Stephen King hasn't exactly been quiet about his hatred for the ending of Stanley Kubrick's movie adaptation of his famous novel, but Kubrick stands by it. Now, over 35 years after the film's debut, producer Jan Harlan is talking about the logistics behind the film's ending—and why Kubrick decided to depart from canon.

Harlan explained to Entertainment Weekly that Stanley was "fundamentally not interested in a horror film"—an interesting statement, considering The Shining is regarded as one of the best psychological horror films out there:

"Stanley was fundamentally not interested in a horror film. He doesn't believe in ghosts. When the book was offered to him by Warner Bros., he said, 'Well, all right, it might be challenging to do this, but I must have the freedom to change whatever I like.' Stephen King was perfectly happy with that [at the time], it's obviously a prerequisite to making a film. And Stanley certainly changed it drastically."

Kubrick found King's ending 'cliche,' screenwriter Diane Johnson added:

The ending was changed almost entirely because Kubrick found it a cliche to just blow everything up. He thought there might be something else that would be metaphorically and visually more interesting … The talkiness [of the book] was also discussed. A lot of the script was pared down during filming, too—especially for Wendy, who had many more things to say in the script than she did in the film.

In addition, Kubrick didn't want the ending to be "too gory" because he thought "a lot of blood was vulgar," Johnson explained:

"Kubrick didn't want it to be too gory, he thought a lot of blood was vulgar. He wanted it to be mostly psychological. Of course, there's the image of the blood coming out of the elevators, but that was more ornamental and metaphorical—it's different than seeing people get stabbed...So there was some discussion about trying to find a way of ending it without a lot of blood."

You can read the full interview with Johnson and Harlan here.

(H/T Entertainment Weekly)

From: Esquire US