PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Welcome back to our ongoing coverage of Stephen King’s novels. When we last left off, King had followed up his debut 1974 novel Carrie with his smash vampire novel Salem’s Lot in 1975. His third novel, however, would leave the others in the dust and become one of the most well known horror stories of all time. In case you haven’t guessed, I’m talking about his 1977 haunted house thriller The Shining.
After making it big with Carrie and Salem’s Lot, King wanted to get away from rural Maine to make his next novel different. In late 1974, King literally pointed at an Atlas and said he’d move to wherever his finger landed. His finger landed on Colorado and the King family shuffled off to the West. Experiencing some writer’s block, Stephen asked some of the locals where a good place for peace and quiet would be. Apparently, a local hotel was shutting down for the winter season and that would be a great place to have no distractions.
King took his wife Tabitha, daughter Naomi and son Joe to the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. While looking around at the empty hotel, King remarked that it gave him the creeps. Stephen and Tabitha had dinner in the dining hall where all the tables had chairs on top of them except theirs, there was only one thing available on the menu with everyone gone, and the background dining music echoed because there was no one else there.
While at the Stanley, King remembered a novel he started in 1972 called Darkshine about a kid with psychic powers running around a psychic amusement park but he didn’t find time to complete it. Another factor in his new project was a dream he had where his then 3-year-old son Joe was being chased by a possessed firehose in the hotel. King claims he woke up, had a cigarette to relax, and when the cigarette was done he had the basis for most of his new book, The Shining.
The Shining tells the tale of a writer (as usual) named Jack Torrance taking a job at The Overlook Hotel as its caretaker for the winter season. The hotel is devoid of guests and almost all of its staff when Jack, his wife Wendy, and their son Danny arrive. Unbeknownst to Wendy and Jack, Danny has premonitions and can partly read minds. On his way out as the Torrances arrive, the hotel chef named Dick tells Danny that he too has the same gift that Danny has. If Danny ever needs help, reach him through “the shining”.
Jack quickly grows bored as his poor characteristics began to manifest themselves through his boredom and despair. Jack is an alcoholic and has physically abused Danny in the past, notably breaking his arm in a drunken rage. The book centers mostly around Danny as he realizes the hotel is haunted by ghosts of people murdered there in the past. The hotel itself tries to possess Danny but his mind is too powerful, even as a young boy so it turns Jack instead. The hotel ghosts manifest themselves as bar guests and they manage to convince Jack to kill his family. I won’t give away the rest of the plot, but it makes for a hell of a climax.
One of the biggest parts of the book was its autobiographical tone. King himself was a struggling alcoholic at the time as he claimed the booze was his crutch for writing. As someone who pretty much has an IV of Dr. Pepper in my veins, I can relate to needing something to drink while writing. King claimed he wasn’t near as abusive to his kids as the character was but Stephen definitely hammered home the effects of alcohol, loneliness, and depression in the form of Jack Torrance.
Unlike his first two novels, his buddy and editor Bill Thompson wasn’t so wild about The Shining. Not that he didn’t like the plot, but he didn’t want Stephen to be a one-trick pony of only being a horror writer. Stephen himself considered being labeled a horror writer as a compliment and The Shining was released on January 28, 1977.
Like his other novels, The Shining was a smash success. It was his first novel to become a best-seller in its first printing. As with Carrie, people were salivating for a movie adaptation and they got their wish in 1979. Stanley Kubrick (A Clockwork Orange – 1971) was tasked with directing the movie but King thought the studio made a mistake by casting Jack Nicholson to play Jack Torrance. It turns out King had a lot more to complain about because he submitted the screenplay for the movie but Kubrick turned it down in favor of his own story. The good news was the 1980 movie adaptation of The Shining is considered one of the best horror movies of all time. The bad news is King doesn’t like it.
Without giving away the climax of the plot to either the film or the book, let’s just say Kubrick’s movie had a much different ending than the book. One of the flaws King pointed out in the movie was it focused too much on Jack Nicholson’s Jack Torrance than the character of Danny. King also argued the reason he didn’t want Nicholson was Jack had already been in a movie centered around insanity in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (Best Picture in 1975) and it would be a dead giveaway that he’d be going nuts in The Shining. He wanted a more mild-mannered actor to play the man going crazy.
It ended up being a moot point because Kubrick’s Jack was almost nothing like the book’s Jack. King’s Jack was generally supposed to be a good person but was wrecked by alcohol and the hotel. Kubrick’s Jack looked already unhinged in the opening scene of the movie and never really delved into alcoholism or abuse of Danny. King also had a more supernatural story while Kubrick wanted a bit more realism. Once again, not going to give away the plot to either but there is a big difference that King didn’t agree with.
Despite the movie not jiving with King’s ideas, it still was a smashing success that increased book sales. The legacy remains to this day, although there have been attempts to revive interest. In 1997, Stephen King himself backed a TV movie adaptation that was closer to the book than Kubrick’s movie. Finally, in 2013, King wrote a long-awaited sequel to The Shining with an older Danny Torrance called Doctor Sleep. In 2019, a movie adaptation of Doctor Sleep came out to rave reviews.
Not to be outdone, in 1985 Tony Iommi of the rock group Black Sabbath wrote a demo for a song called No Way Out with singer Dave “Donut” Donato as the vocalist. By 1987, with Ray Gillen as the primary vocalist, the song was changed to The Shining with entirely new lyrics. The Black Sabbath album The Eternal Idol featured The Shining only with singer Tony Martin overdubbing Gillen. The music video for it can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqibFmQ61Fk
All in all, The Shining turned Stephen King from a popular writer to a superstar. The book and the movie are beloved by horror fans worldwide to this day. At this point, the only question on King’s mind was, “Am I getting by on my name or talent?” The answer would be the lack of sales to his novel Rage published under his surname, which is a story already been covered. His name, however, would produce what many considered his best novel of all time, even better than The Shining.
That’s a story for next time, as for now, buy the book and have a good time.
