MRS. MASSEY: A sixty-year-old guest of the hotel who killed herself when her seventeen-year-old lover deserted her. Her lonely, still lustful spirit haunts Room 217, waiting in the bathtub for her beau to return, until the hotel’s destruction.
THE OVERLOOK HOTEL: A massive structure with 110 rooms, situated high in the Colorado mountains. Constructed between 1907 and 1909, it is one of the most beautiful resort hotels ever built; it is also, unfortunately, the most evil. When Jack Torrance fails to properly maintain the boilers, the entire facility explodes and goes up in flames. It is still unclear if the evil presence, which existed in every room and board and nail of the hotel, was completely and forever destroyed in the resulting devastation.
THE SHINING: ADAPTATIONS
In 1980, legendary filmmaker Stanley Kubrick brought his vision to the screen of what many critics believed was a powerful and extremely visual interpretation of the novel. Although King was at first extremely flattered that the great director would be adapting his novel for the movies, the author was dissatisfied ultimately with the final results. (For one thing, Kubrick rejected the screenplay offered to him by King and adapted it himself with another screenwriter.)
Although the production boasted impressive performances from stars Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, and newcomer Danny Lloyd as Danny Torrance, it was evident that Kubrick’s ideas about how to effectively portray cinematic horror were not the same as King’s. Kubrick also had no hesitation in changing characterizations or crucial elements of the novel to better suit his own needs as a visual stylist, such as the totally unwarranted plot twist of slaying Hallorann. King also believed that star Jack Nicholson never portrayed Torrance other than as a man already half insane when we first see him, thus giving the audience an unpleasant character few could remotely care about.
King has often stated that the R-rated film reminded him of a big, expensive-looking car—but one that had no engine to make it go. The author also believed that the director was to some degree “above” making a genre horror movie—that it would somehow be beneath his talents if he truly tried to frighten the audience. The pace of the movie also didn’t help—originally released at 146 minutes, the filmmaker cut it by four minutes for general release. In spite of King’s increasing fame over the years, the movie would forever be known—for good reasons and bad—as “Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.”
Over the years, King became less and less a fan of the 1980 motion picture, and as noted never had any hesitation in letting his feelings be known to the public. In 1996, King convinced the ABC television network that the novel’s author was the best judge in terms of who should write and produce a definitive version of the modern classic of horror. King worked with one of his favorite directors, Mick Garris, to create a six-hour miniseries that initially aired in three parts (April 27, April 28, and May 1, 1997). King now firmly believed the television miniseries format—which had worked so well with The Stand (1994)—was the best way to present his vision of The Shining.
By this point, in the late 1990s, King had far more clout than he had had when Stanley Kubrick had first optioned the film rights to The Shining. The network reportedly offered him a blank check to executive produce his next miniseries (ultimately about $23 million) and the choice of any of his works to adapt. King had always wanted to remake The Shining, but to do so had to strike a bargain with Stanley Kubrick that he would no longer publicly comment upon or criticize Kubrick’s earlier version of his novel.
Yet even King took liberties in adapting his story to the miniseries format, and to a noticeable degree focused strongly on Jack Torrance’s drinking problem as an integral part of the plot line. And rather than use well-known movie stars like Jack Nicholson, King purposely chose actors familiar to television viewers, such as Steven Weber (from the series Wings) as Jack and actress Rebecca De Mornay to play Wendy. Under the capable direction of Garris (who had also helmed Sleepwalkers and The Stand), there finally came to be a version that will forever be known—for both good reasons and bad—as “Stephen King’s The Shining.”
THE SHINING: TRIVIA
• The original title of the novel was The Shine. King changed it, as he thought it might be somehow misconstrued as a racial slur.
• The novel was originally constructed in the format of a five-act play. To keep it from becoming too long, King dropped both the Prologue and the Epilogue. However, a reworked version of the prologue titled “Before the Play” appeared in 1982 in Whispers magazine and later in the April 26, 1997, issue of TV Guide that featured articles on his miniseries The Shining. The epilogue has apparently been completely lost.
• Stephen King has a cameo role in the television miniseries portraying a ghostly bandleader. The name of his orchestra? “The Gage Creed Band.”
39
NIGHT SHIFT
(1978)
After only three novels in print under his own name, King published this, his first volume of short stories. Most of the tales within this collection first appeared in men’s magazines during the early to mid-1970s. At the time, publications such as Penthouse, Cavalier, and Gallery were a booming market for horror fiction. The exceptions include “One for the Road,” which was a coda of sorts to his ’Salem’s Lot (1975), and appeared in Maine magazine. The other, “I Know What You Need,” was first published in Cosmopolitan in 1976.
