The Shining or The Thing?

Pick 1

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Life is not filled with enough great horror movies to choose between two classics like this.



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Agent Mulder's Hair said:
I read a pretty good bit and I've had a King book for awhile and never got around to reading it. Iirc it's Dreamscapes & Nightmares or something like that. No clue if that's one of his better works or not. But I seriously need to get around to reading at least something of his. He's one of the most popular authors of the 20th century and I've still never read 1 word of his. Which is weird because I love that genre. I have Edgar Allan Poe's entire works in 1 book, and I've read a lot of that. Just no King.
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My mom was a huge fan so his books were always laying around the house, and by the time I was like 9 or 10 I started sneaking them because Young Adult novels suck dicks. I've read so many of his books, but some of my personal favorites:

Dark tower series 1-4 (best not to finish the series tbh, it peaks at the 4th book)
Desperation
Salem's Lot
Needful Things
The Stand ( warning very long)
It (also pretty long)
The Tommyknockers
Bag of Bones
Cell
The Mist
The Bachman Books

Also most of his short stories are pretty damn good imo.


shadow_priest_x said:
I'll put it this way:

When I first watched The Thing, when it was over I was like, "Okay, great, good movie. Lots of fun. Moving on now."

But when I watched The Shining, it lingered with me. It lodged itself into my mind. For several days I pondered it and talked to people about it.
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Tbf you can do that with the Thing too, I think it's just a matter of what kind of horror you enjoy more, what gets under your skin. Can't remember if you checked out the thread we had going on the thing. Lots of analysis on there, and some links to youtube vids and other theories.

It's interesting that a movie that came out and flopped in 1982 still has so much discussion, and has really turned into a classic over time. Ahead of it's time imo. It's a layered movie with a LOT of small background details going on to make you question who's a person and who is the thing.
 
Mike said:
Tbf you can do that with the Thing too, I think it's just a matter of what kind of horror you enjoy more, what gets under your skin. Can't remember if you checked out the thread we had going on the thing. Lots of analysis on there, and some links to youtube vids and other theories.

It's interesting that a movie that came out and flopped in 1982 still has so much discussion, and has really turned into a classic over time. Ahead of it's time imo. It's a layered movie with a LOT of small background details going on to make you question who's a person and who is the thing.
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I'll have to give it a rewatch. Hell, maybe even tonight.

It's been quite a few years since I last saw it.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
I'll have to give it a rewatch. Hell, maybe even tonight.

It's been quite a few years since I last saw it.
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I hadn't seen it since I was a kid, and bought a copy for $5 at Wal-mart a couple years ago. The effects hold up surprisingly well. It reminded me how much I miss 80's movies. There's a certain tough no nonsense vibe, without being a tryhard douche, that 80's movies captured perfectly.

The way it ratchets up the tension and paranoia is masterful. And a great performance by Kurt Russell when he was really starting to come into his own. The movie reminded me what a badass he was and how many of my favorite movies he was in throughout the 80's.

Really stands out from anything else that was coming out at that time, and i think audiences and critics just didn't know what to do with it. We were easing into "aliens are our friends" type of sci-fi films at the time, and a lot of people wrote it off as a gross out movie, completely missing the point. The star of the movie isn't the monster, but human desperation, paranoia, selfishness, and courage. Much like a good zombie film.

It's a great example that you really can't rely on critics, as there's definitely some groupthink going on that will shut out great movies, books, music etc. if it doesn't match trends at the time. I think it opened the door for more experimental guys like Cronenberg in a big way.
 
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The Shining

The "all work no play" scene is one of my all time favorites. So well written, acted, and directed.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
You know, it's really been quite a while since I last watched The Thing so I should probably revisit it before I get too deep into a conversation about it. Maybe I'll watch it this week and chime back in.
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You should really revisit it, SP. Preferably at night. When it's cold out. With the lights off.

It's every bit as layered and deep as The Shining is, imo.
 
BayAreaGuy said:
The Shining

The "all work no play" scene is one of my all time favorites. So well written, acted, and directed.
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That really is one of the best reveals of all time. And it doesn't reveal a "monster." It's even scarier than that. It reveals that this motherfucker is batshit insane.
 
Tough for me to choose between the two but the Shining edges out the Thing ever so slightly however I love the theme to the Thing more than the Shinings theme.
 
Death By Samson said:
These guys really do it right.

From The Thing wiki page:

The Thing is annually viewed by members of the winter crew at the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station during the first evening of winter.
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lol I saw that write up in wikipedia. It goes on to say that they also view the Shining annually out there :D

But yeah, that's the way to watch The Thing for sure. Out there in that kind of environment. That has to be awesome.
 
Death By Samson said:
Nightmares & Dreamscapes is a collection of short stories.

If that is the book that you have then the stories that I would recommend reading are:

The Ten O' Clock People

Crouch End

Rainy season

You Know They Got A Hell of a Band

Suffer the Little Children

Dolan's Cadillac

Home Delivery

Popsy
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Pretty much my favorite compilation. Still read 10 o'clock people and crouch end every few years
 
volodya said:
Pretty much my favorite compilation. Still read 10 o'clock people and crouch end every few years
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Yeah, I really liked The Ten O' Clock People. Supposedly there is a film version in the works called Cessation starring Jay Baruchel but I am not sure if it is getting off of the ground.
 
Death By Samson said:
Yeah, I really liked The Ten O' Clock People. Supposedly there is a film version in the works called Cessation starring Jay Baruchel but I am not sure if it is getting off of the ground.
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Man that would be awesome if it got done well!
 
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