Stephen King Still Hates Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining," Says Shelley Duvall's Character is "Misogynistic"

Basically, he hated everything about it.

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Complex Original

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Stephen King's distate for Stanley Kubrick's film interpretation of his book, The Shining, has been long documented since the film was released in 1980—and 33 years later, it seems King still hates it as much as he did day one. It's nice to know some things never change. 

In a new interview with BBC to promote his sequel novel to The Shining, titled Doctor Sleep, King spoke out about why exactly he hated Kubrick's film so much, saying it was too "cold" for him: "[It's] cold, I’m not a cold guy...I think one of the things people relate to in my books is there’s a warmth, there’s a reaching out and saying to the reader, 'I want you to be a part of this.' And with Kubrick’s The Shining, I felt that it was very cold, very 'We’re looking at these people, but they’re like ants in an anthill, aren’t they doing interesting things, these little insects.'"

He also mentioned both main characters Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) and Wendy Torrence (Shelley Duvall) as being problematic in his view: "Jack Torrence, in the movie, seems crazy from the jump. Jack Nicholson, I’d seen all his biker pictures in the 50s and 60s and I thought, 'He’s just channeling The Wild Angels here,'" he said. "Shelley Duvall as Wendy is really one of the most misogynistic characters ever put on film, she’s basically just there to scream and be stupid and that’s not the woman that I wrote about."

It's certainly an interesting take on the film, and it's true that the novel is extremely different from the movie—in a way, the novel was really just a skeleton for  the film, and Kubrick was able to run wild with his vision. 

Do you think King has a point? Sound off in the comments.

[via The Mary Sue]

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