Which was better?

[johnmarinville]

The movie is good, this story is better. And for me, the biggest difference between the two lies in the setup: the conversation in Mr. Olin's office before Mike Enslin gets to the room. I love Sam Jackson, so it's nothing against him. It's that Olin, as written by SK, diverges from what Enslin expects from a hotel manager who is only trying to keep him away to add to the mystique. Olin is diffident out in the lobby, but oddly confident within the confines of his own office, and there, he has several insights which can only be described as unnerving to our friend Mikey.

Sam Jackson is a bad ass hotel manager, because he's a bad ass everything. His character in the movie plays into what you would expect form a manager who is only trying to play up the ghost story to add to hotel's rep.

Too, I am biased in favor of the story's version of that scene because SK featured it in On Writing, using that scene to illustrate a portion of his editing process.

But the movie is good. There are several elements on SK story descriptions that are nicely brough to light in the movie through the cinemtography, the tilted camera angles, the yellow-to-orange lighting, etc. And the Carpenter's song at the beginning of his stay is a very SK-esque touch.

In the movie, I miss the story's emphasis on the disjointed tape recording and the instectile voice on the phone, but as good as some elements of the story were, I don't think they would have translated to the screen well, so except for the Olin scene, I think the story changes in the movie would very well done.

[CrazyAbe]

I Think the story is good

but i think the movie is better

[Cowboy]

Rarely does a book capture the imagination like a well written book.

[Christiane17]

The story is better than the movie. I didn't watch it all, cause I thought it was lame. But it's only my opinion. Someone has to make up his own mind.

[Snaggletooth]

Did both, and got the result I expected: the story was superior. SK's works don't usually translate that well to the big screen (Green Mile & Shawshank are notable exceptions, perhaps because Darabont is a real SK fan) and even Kubrick's Shining (which SK hated, I understand) was a letdown, and I enjoyed all the rest of Kubrick's films. Stand By Me came close, but some parts were left out of the film and that usually spoils it for me. Of course, I always see the film after reading the book, so the film can't really compete with my reading experience. I probably won't go see another one of these adaptations...even The Mist was a disappointment. Ah, expectations doth make fools of us all.

[Ozymandas]

I've never found any movie to be superior to the book on which it was based. The best any movie can hope for is to be, to me, "as good".

I did not expect much from this movie, given how short the story was, but I think they did a great job. None of the added material seemed like "filler" and I think it all fit well with the original work. The direction, acting and effects were all on-spot.

This movie, in my humble opinion, was as good as the book.

[andreasmith762]

Frankly, that's like asking someone to compare they're best Halloween night as a child to they're best Halloween night (that they can recall) as an adult (and by adult I mean drunken 19 year old).

I liked the story and I liked how it transfered as a movie.
Both scared teh CRAP out of me...I had nightmares after both and it was the best performance of John Cussack in all his hairy armed goodness since HIgh Fidelity.

[KyleKarabekian]

I think the book version is better than the movie 90% of the time. If the book is written after the movie the movie wins. In the case of Harry Potter I liked the books best. A Dark Tower movie would be really scary; but you would need to read the books to understand what was going on. What say you?

What do you mean by 'scary' for a Dark Tower movie? I would hate to see one, as the movies always have a way of destroying the characters image. As Sai King said, "Oh, Roland Deschain looks like Billy Bob Thornton"

I do agree with the reading of the books first if they made a movie. Like the dollar baby of Paranoid: a chant, nobody would understand it if they haven't read the story-thing( And I'm not sayinhg everyone has read it, just saying that those who have probably understand it more)

[Doc Wilson]

kings novels are too big, his short stories are just right for making movies. This one hit the spot, its on par with shawshank, and thats saying something.

[xville]

I dug them both.