Steven Weber, Rebecca De Mornay, Coutland Mead

Stephen King's The Shining is a new adaptation from the author himself, made for television, that bears very little resemblance to the 1980 Stanley Kubrick version. That's not surprising since ...( read more  read more... )Kubrick threw out most of King's novel and presented his own version of the story. Here King redresses the balance in a miniseries that follows his original almost to the letter, and manages to be effectively creepy despite the budget and censorship limitations of the TV format.

Stephen Weber takes over the role of Jack Torrance, the caretaker who slowly descends into madness in the haunted Overlook Hotel. His performance is as far from Jack Nicholson as you could get, with his insanity building slowly and menacingly rather than being virtually mad from the get-go. Rebecca De Mornay is superb as Wendy Torrance, struggling to hold her fragile family together amid the spooky goings-on. Young Courtland Mead plays Danny, whose unique gifts give the story its title, as one of those infuriating TV brats who overacts left, right, and center. Fortunately, there are enough creepy moments and a number of frights to hold the whole thing together, the woman-in-the-bathtub scene being a standout shocker. Sure, there is nothing quite like Nicholson's "Here's Johnny!" moment, but this is the story King wanted to tell and it still shines brighter than most of the other recent screen adaptations of his work. --Jonathan Weir

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61% want to see it

52,238 ratings

Unrated, 143 min.

Directed by: Mick Garris

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DVD Release Date: January 7, 2003

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  • kanokaan
    July 24, 2008
    i watched the shining with Jack Nicholson.is this one is a remake or older?
  • Anrkist
    January 3, 2008
    That's what I've been missin!
  • MorpheusOne
    September 19, 2007
    A disappointment! Perhaps 1/10 as scary as the original. The movie is also suffering from the same damned problem that Titanic suffers from. The movie is just to damned long! The acting is subpar, the story is convoluted & more trouble than it is worth, so much so that no director could save it. The directing done in this movie is probably the best thing about the movie. This movie, truly, is just not that good and bc of that it just does not justify the sheer length of the movie at more than 5 hours!

    I feel sorry for Stephen King.
  • wolverinespussycat
    August 28, 2007
    I wasted 4 hours of my life. It dragged on so much and the hedges coming alive, how crappy was the animation?! It looked terrible...the lil kid was so annoying not sweet like the one in the original

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Stephen King's The Shining Trivia


  • Stanley Kubrick made what chilling movie from Stephen King's novel of the same name?  Answer »
  • For Stephen King's fans: What's the number that is used in 3 movies (The Shining (number of the evil room), The Shawshank Redemption (cell number), and Stand by Me (kids' money)) based his stories.  Answer »
  • What is the line Jack Nicholson made famous in Stephen Kings The Shining?  Answer »
  • In the original film version of Stephen King's The Shining, what are the last words heard?  Answer »

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