(Five months, snowbound in the Colorado Rockies, with all the food you could possibly need - it would be perfect if it weren‘t for the fucking ghosts….)
CAST: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Anne Jackson, Joe Turkel, Phillip Stone, Barry Nelson.
DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and one really fucked-up hotel - straight ahead…
IT’S LIKE THIS: The Torrances are your typical American family: daddy Jack (Jack Nicholson) is a recovering alcoholic, mommy Wendy (Shelley Duvall) is a timid housewife, and son Danny (Danny Lloyd) has an imaginary friend who likes to show him freaky stuff. In other words, “typical” if they’re from ‘SALEM‘S LOT, and since THE SHINING was also written by Stephen King, that’s probably not too farfetched. Anyhow, Jack gets a job as winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies. This means he, Wendy, and Danny will have to spend five months in the hotel over the brutal winter taking care of the place. If you think that’s a piece of cake tantamount to a never-ending vacation, allow me to burst your bubble: ten years before, another winter caretaker went nuts, killed his family with an axe, and then himself. Oh, and it’s very likely he did this because… the hotel made him do it. Yes, folk… the place is about as haunted as the Tower of London. Merry Christmas!
THE DUDE (OR DUDETTE) MOST LIKELY TO SAVE THE DAY: She may not look it, but Wendy is quite the resourceful scrapper. The woman is hell with a baseball bat. You’ll see.
EYE CANDY MOST LIKELY TO FIRE UP A WOODY: Nada. Zip. Zilch. Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall are cute, but not exactly my idea of thermonuclear hotness.
MOST INTENTIONALLY SCARY SCENE: The bathtub scene in Room 237. Trust me - you‘ll freak.
MOST UNINTENTIONALLY SCARY SCENE: The scene where the guy in the Dog Costume is blowing the guy in the tuxedo - and Wendy interrupts them. I am not even fucking around here.
HOTTEST SCENE: Nada. Zip. Zilch. Unless the sight of Jack fondling a naked decaying corpse is your cup of tea. Because it is so not mine.
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: What is the secret of the Overlook hotel? What other tragic events beyond the caretaker’s massacre occurred there? What future tragic events are waiting to occur? Will the Torrance family be able to survive? Will Jack be able to withstand the “voices”? Or will he go down the same path as the other caretaker? Will Wendy be able to protect Danny? And why, oh, why didn’t they insist on a helicopter so they can leave whenever they feel like it? Oh, that’s right - because the ghosts would’ve just fucked with the engine.
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH “THE SHINING”: If you like chilly, spare, stark horror films that epitomize the saying “less is more.”
WHY YOU MAY NOT ENJOY “THE SHINING”: As with DARK WATER, if you have the attention span of a grub worm. Then you’re better off watching SAW.
FINAL ANALYSIS: Many fans of the novel by Stephen King didn’t like Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic realization of THE SHINING. I saw the film way before I read the book, and while the book is certainly terrifying and gripping, there’s no way it can erase the impression that Kubrick’s chilling visualization left with me. If there was ever a film that perfectly embodied atmosphere and dread, it’s this one. It also plays with the notion of what a “haunted house” should look like. The Overlook Hotel is no creaky manor with dark corners and shadowy hallways. Everything is modern, brightly-lit, almost sterile - which makes the horror contained within the hotel even more disturbing.
Many critics have knocked Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of Jack Torrance. They say that, unlike in the book, Nicholson’s Jack is already a little unhinged in the beginning. Therefore, they claim, his transformation from loving family man to vicious axe murderer is not a full, effective one. I would agree with them that Jack as played by Nicholson already has you on edge in the beginning, but I disagree that it weakens THE SHINING. If anything, it introduces tension into the storyline much sooner than if Jack had been played by someone like, say, Harrison Ford. As Wendy, Shelley Duvall is the model of the placid, genial woman with reservoirs of hidden strength, and she holds her own against Nicholson’s vast intensity. Finally, Danny Lloyd is affecting (and effective) as the vulnerable but gifted Danny.
In the end, THE SHINING is an atypical haunted house film that takes the horror out of “the old, dark manor” and puts it square in the middle of an isolated modern hotel. It may not be faithful to the book, but sometimes that is a good thing.
