The shining

I've decided that people who classify Stephen King as some sort of pop culture sell-out just haven't read his books.

I thought I had read The Shining before.  Soon after I started reading it this time, I realized I was wrong.  I was remembering the movie.  Not a bad movie.  But not the same as the book.

Yes, the movie is scary.  But it doesn't hold a candle to the novel.  The movie characters lack something.  We can't see inside their minds, see what is haunting them before they ever set foot in The Overlook.  That is what the book gives us.  A family of three who carry a variety of skeletons and baggage on their journey to the mountains.  And then are locked up with those issues for the hotel to feed on.

You have to wonder if the same disaster would have plagued a different family.  The Partridge family, for instance.  Maybe they would have been just fine.

One last word of advice: don't cut your shrubbery into animal shapes.  Please.