New Episode-Stephen King's The Shining (ABC, 1997)

Stephen Kingcast

Constant Reader

Tv & Film, Arts, Arts:books, Books

4.7 • 680 Ratings

🗓️ 24 March 2026

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the Spring of '97, King once more partnered with director Mick Garris to fulfill his dream of bringing a more faithful adaptation of his novel The Shining to the screen. For years, King has never shied away from his criticism of Stanley Kubrick's take on his his material. Though 1980's Jack Nicholson starring movie is considered a horror classic, one of the best horror adaptations of all time, and one of the greatest works of cinema, it never measured up to King's own opinion of what the story should have been. And in 1997, he had the opportunity to tell his story, except this time on his terms. Comparisons be damned! Who cares if the performance by Jack Nicholson will reverberate through the generations as a once-in-a-lifetime showcase? Who cares if the iconography that Kubrick brought to the property (elevators of blood, the teddy bear guest, the twins) has become synonymous with the story itself and wouldn't be present in the remake? Who cares if it, by the very nature of it airing on primetime television, couldn't compete with the visceral imagery of its horror counterpart? King didn't care, and apparently, audiences didn't either. The movie was a ratings smash hit, but now that nearly 30 years have passed since it aired, how does it hold up? As always, if you have any thoughts on anything related to Stephen King, write into stephenkingcast@yahoo.com Follow on Bluesky, Facebook, Tik Tok and Instagram. Stay organized and up to date with all things Stephen King at stephenkingcast.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone, and welcome to the Stephen King cast, One Man's Musings on The Works of Stephen King.
0:06.2	Each week I will review one entry in the bibliography of Stephen King and the chronological order of publication.
0:11.5	And what I'm doing this week is I am turning my attention to the 1997 ABC TV miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's third novel and the second live
0:28.4	action adaptation of that novel and that is the famous infamous I use the adjective that you would like to choose to describe this
0:43.3	particular movie, which is Stephen King's The Shining.
0:48.0	And I want to be clear that it is called Stephen King's The Shining for a number of reasons.
0:54.3	It is not to be confused with the Shining directed by Stanley Kubrick, the classic 1980s
1:01.4	movie.
1:02.3	That is not only one of the best horror movies of all time, not just one of the best Stephen
1:08.9	King adaptations of all time. And yes, I know that that is a divisive thing to say, but it's also one of the best Stephen King adaptations of all time.
1:11.2	And yes, I know that that is a divisive thing to say,
1:13.7	but it's also one of the greatest movies of all time, full stop.
1:20.1	Stephen King's The Shining, the 1997 ABC TV miniseries.
1:25.4	I am not sure if it can hold those same qualifications.
1:30.5	And when I originally did this podcast, I avoided reviewing the ABC TV miniseries because the
1:42.2	Kubrick version is so strong,
1:44.3	and I wanted to talk about that.
1:47.1	And because also when I started the podcast back in 2014,
1:55.4	I had a lot of work to do.
1:59.3	The Shining is Stephen King's third novel,
2:01.7	so by that point in the original publication,
2:04.9	the original release of these episodes,
	...

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