20 Mind-Blowing Easter Eggs Hidden In Your Favorite Horror Films
5. The Shining Subtly Gives The Middle Finger To Stephen King
Stephen King notoriously hated Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining, and to him it seemed as if Kubrick went out of his way to make the movie nothing like the book. King may actually be right about that if you analyze a quick, seemingly unimportant scene in the film.
When Dick Hallorann is driving on his way to the hotel, he sees a car wreck on the side of the road involving a red beetle, which has been completely totaled. In Stephen King's novel, the Torrance family drives a red Beetle, but in the movie, Kubrick deliberately changed it to a yellow one.
A lot of fans interpret this as a subtle jab at King, and/or Kubrick asserting that he's going to be intentionally throwing the book out the window and doing his own thing. Otherwise, what exactly is the point of changing the color of the car and then destroying the book's version?
Of course, this is The Shining, so there are dozens of insane fan theories about this red car, such as that it represents America dropping the atomic bomb on Japan in World War II. Yeah, really.