Within this collection we have some of King’s very earliest work. Some of the material predates Carrie (1974) significantly. In addition, a good number of the stories herein have a familiar flavor to them, a tone reminiscent of the kinds of classic science fiction and horror that King had weaned himself on. The first entry, “Jerusalem’s Lot,” is a traditional horror tale in the mold of genre grandmaster H.P. Lovecraft, author of such bizarre short classics as “The Dunwich Horror” and “The Shadow over Innsmouth.” Rising beyond the nod—or even homage—to Lovecraft, King’s own voice, familiar and confident, is clear. Throughout the rest of the volume, King establishes without question that his is the only voice in this book. Each of these stories is spun from the webbing of his unmistakable imagination.
It’s as simple as the first line of his foreword to Night Shift. “Let’s talk, you and I,” the author says, seductively. “Let’s talk about fear.”
And he does—magnificently.
“I Am the Doorway”
A former astronaut is afflicted with a terrible curse: an alien intelligence has infiltrated his body and begins to take it over; using his body, it murders those who might threaten it.
“I AM THE DOORWAY”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
ARTHUR: The astronaut who, while on a mission code-named Project: Zeus—whose purpose is to find intelligent life in outer space—is infected or infiltrated by an alien presence that then begins to grow in his body. First it shows up as golden eyes on his fingers and palms. Later, after he has burned his hands off, the eyes return to grow again on his chest, attempting to control his every action. Arthur’s fate is unknown, though he was last known to be contemplating suicide.
RICHARD: A friend of Arthur’s, murdered by the creature inhabiting Arthur’s body when the alien decides Richard might jeopardize its presence on Earth.
LEDERER: An astronaut whose failed mission leaves him trapped in a spaceship that will orbit the sun until he dies.
PROJECT: ZEUS: The mission that Arthur was participating in when he first came into contact with the alien species that somehow entered his body and began to take possession of it.
“The Mangler”
A horrifying series of accidents at an industrial laundry leads a police officer to realize that an incredible set of coincidences has allowed a powerful demon to possess a commercial laundry ironer and folder.
“THE MANGLER”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
JOHN HUNTON: As a police officer, his investigation of the death of Adelle Frawley in “The Mangler” leads him to eventually consider the possibility of demonic possession. When he and his friend Mark Jackson attem
pt to exorcise the demon, the giant laundry machine roars to life and attacks them. It is not known if John Hunton survived his final confrontation with the Mangler.
MARK JACKSON: It is partially due to Mark Jackson’s influence that Hunton begins to consider possession as a possibility. Jackson’s research allows them to confirm that suspicion. It is not known if Mark Jackson survived his final confrontation with the Mangler.
SHERRY OUELETTE: Due to the fact that she is a virgin, Sherry’s blood is a vital ingredient in the purely unintentional ritual that invests a demonic spirit into the Mangler.
BLUE RIBBON LAUNDRY: The industrial laundry—in an unnamed American city—where the Mangler comes to life.
THE POSSESSED REFRIGERATOR: A safety inspector tells Hunton the tale of a refrigerator that had been moved to a dump, only to apparently prey on anything that came near it, including birds and a young boy whose parents believed he knew better than to crawl inside a discarded refrigerator. (Recall that young Patrick Hockstetter of It met his demise in a discarded refrigerator.)
THE MANGLER: A Hadley-Watson Model 6 Speed Ironer and Dryer, it becomes known as “the Mangler,” due to several accidents that took place with the machine. Eventually, it becomes possessed by a demon and later, to protect itself, literally comes to life, tears its way out of the Blue Ribbon Laundry, and goes after those who would destroy it. It is not known if the Mangler survived the final confrontation with its enemies.
“The Boogeyman”
Over the course of several years, Lester Billings’s three children die mysteriously in their cribs. Lester reveals to his new psychiatrist, Dr. Harper, that in hindsight, the behavior of his children immediately previous to their deaths led him to the eventual conclusion that they were murdered by a creature called “the Boogeyman.”
“THE BOOGEYMAN”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
LESTER BILLINGS: All three of his children supposedly died at the hands of the Boogeyman.
DR. HARPER: Lester’s psychiatrist. It is unclear, but it seems that either the Boogeyman murdered Harper and disguised himself as the psychiatrist in order to continue terrorizing Billings, or that Harper has always been the Boogeyman.
THE BOOGEYMAN: A legendary monster who is supposed to lurk in the closets of children, attacking when they are made vulnerable by their parents’ disbelief in such mythical creatures.
“Gray Matter”
A group of older men hanging out at a package store called Henry’s Nite-Owl are surprised one night by a visit from Timmy Grenadine. The boy claims that a bacteria-infected beer has transformed his father into a gelatinous monster who eats dead, putrefying animals and perhaps even worse. The group of men investigate the boy’s story.
