This was 1997, a year before Gus Van Sant's terrible, terrible karaoke of Psycho -- no, it's not a remake, it's a bad, drunken karaoke cover. Once word of that movie leaked, it sparked such a powerful hyperbolic outrage that it blotted out the already fading memory of The Shining miniseries.) I thought the miniseries was pretty silly, and I remember renting the 1980 movie at this time, and just being bored by it...

But, hey, I was a teen. Maybe I just didn't have the patience for a bloated Kubrick film, right? So I gave the movie another chance around last Halloween and...sorry, I was still bored by it. So bored, in fact, that I had to stop it and finish it later, and I HATE interrupting movies like that. I was a bit disappointed that my perception of the movie didn't change. (Ridley Scott's Alien is a movie that, when I watched it as a youngster, it felt like time froze, but I've come to really like it over the years.) Kubrick's film is stylish, and I like it visually, but he is more concerned with mood and atmosphere and not on characters or emotion, so the movie seems pretty hollow to me.

I don't know why, but recently it just popped in my head to check out the novel, which I hadn't read before. I supposed I always figured...why bother? I didn't like either filmed version, why would I like the novel? And it turns out...I liked the novel! A lot of things click and make more sense -- and are actually scary -- when the reader can get into characters' heads. King really succeeds in driving home just how terrifying that feeling of isolation could be, letting you feel the dread the Torrance family feel on that last day of the hotel's business, as the guests and workers leave one by one until the Torrances are all alone. And it just clicked for me in a way that it really hadn't in the movies. (I've stayed with friends who lived in the boonies, so, you think I WOULD have realized just how dreadful of a feeling it is, to feel like you're so far removed from civilization, away from help if you needed it, away from LIFE.)

Also, it helps the reader being able to get into the heads of the wife and child -- the helplessness they feel when the man of the family, the one meant to protect them, becomes an incredible danger. (The movies barely touch upon them, but I think the chapters with Jack locked in one of the hotel's pantries is some of the book's most tense.) And Jack himself -- you better understand his struggle. Is he exhausted? In withdrawal? Going crazy? Being possessed? Jack's more his own person, and King walks a line, where the reader and the characters are never sure what to make of Jack until the end.

So, reading the novel, I decided to check out that miniseries again. I mean, why not, right? King wrote the teleplay, he approved of the project -- it was his idea! (I actually LOVE how rock 'n roll King's attitude is about Kubrick's movie. When the rest of the world is worshiping Kubrick, King gives his movie the middle finger and is like "You know what? No, I don't like it. You screwed it up.") Was I misremembering the miniseries? Was I prejudiced against a TV movie?

Nope! I still didn't like the miniseries. I'm not really a fan of director Mick Garris's works -- I think his movies are incredibly plain, and his scare scenes can be a little hokey and predictable -- but I'm willing to cut some slack because it just had to be a pain in the balls to make this movie with the constraints of television. (Not to mention making a genre movie for the family-friendly tight-asses at ABC.) I like the casting in this movie even less than King liked the original's casting -- I get what they were going for with Steven Weber, who's a likable guy, so you're meant to be shocked when he becomes monstrous, but Weber's not a scary or intimidating guy, so I feel he's miscast. They have to bury him in make-up and applications to try to make him seem scary. (Garris wanted Gary Sinise, who was too afraid to step into Nicholson's shoes, but I can't picture him working out, either.) I know King's complaint with Nicholson was that he always seemed sinister and crazy, but I think that's the fault of Kubrick not being concerned with characters or performances. Nicholson CAN be a charming and likable guy, so he could have been directed as such in order to make that side of Jack work. Needless to say, Nicholson can certainly be scary and intimidating -- his Jack's not a dude you'd want to be snowed in at the Overlook with. I'll even defend Shelly Duvall's casting a bit -- no, she's not as take-charge as Wendy is in the novel, but I think the casting works in how it highlights the desperation of an ordinary woman up against a much stronger, unpredictable madman who's backed by supernatural drinking buddies. De Mornay was more well received, but I felt like the movie tried a little too hard to prove that she wasn't Duvall that it ended up calling too much attention to itself.

Most kid actors are awful, so it would always be hard to cast Danny when he's supposed to be so smart and mature for his young age. I think the key to casting a kid like that is to get a kid actor who has a bit of an edge or an old soul quality about them, and Danny Lloyd fits that. The miniseries' Courtland Mead isn't the best choice, cast mainly in terms of cuteness and not performance, since he says every line the same exact, whispery way. (He must hate Haley Joel Osment for stealing his career.) I also think it's a big mistake for the miniseries to have shown his imaginary friend, Tony -- the novel mentions Tony just being a shadowy figure until his last appearance, but the miniseries has this horribly cast, pulled-from-the-1950s dork as Tony, popping up accompanied by terrible special-effects. The vagueness of the shady figure made it spookier, and was reminiscent of Victor Pascow from King's Pet Sematary -- a mysterious character with an unsettling appearance, but ultimately benevolent and trying to help the character(s).

And like any newbie to the book, I was surprised to find that all of the classic moments associated with The Shining...were inventions of the 1980 movie! All of that classic stuff -- the two Grady girls, the bloody elevators, the hedge maze, the all work and no play bit -- nowhere in the novel! That really surprised me. (And I have to admit, I find the hedge maze scarier than the novel's topiary coming to life. I couldn't believe the miniseries kept that when it's pretty silly. In the book, you at least picture the animal-shaped bushes being several feet tall, while in the miniseries, they're small CGI creatures. Although, the icicle fangs in the animal bushes were a neat touch by the miniseries.) "Here's Johnny," another classic bit, was an ad-lib of Nicholson's, which you should have figured out, since it was humorous, and Kubrick's film lacks a sense of humor. (One difference I really can't stand about Kubrick's movie -- the killing of Hallorann! Why even have that character, when he treks cross country to save Danny, only to be immediately murdered by Jack once he reached the Overlook? An awful decision.)

So, as is nearly always the case, the novel wins. And even though I'm not a fan of it, I've got to give credit to Kubrick's movie for all of those classic scenes, for having the better cast, and for having the creepier, more looming Overlook. I feel like it could be ripe for another remake, though -- if you could cross the style of Kubrick's with the attempts at characterization of the miniseries, you might have the ultimate version of this story.

And I read the novel just in time since King's sequel, "Doctor Sleep," comes out in a couple of months. What little is known of the plot sounds like it might be a little more fanciful than the first one, but I really like the idea of the now-adult Danny Torrance in the Hallorann role, putting his shining abilities to use to help a kid with the shining who's in trouble.