3. The Shining
It's no secret that Stephen King, who wrote the 1977 novel on which Stanley Kubrick's superb horror The Shining is based, has an open hatred of the film adaptation, viewing it as a hollow interpretation of his text. This is perhaps the most personal and literal of King's tales, and so it follows that he probably didn't take too kindly to anyone tampering with events that in some capacity actually took place. Just as Jack Torrance and his family arrive at an abandoned hotel and start getting a major case of the willies, King and his wife spent one night at a remote Colorado hotel that was almost completely empty, as it was just getting ready to close for the season. The long corridors, the eerily empty dining room and bar areas, and the surreal sequences involving Jack's son Danny were all drawn from real experience King had that night. King stated that after waking from a nightmare involving his son being attacked, he simply lit up a cigarette, got to work, and minutes later, had the structure of The Shining down pat.