riveted by a very poignant form of fear. Not the fear of an actor out of her element, or the more mundane fear of a victim being chased around by an ax-wielding maniac. Rather, it was something far more disquieting, and familiar: the fear of a wife who's experienced her husband at his worst, and is terrified that she'll experience it again." Media site Screen Rant described Duvall as "the heart of the film; she is out of her depth in dealing with her husband's looming insanity while trying to protect her young son, all while being fearful of the malevolence around her." Horror film critic Peter Bracke, reviewing the Blu-ray release in High-Def Digest, wrote: In 1999, Jonathan Romney discussed Kubrick's perfectionism and dispelled others' initial arguments that the film lacked complexity: "The final scene alone demonstrates what a rich source of perplexity The Shining offers... look beyond the simplicity and the Overlook reveals itself as a palace of paradox". Romney further explains: Response by Stephen King Stephen King has been quoted as saying that although Kubrick made a film with memorable imagery, it was poor as an adaptation and that it is the only adaptation of his novels that he could "remember hating". However, in his 1981 nonfiction book Danse Macabre, King noted that Kubrick was among those "filmmakers whose particular visions are so clear and fierce that... fear of failure never becomes a factor in the equation," commenting that "even when a director such as Stanley Kubrick makes such a maddening, perverse, and disappointing film as The Shining, it somehow retains a brilliance that is inarguable; it is simply there," and listed Kubrick's film among those he considered to have "contributed something of value to the [horror] genre." Before the 1980 film, King often said he gave little attention to the film adaptations of his work. The novel, written while King was suffering from alcoholism, contains an autobiographical element. King expressed disappointment that some themes, such as the disintegration of family and the dangers of alcoholism, are less present in the film. King also viewed the casting of Nicholson as a mistake, arguing it would result in a rapid realization among audiences that Jack would go insane, due to Nicholson's famous role as Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). King had suggested that a more "everyman" actor such as Jon Voight, Christopher Reeve,