Top 10 Differences Between The Shining Book and Movie

The final twenty minutes or so of Stanley Kubrick’s film are terrifying, with audiences watching from the edge of their seats as a psychotic father chases and attempts to kill his own son with an axe. And while this stays relatively true to the source material, there is one major difference – book Jack actually uses a roque mallet instead of an axe. In the novel, Jack finds a roque mallet and uses it to first break Wendy’s leg and back, then to attack Dick Hallorann, and finally to bash his own face in. In the movie, Jack uses an axe to kill Hallorann with a swing to the heart… a fact that’ll come back later on this list.

The scene of Jack chasing Danny in the hedge maze is one of the most iconic scenes in horror cinema, and it was entirely the creation of Stanley Kubrick. There is no hedge maze in the novel, but there are hedge animals. The topiaries serve as guardians of the Overlook, protecting both the exits and entrances of the hotel, and they seemingly come to life to hunt both Jack and Danny at different times. Perhaps knowing that it would be too expensive or that it would look too silly, Kubrick decided to trim the topiary animals from his film (no pun intended) and replace them with an ominous maze.

One of the most famous scenes of the movie sees Jack entering Room 237 and being greeted by a gorgeous nude woman. Upon seeing her reflection, he realizes that the woman is actually grotesque, bloated and decomposing, and he is chased out of the room. While bathtub lady is in the novel, the room was changed from 217 to 237, as management of the real-life Timberline Lodge didn’t want patrons to be afraid of staying in the actual room 217. Oddly enough, conspiracy theorists ran wild with this change: because it’s roughly 237,000 miles to the moon, the room number change was basically a confirmation for them that Stanley Kubrick helped fake the moon landing.

Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” is a bona fide horror classic, and it’s filled with many iconic lines and scenes. And, like the hedge maze, the creepy hallway girls, the blood elevator, Jack’s “Here’s Johnny” moment and the pages upon pages of “all work and no play…” are mostly the creations of Stanley Kubrick. Sure, there are variations on some of these scenes in the novel, like the entity in the playground asking Danny to play with him, but for the most part, these celebrated and visually striking scenes cannot be found in King’s book.

Like many atmospheric elements in Stanley Kubrick’s work, the character of Tony remains rather enigmatic. We know Danny has an imaginary friend named Tony who talks through his finger, but that’s about all we ever learn. However, Tony is given much greater importance and depth in the novel. In King’s version, Tony appears as a physical being to Danny, and towards the climax of the story, we learn that Tony is Danny from the future, using the shining to try and psychically warn his younger self about going to the Overlook, and then trying to save himself. Kubrick did away with this explanation, preferring to keep the figure of Tony a creepy mystery.

It’s a well-known fact that Stephen King is not the biggest fan of Kubrick’s adaptation, and the movie version of Wendy Torrance is a major contributing factor to his opinion. In King’s novel, Wendy is a strong force and protective mother who does anything she can to protect her son from the hotel and her increasingly psychotic husband. In the film, she’s far more submissive, defending Jack’s abuses when speaking to others, and showing passivity towards his aggression and belligerence. She also cries… a lot. King took offense to this portrayal of his strong character, calling her “the most misogynistic character ever put on film.”

While both King and Kubrick depicted the Overlook Hotel as its own character; they treated that character in completely different ways And, chances are, the one you prefer depends on what you want from the story. King presents a traditional ghost story, as his hotel is not just haunted but also alive. Topiary animals come to life, ghosts attack, and fire hoses come off walls to chase and hiss at characters, as the hotel actively tries to get Danny to consume his powers. While the film presents many weird and eerie occurrences, many of them are presented in an ambiguous manner. King wants to scare you with ghosts; Kubrick wants you to feel disoriented.

As is often the case, the book version of Jack is more complex than his Kubrick counterpart. Both characters share pasts of abuse and alcoholism, and both fall prey to madness. However, novel Jack is a caring father and husband, whereas movie Jack is borderline psychotic seemingly from the start. Book Jack also has a harder time with alcohol, with his descent into madness characterized by the same traits he’d exhibited when he was drinking. Ultimately, Jack earns redemption at the climax of the novel by regaining control of himself, telling Danny he loves him, and allowing him to escape. Film Jack dies a monster, and it’s debatable what caused his downfall – the hotel, or himself.

It’s one of the most unpredictable and iconic scenes of the movie. After Hallorann receives a signal from Danny, he moves heaven and Earth to get to the Overlook Hotel, including renting a snowcat and traversing miles of icy roads in blizzard conditions. And then, just as he enters the hotel, he’s immediately axed in the chest. So much for the heroic rescue. As mentioned before, novel Hallorann is brutally attacked by Jack with the Roque mallet, but he survives and escapes with Wendy and Danny. He later becomes a comforting father figure for Danny and even appears in the novel’s sequel, “Doctor Sleep”… which kinda feels like Stephen King saying a big eff-you to Kubrick, in his way.

While we wouldn’t call the novel’s ending “happy,” it is certainly more uplifting than the film’s total downer. In the novel, Jack regains consciousness and tells Danny that he loves him before running to the basement to relieve the pressure in the boiler. However, he arrives too late, dies in the resulting explosion, and the hotel burns down. In the film, there’s no redemption for Jack: he simply freezes to death while attempting to kill Danny, and the Overlook remains standing, waiting for the next Jack to enter its malicious grasp. While King’s ending is perhaps more satisfying and complete, Kubrick’s is far scarier and more in keeping with the film’s grim and ominous tone.