King's riveting adaptation is more faithful to his bestseller than Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film, and the author delivered on his promise of `a scary ride' without scrimping on characterization. Steven Weber is superb as Jack Torrance (the role originated by Jack Nicholson), a writer and alcoholic who takes his wife and their young clairvoyant son along to his winter job as caretaker of the sinister Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies.