Stephen King Admits He HATED Part of The Shining Movie
When it comes to Stephen King, you can always count on one thing: honesty. And when the bestselling author sat down in a vintage TV interview to promote Firestarter, he didn’t hold back on his true feelings about Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining.
First, the good news: King admitted Jack Nicholson’s performance as Jack Torrance was nothing short of brilliant. “I thought he did a wonderful job,” King said with admiration.
Nicholson’s manic energy, his simmering rage, his terrifying unraveling – all of it landed exactly as horror fans hoped it would.
But when it came to the film as a whole, King’s praise turned bittersweet. He confessed that parts of Kubrick’s movie were “flawless, beautiful, and just marvelous.”
And yet, other moments left him frustrated, even wounded.
“I feel as though I’d given Stanley Kubrick a live grenade and he heroically threw his body on it,” King remarked — an image as vivid and unsettling as one of his own novels.
The implication? Kubrick’s vision may have been explosive, but it also smothered the story King had originally told.
For King, the struggle wasn’t about wanting creative control. He explained that when he sells a book to Hollywood, he treats it like sending a child off to school: you hope for the best, but you can’t control what happens.
Still, it was clear that The Shining had left him torn between admiration and disappointment.
That ambivalence has followed the movie for decades. To audiences, The Shining is a horror masterpiece — chilling, stylish, and endlessly quotable.
To King, it’s a film that partly captured his nightmare vision and partly twisted it into something else entirely.
It’s that blend of brilliance and betrayal that makes his opinion so fascinating. He’ll always respect Nicholson’s performance, and he’ll always acknowledge Kubrick’s artistry.
But deep down, King seems to believe the movie left something essential – something human – behind in the Overlook Hotel.
🔥 Love The Shining or side with King’s critique? Share this with your horror-loving friends and let the debate rage on!
