Original ‘Shining’ Twins Call the ’90s Adaptation ‘Crap’

In the decades since its release, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining has become a definitive horror movie, featuring iconic performances and memorable sequences. The original Stephen King story was adapted into a miniseries in the ’90s, but Lisa and Louise Burns, who played twin girls in the original film, call the follow-up adaptation a “mistake.”

“No, it was crap,” Lisa revealed to Jamie Stangroom about if she enjoyed the adaptation. “Stephen King bought the rights back and made his own movie. It was an expensive mistake for him because once his book was optioned nobody else could option his book, legally, he had to buy that option back. That was expensive for him…and what a movie he made! He never made any of the money back.”

The twins might not be a fan of that adaptation, but given the success of this year’s IT, could another attempt at adapting The Shining be something the twins would be interested in?

“Leave it as it is, don’t touch,” Lisa proclaimed. “The master made it, leave it alone”.

Kubrick’s nontraditional approach to the adaptation might make the film stand out today, but many fans were disappointed with the way the film panned out when it was first released, the author himself included. Earlier this year, the miniseries’ director, Mick Garris, spoke with Comicbook.com about his initial reaction to Kubrick’s film.

“If you read the book first, that’s what it’s about, is the alcoholism and the humanity of a guy losing his humanity,” Garris pointed out. “That pressure cooker that’s going to blow, that this is a guy saddled by guilt and alcoholism. Whereas Kubrick’s film, at the time, I really was not a fan of the movie at all and I didn’t know anyone who was, but it resonated with young people like teenagers and everything.”

“I recognize it now as a great Kubrick film, but a flawed King adaptation,” Garris admitted. “At that time, that book was my favorite book of all time. I was thinking, ‘God, the genius of Stanley Kubrick and The Shining. This is going to be the scariest movie ever made.’”

On a long enough timeline, perhaps the miniseries will come to be as revered as the 1980 film.

[H/T Jamie Stangroom]