Stephen King's The Shining
The original book by
Stephen King
has already been adapted by
Stanley Kubrick
The supporting cast is good, although they get very little screen time. Pat Hingle and Elliot Gould both get a couple of scenes as the hotel's janitor and manager respectively. The Jack Nicholson role is played by someone called Steven Weber [aka who??]. The only real star with any screen time is Rebecca De Mornay , as the protagonist's wife [originally played by Shelley DuVal ].
The first hour of the story is from the male lead's point of view. Pat Hingle tells him about rats in the basement, which brings to mind the Stephen King film Graveyard Shift . After the first hour, it's all pretty much from the wife and kids' perspective.
While Kubrick's version can be quite confusing in parts, this made-for-television effort explains it all out. That is the only real difference, because the plot is pretty much identical. Unfortunately the change is not for the better. Kubrick let us work it out for ourselves, and because of the layered nature of the film it worked on many levels. The TV version is just a dumbed-down version of the same thing.
