DVD/TV Mini-Series Review: Stephen King's The Shining (1997)

 

This is the version of The Shining that Stephen King really wanted to be made, so much so that he wrote the screenplay and was an executive producer on the miniseries. Depending on what you read, he either was highly disappointed by or outright hated the Kubrick movie, mostly because he felt that it did not interpret the story correctly, and he thought Jack Nicholson was too crazy to play Jack Torrance the way he envisioned the character. And, he felt that Kubrick wrote the character of Wendy (and had Shelly Duvall play her) as too much of a pushover.

This version, which aired on ABC in 1997 stars Steven Weber (who is best known for the series Wings), Rebecca De Mornay, Courtland Mead (who did a great job as Danny), and Melvin Van Peebles. It is a more faithful adaptation of the book than the movie was, in large part because it was 4.5 hours long versus the two hours, so it could show Jack going crazy over a longer period of time than the movie could. I think that alone helps tell the story better because about 40 minutes into the movie Nicholson was already morphing into the "nuts" version of Jack. And, the series can flesh out the family relationship more than the movie ever did. The tradeoff, of course, is that the series had to tone down the blood and gore that the movie was famous for, so it is much more of a thriller than it is a horror movie.

The DVD set comes on two discs, with parts 1 and 2 on the first disc, and part three on the second. There are commentary tracks (including the director, Stephen King, Steven Webber, and a couple of other cast and crew members) on each part. The commentary tracks are selectable from the disc menu, although, for the commentary track for the second part,  I could not get it to play from the DVD menu. I had to start part two, then switch the audio track to Track 2 to hear it. The commentary tracks for parts 1 and 3 played just fine from the menu. It is a bit of an odd commentary track in that not all the participants were in the same room discussing it. The tracks were recorded separately, and then they cycle through who is talking. King was pretty diplomatic regarding the Kubrick movie and mainly focused on this version. The commentary tracks are the main bonus features but, on the second disc, there are some deleted scenes.

The A/V quality of the DVD is bad. In some spots, it looks the same as a VHS-quality video. The special effects were not the greatest, given that it was made in 1997, but there was no big effort to enhance them for the DVD release. Overall, I would not call this a must-see, unless you are a huge fan of the book and want to see it adapted the way King wanted it to be. It is different from the movie, and it was meant to be so. Thankfully, none of the actors try to recreate the performances of the actors in the movie. They made it their own, and that made it work.