Stephen King thinks The Shining documentary Room 237 is “academic bullsh*t”

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Most of you probably know author Stephen King isn't a fan of Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING adaptation, but he also didn't care for the recent documentary involving the horror movie. Rodney Ascher's ROOM 237 explores different theories about THE SHINING, and in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, King says he had to turn it off after watching half of the documentary.

I watched about half of it and got sort of impatient with it and turned it off…These guys were reaching. I've never had much patience for academic bullshit. It's like Dylan says, "You give people a lot of knives and forks, they've gotta cut something." And that was what was going on in that movie.

Stephen King also says he still doesn't understand why so many people love the Stanley Kubrick film.

I don't get it. But there are a lot of things that I don't get. But obviously people absolutely love it, and they don't understand why I don't. The book is hot, and the movie is cold; the book ends in fire, and the movie in ice. In the book, there's an actual arc where you see this guy, Jack Torrance, trying to be good, and little by little he moves over to this place where he's crazy. And as far as I was concerned, when I saw the movie, Jack was crazy from the first scene. I had to keep my mouth shut at the time. It was a screening, and Nicholson was there. But I'm thinking to myself the minute he's on the screen, "Oh, I know this guy. I've seen him in five motorcycle movies, where Jack Nicholson played the same part." And it's so misogynistic. I mean, Wendy Torrance is just presented as this sort of screaming dishrag. But that's just me, that's the way I am.

King goes on to say he thinks STAND BY ME is the best movie based on one of his books.

Probably Stand by Me. I thought it was true to the book, and because it had the emotional gradient of the story. It was moving. I think I scared the shit out of Rob Reiner. He showed it to me in the screening room at the Beverly Hills Hotel. I was out there for something else, and he said, "Can I come over and show you this movie?" And you have to remember that the movie was made on a shoestring. It was supposed to be one of those things that opened in six theaters and then maybe disappeared. And instead it went viral. When the movie was over, I hugged him because I was moved to tears, because it was so autobiographical. But Stand by Me, Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile are all really great ones. Misery is a great film. Delores Claiborne is a really, really good film. Cujo is terrific.

Personally, I think there's room for both the Stephen King book and Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING. As for ROOM 237, yeah, I agree the filmmakers were reaching a bit, however I still thought it was a interesting documentary. Do I believe half the stuff in ROOM 237? No, but that didn't make it any less fascinating. What are your thoughts on ROOM 237?