Stephen King's The Shining
is a new adaptation from the author himself, made for
television, that bears very little resemblance to the 1980
Stanley Kubrick version. That's not surprising since Kubrick
threw out most of King's novel and presented his own version of
the story. Here King redresses the balance in a miniseries that
follows his original almost to the letter, and manages to be
effectively creepy despite the budget and censorship limitations
of the TV format.
Stephen Weber takes over the
role of Jack Torrance, the caretaker who slowly descends into
madness in the haunted Overlook Hotel. His performance is as far
from Jack Nicholson as you could get, with his insanity building
slowly and menacingly rather than being virtually mad from the
get-go. Rebecca De Mornay is superb as Wendy Torrance,
struggling to hold her fragile family together amid the spooky
goings-on. Young Courtland Mead plays Danny, whose unique gifts
give the story its title, as one of those infuriating TV brats
who overacts left, right, and center. Fortunately, there are
enough creepy moments and a number of frights to hold the whole
thing together, the woman-in-the-bathtub scene being a standout
shocker. Sure, there is nothing quite like Nicholson's "Here's
Johnny!" moment, but this is the story King wanted to tell and
it still shines brighter than most of the other recent screen
adaptations of his work.