“GRAY MATTER”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
RICHIE GRENADINE: His unemployment leads him to even heavier drinking than usual. One day, a “skunked” beer, containing a kind of bacteria or virus, infects him, and he begins to change into something monstrous—a huge, gelatinous creature with a hunger for flesh, living or dead. The result of his confrontation with Henry Parmalee is unknown.
TIMMY GRENADINE: Richie’s son, who tells Henry Parmalee and the other regulars at the Nite-Owl what has been happening to his father. His current whereabouts are unknown.
HENRY PARMALEE: Owner of the Nite-Owl, he is horrified enough by Timmy Grenadine’s story—and convinced enough by the boy’s tale—to go out in a snowstorm to check it out. Though he is armed with a gun, the outcome of his battle with Richie Grenadine remains unknown.
“Battleground”
A hit man assassinates the owner of a toy company, only to have the victim’s mother send him a box of toy soldiers who are somehow—likely through supernatural means—alive, and determined to murder him.
“BATTLEGROUND”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
JOHN RENSHAW: A professional assassin in the employ of a syndicate of organized crime figures, his career is cut short when the mother of his most recent target decides to retaliate. Renshaw is murdered by the living toy soldiers sent by Mrs. Morris.
HANS MORRIS: Owner of the Morris Toy Company, he is assassinated by John Renshaw.
MRS. MORRIS: Hans Morris’s mother, she sends living toys to take revenge upon her son’s killer.
TOY SOLDIERS: While the soldiers’ sentience is never explained, it seems there are two possibilities. Either they are finely manufactured, artificially intelligent, tiny robots … or they are invested with supernatural life and intelligence.
“Sometimes They Come Back”
A high school English teacher is terrified to discover that the teenagers who murdered his brother when they were kids all later died violently. They have now returned as demonic yet incarnate spirits to dispose of him.
“SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
JIM NORMAN: In 1957, when Jim was nine and his older brother, Wayne, was twelve, they were cornered by a group of older bullies. During the ensuing struggle, Wayne Norman was murdered even as he screamed at Jim to flee the scene. Decades later, and now a schoolteacher, Jim suffers from recurring nightmares. After he begins teaching at Davis High, some of his students die mysteriously, and the new students who fill the school’s vacant seats turn out to be the demonic spirits of the boys who killed his brother years earlier. He is forced to call up the spirit of his deceased sibling to defend him once again. Jim Norman’s current whereabouts are unknown.
WAYNE NORMAN: Jim’s older brother, he was murdered at the age of twelve.
VINNIE COREY, DAVID GARCIA, and BOBBY LAWSON: Three teenage thugs. In 1957, they murdered Wayne Norman. Later, they each die a violent death, and eventually return as spirits to torment and attempt to kill Jim Norman. Their spirits are destroyed or returned to their rightful rest.
RAISING DEMONS: A book used by Jim Norman to find the spell that he then uses to raise the spirit of his brother Wayne.
“Strawberry Spring”
A man tells the story of a series of murders that took place on the campus of New Sharon Teachers’ College—located in an unnamed American city—while he was a student there. He then relates a series of recent murders that seem to be the work of the same killer, whom the authorities dub “Springheel Jack.”
“STRAWBERRY SPRING”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
SPRINGHEEL JACK: A vicious serial murderer who is also the storyteller. His current whereabouts are unknown.
“The Lawnmower Man”
A man reluctant to mow his own lawn hires a lawn care service and gets more than he bargains for when a mysterious, barely human figure with a sentient lawnmower arrives to do the job.
“THE LAWNMOWER MAN”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
HAROLD PARKETTE: He doesn’t want to mow his own lawn, and hires the lawnmower man. Eventually, the lawnmower man orders his supernaturally intelligent mower to kill Harold, and the lawnmower mulches him.
THE LAWNMOWER MAN: A cloven-hoofed worshipper of the god Pan, he follows his mower around naked and eats all the grass clippings. He later murders Harold Parkette for being an unbeliever and threatening to call the police.
“I Know What You Need”
A young woman discovers that the man she has been dating has been obsessed with her since childhood, and has used voodoo to force her to fall in love with him.
“I KNOW WHAT YOU NEED”: PRIMARY SUBJECTS
LIZ HOGAN: A college student whose boyfriend, Ed Hamner, has been magically manipulating her, and has also committed murder. She manages to break free of his manipulations, but is left with a great deal of self-doubt. Her current whereabouts are unknown.
ED HAMNER: Since boyhood, he has had special mental powers that allow him to read the minds and needs of those around him, and to simply know things otherwise impossible for him to know. Not only does he cause the deaths of his parents, but also that of Liz Hogan’s previous boyfriend. His current whereabouts are unknown.
“Children of the Corn”
A young couple on a cross-country trip come upon a town where the children have slaugh
tered all the adults at the behest of a demonic presence that lives in the cornfields of Gatlin, Nebraska.
The Complete Stephen King Universe Page 33
