How Scary Is The Shining (Book vs. Movie)?

Is Stephen King’s novel The Shining scary, and if so how scary? And what about the movie version? Which is scarier, the book or the movie?

As a vocal enthusiast of the horror genre (i.e., “nerd”), I’ve encountered these questions many times over the years. They usually come from people who haven’t seen the movie or read the book, but want to know what all the fuss is about.

After all, The Shining has had a sizable influence on the horror genre and pop culture in general. (One recent example: There’s a lengthy animated sequence about The Shining in the 2019 movie Ready Player One, during which the characters’ virtual-reality avatars enter the Overlook Hotel with harrowing results.)

If you’re one of those people, and you’re wondering how scary The Shining is, this blog post is for you. Below, I’ve offered a spoiler-free overview of the novel and the movie versions of this horror classic, with an emphasis on the fear factor. Enjoy!

How Scary Is The Shining?

Let’s start with the obvious. We all have a different version of “scary.” Some people fear the dark. Some fear clowns or serial killers or creepy crawlies or the open ocean … or whatever. We all have a different “switch,” that psychological and emotional trigger that makes us clench our muscles and hold our breath.

Despite this variance, The Shining has something to scare almost everyone. It has layers of terror — some real, some imagined, some that occupy the gray area in between.

It checks a lot of boxes, in terms of being scary. It has ghosts and telepathy and physical isolation and marital discord and a fun little trip into madness. (No spoilers there. You can glean those things from the book jacket or movie blurb.)

But how scary is The Shining?

Having read the novel and seen the movie multiple times, I can offer the following insights:

• For me, the 1980 movie version of The Shining was much scarier than the novel that spawned it. Jack Nicholson’s performance had a lot to do with that.
• But the book is more entertaining overall, as books often are. The novel tells a deeper story with more character development and a more gradual “decline.”
• While Stanley Kubrick’s movie is based on Stephen King’s book, they’re like apples and oranges. It’s hard to compare them in head-to-head fashion.
• While it didn’t scare me, personally, the original novel of The Shining has scared a lot of readers over the years. In fact, it ranks among the scariest horror books of all time, according to popular opinion.

My advice is to enjoy them separately and for separate reasons. Read the book. Watch the film. Enjoy the individual merits of each.

Where the True Horror Lies

Again, no spoilers here. I’ll take about the kind of horror that exists within The Shining. But I won’t be revealing any key plot points.

You probably already know that most of the story occurs in a place called the Overlook Hotel. It’s a huge, resort-style hotel up in the Colorado Rockies. Jack Torrance and his family agree to stay there over the winter, serving as caretakers. So right away, you know there’s going to be a sense of isolation in the story. As the snow begins to pile up, they become cut off from the outside the world.

The Overlook is also filled by “strange and terrible forces,” as it says on the book jacket. The novel delves into the history of these terrible forces (and the events that spawned them), while the movie glosses over it.

So the setting alone is disturbing. A big, empty hotel tucked away in the mountains. The howling wind. The impassable roads. It has a certain affect on you.

But in my view, what’s truly scary about The Shining is how it chronicles one man’s descent into madness. We go along for the ride. We get inside the character’s head (in the novel version, at least) and see this transformation happen, little by little. It’s like watching a slow-moving train headed for a cliff. Nothing you can do to stop it.

In the movie version of The Shining, we get to see this downward spiral as portrayed by the always-incredible Jack Nicholson. And that makes for a huge difference between the book and the movie.

“Wendy!!!”

In the novel, this emotional decay unfolds more gradually. Stephen King teases it out over many pages and chapters. He takes his time. He invites us inside Jack Torrance’s head and keeps us there for a good long while, with only the occasional “reprieve” as we slip into Wendy’s or Danny’s POV.

We’re talking about a 400-plus-page novel distilled into a 144-minute movie. So in the movie version, the downward spiral of Jack Torrance has been compressed and intensified. In the novel, the transformation is diluted by length. It’s more gradual.

Like I said … apples and oranges.

Fear Factor: The Book Versus the Movie

Let’s revisit the question at hand. How scary is The Shining? And which is scarier, the book or movie version? For me, the movie gets a solid 8 out of 10 on the scary scale.

“Heeeere’s Johnny!”

I give The Shining novel, on the other hand, a mere 6.5 on the scare-o-meter.

But this is all very personal and subjective. Movies tend to scare me more than books do. For me, the audio-visual aspect of a film ratchets up the terror. If it’s done well, anyway.

The actors, the music and lighting, the physical manifestation of evil. These things breathe life into the story. And that’s something you don’t usually get from reading a book.

Of course, that cuts both ways. You experience things from reading that you can’t get from film, also.

Movies offer a more visceral experience, when compared to novels. So it can be hard to compare a film adaption to its source material, especially within the horror genre.

I found The Shining novel to be a more personal story, compared to the movie. In the book, you spend quite a lot of time in Jack Torrance’s head. Believe me, that’s not a comfortable place to be. But there you are, right alongside him.

Then, in the next chapter, you might slide into Wendy’s point of view, or little Danny’s. By reading the book, you get a better sense of who these people are.

I felt like I knew the Torrances when reading the novel for the first time. I was worried about them (or two out of the three, anyway). I knew Jack was dangerous, and still I lived inside of his head and watched him descend into an obsessive form of madness that no one should witness or suffer.

Bottom line: The novel was a richer experience overall. But it didn’t scare me like the movie did.

Share Your Thoughts

That’s my two cents on the subject. How about you? Have you read the book and seen the movie? What are your thoughts? Which one did you find to be scarier? How were they different for you?

You’re welcome to leave a comment in the box below. I’d love to get your perspective on this.