Halloween - Kubrick vs King - "Here's Johnny! The 45-Year War Over The Shining's Soul"

Stanley Kubrick turned Stephen King's most personal novel into a cinematic masterpiece—and King has never forgiven him. From the moment King watched Jack Nicholson prowl through Kubrick's cold corridors in 1980, he's waged war against the film that erased his story about alcoholism and redemption, replacing it with a meditation on inevitable madness. Featuring King's furious interviews calling the film "a beautiful Cadillac with no engine," Kubrick's silent dismissal of the criticism, and King's failed revenge with a 1997 TV miniseries that proved you can't kill a masterpiece. Marcus Reid explores how a recovering alcoholic's cry for help became a perfectionist's puzzle box, why audiences prefer the "wrong" version, and what happens when two geniuses fight over the meaning of horror itself. Forty-five years later, King still hates Kubrick's The Shining. Kubrick, dead since 1999, keeps winning anyway. Some ghosts refuse to be exorcised—especially when they look this good frozen in the maze.

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