deadly drainpipe, the swarming wasps, and the sinister hedge animals that come to life. Apparently Kubrick could not find special effects to animate the shrubbery in a satisfactory manner. 2Kubrick also dispensed with virtually all of Jack Torrance's troubled history and his gradual descent into insanity. Jessie Horsting, author of Stephen King at the Movies, said, " I loathed The Shining when it first came out-as Stephen still does. And the principal reason is that in the film, you knew from the start that Jack was crazy. And that, to me, killed the suspense. It killed the entire subtext of the book. It ruined it, and I hated it."3Indeed, King has often complained about Kubrick's film, saying its full title should be Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. In 1997, King got the chance to redeem his story as executive producer for Stephen King's The Shining. The six-hour ABC miniseries contained King's original ghouls and spooky shrubbery. Steven Weber (of Wings) and his oversized croquet mallet replaced the ax-wielding Jack Nicholson. Rebecca De Mornay played the sexy Wendy from the novel, as opposed to the mousy doormat played by Shelley Duvall in Kubrick's version. And flashbacks revealed Jack's shaky psychological history.In order to get the rights to remake the movie, King had to sign an agreement with Kubrick prohibiting large-scale video release and any discussion of Kubrick's film. "If I say anything about [Kubrick's movie], I'm in trouble," said King. But actor Courtland Mead, 10, who played Danny Torrance in the miniseries, said, "[Kubrick's film] was cool, but Stephen King didn't like it. He thought Jack Nicholson was way over-the-top." 4Like Adrian Lyne's 1998 remake of Lolita, King's remake of The Shining is more faithful to the novel. In both cases, however, Kubrick's versions now rank higher with most critics-not necessarily because of what Kubrick left out of his films-but because of the depth he added to them. Even Jessie Horsti...
