Weekend Movie Marathon
Stephen King
I have been a fan of Stephen King's work in movies and miniseries for a long time now. No... I never had the opportunity to read any of his books... as I am not much of a reader at all. But I have definitely loved the work in film he has done. So this weekend I decided to watch some of his work. I have seen every one of these before... but many of them I have not seen for a very long time. So this weekend I decided to watch...
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| TITLE: The Shining (Miniseries) YEAR: 1998 DIRECTOR: Mick Garris LENGTH: 272min. PLOT: Jack Torrance (Steven Weber) and his family (Rebecca De Mornay and Courtland Mead) move into the sprawling, vacant Overlook Hotel to get away from it all. Away from the alcoholism that derails Jack's writing career. Away from the violent outbursts that mar Jack's past. But Jack's young son Danny knows better. He possesses a psychic gift called the shining-a gift the hotel's vile spirits desperately want.
In the hands of Stephen King the "dead" Overlook comes horrifyingly alive. Phantoms lurk, the message "redrum" appears with scary frequency and even garden topiary lurches into macabre existence in this atmospheric shocker scripted by King from his own novel and directed by ace King screen adaptor Mick Garris ('Sleepwalkers', 'The Stand')
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My Thoughts:
I can remember back... the very first horror movie I ever watch was Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining. And because of that... that film has always... as it does now... hold a special place in my heart. To the point that I was concerned when I heard they were doing a miniseries version of this movie. My concerns subsided a little when I heard that Stephen King himself was going to have more to do with the miniseries version then he did with the earlier movie version. When I actually watched it... I was SHOCKED... I actually prefer the miniseries version over the movie version! How can this be?!?! Well first of all, I think Steven Weber and Rebecca DeMornay both did a really good job. In the movie version I really liked Jack Nicholson... but I couldn't get myself to care about the character of Wendy with it being played by Shelley Duvall. I don't know why... just didn't care for her much in the original movie. In the movie version they had a maze of bushes. This was replaced in the miniseries with bushes sculpted into animals... and in my opinion this was much creepier then the maze. Lets face it... when you have a miniseries that is a good 4 and a half hours long... they ken get in much more then the can with an approximate 2 and a half hour movie. Which is a good length in it's own. Over-all I just feel they did a great job with this miniseries... to the point that they didn't only do the original movie justice... but they actually surpassed it.