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Film: The Shining

HERE'S JOHNNY!!!

The Shining is an 1980 horror film loosely based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. It was directed by Stanley Kubrick and starred Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall.

In a serious case of either Tempting Fate or Paranoia Fuel, The Shining is screened every year at midwinter for those "wintering-over" at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. It was also once screened in the Old Faithful Inn for those working at Yellowstone over the winter.

This film provides examples of:

Adaptation Dye Job: Wendy and Jack are blonde in the novel, but have black hair in the movie.
Adaptational Attractiveness:
- Inverted with Wendy. She's described as being conventionally attractive in the book, whereas in the film she's portrayed by Shelley Duvall, who is more waif-like and fragile-looking than her novel counterpart.
- Also inverted with Jack, who is at least reasonably handsome in the books, but played by Jack Nicholson. Needless to say, he wasn't chosen for being the typical Hollywood stud.
Adaptation Explanation Extrication: See Mythology Gag below.
Adult Fear:
- In the climax where crazed Jack goes after Danny outside in the heavily snowed-in hedge maze with the full intent in killing his own son. What makes this worse it that Wendy is inside the house desperately searching for Danny, and has absolutely no idea where he is.
- Also, mid-film, when Danny appears with a huge bruise on his neck, and tells his mother that a crazy stranger strangled him.
Alien Geometries: The layout of the hotel makes no sense whatsoever. Stuart Ullman's office has a nice big window in the middle of the building, the Colorado Room has multiple floor to ceiling windows with a mystery hallway behind them. The hotel interiors have nice right angles while the outside doesn't. The freezer flips sides of the hallway between shots. The spaces between the doorways in Room 237's hallway are far too small to actually contain any rooms of that size. This was done deliberately for dramatic/horror effect.
The Alcoholic: Jack. At one point he bemoans the fact that there is no alcohol to be had, and then Lloyd appears at the bar and serves him some whiskey...
All There in the Manual: See Mythology Gag below.
Angrish: An Ax Crazy Jack Torrance falls into these near the end of the movie when he is reduced to only being able to moan like a wounded animal.
Asshole Victim: Arguably, Jack and even Charles Grady are both victims of the Overlook.
Ax Crazy: NO KIDDING.
Axe Before Entering: One of the most famous examples.
Background Halo: Inverted with the black chandeliers, which gave Jack a "black halo" post snap.
Black Dude Dies First: Hallorann in the film.
Chekhov's Skill: Danny walks through the maze with his mother near the beginning of the film. It comes in handy.
Coordinated Clothes: The creepy sisters wear the same light blue dresses with pink ribbons. The identical look multiplies the creep out factor.
Creepy Twins: Grady's daughters. Actually, they are specifically described in both book and film as not twins (ages 8 and 10) but in the movie they were played by real-life twin actresses.
Daylight Horror: As horrific as it is, there are few scenes that are literally dark. It's a well-lit movie.
Death by Adaptation: Dick Hallorann.
Doing in the Wizard :
- To a certain extent, downplaying the more overtly supernatural elements of the novel. Kubrick's version gives the impression that Jack was well on the way to Ax Crazy before the Overlook got hold of him.
- The film can actually be read as there being no supernatural elements at all - it's all in the minds of the characters. However, this interpretation makes little sense as stuff that happens to the other characters is foreshadowed to Danny by Tony. The final shot essentially kills any non-supernatural interpretation dead.
Enforced Method Acting:
- Kubrick would loudly berate Shelley Duvall (Wendy) whenever the slightest thing went wrong, in order to make her feel as distressed as the character. Jack Nicholson realized this, but resisted the urge to just give her a hug which probably helped her freak out effectively when Jack came after her with an ax.
- Scatman Crothers was allegedly reduced to tears because of Kubrick's insistence on getting absolutely perfect takes - it's debatable whether to chalk this up to this trope or Kubrick simply being a Prima Donna Director.
- A documentary states that most takes with Jack Nicholson are among the 20th takes, after the actor got tired and started ramping up the madness of his performance even further.
- Inverted with Danny Lloyd, the child actor. Kubrick was very protective of the boy and was genuinely concerned that the dark elements of the movie would traumatize him. So he treated each scene with Danny like it was a playful game, and shielded him from the true nature of the movie.
Evil Eyebrows: Even if you knew nothing about Jack Nicholson before seeing this movie, you'd still be able to guess what's going to happen to him just by looking at his eyebrows alone, to the point where King objected to the casting of Nicholson and begged Kubrick to reconsider.
Fan Disservice: The hot girl in the bathroom. She appears fully naked and upfront, yet it still looks creepy rather than sexy. On top of that, she turns into a rotten naked old corpse-woman who cackles in the creepiest manner possible!
Fanservice: Many would argue that the first naked lady in the bathroom was more fanservicey than not.
The Film of the Book
Foregone Conclusion:
- The poster really doesn't leave much to the imagination as to what Jack ends up doing.
- Stephen King himself considered Jack Nicholson's casting to be sort of a spoiler in this regard also, considering Nicholson's best-known film at the time was One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.
Gainax Ending
Getting Crap Past the Radar: Allegedly Kubrick told the MPAA that the torrent rushing out of the elevators was rusty water and not blood in order to get the movie's trailer shown. At the time the MPAA did not allow blood to be depicted in trailers.
I Never Told You My Name: When Hallorann calls little Danny Torrance "Doc", his parents ask how Hallorann knew they call him Doc. Hallorann answers by saying Danny just looks like a Doc, but the real reason is that Danny and Hallorann both share a psychic ability, "the shining".
Hedge Maze: The Overlook has an iconic one not present in the book, the perfect place for a scary chase scene. There is also a scale model inside the hotel.
Indian Burial Ground: The Overlook is built on one. In 1987 San Francisco Chronicle columnist Bill Blakemore penned a rather intriguing essay arguing that the film is basically a hidden commentary on the genocide of the American Indian.
Kensington Gore: Enough to float sofas down the corridor. Executive Meddling almost cut it, but Kubrick told them it was just rusty water.
Kubrick Stare
Large Ham: Jack Torrance, summed up by "Jack Nicholson hardly does a subdued performance" + "Evil Is Hammy". (Steven Spielberg first stated to Kubrick he felt Nicholson was too over-the-top, Kubrick replied comparing him to James Cagney)
Madness Mantra:
- "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
- "REDRUM! REDRUM! REDRUM! REDRUM! REDRUM!"
Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The film is more ambiguous towards the supernatural aspects of the story. However, the titular "Shining" is equally effective in both the film and the book - warning clearly of danger five seconds before the axe hits the bathroom door.
Most Writers Are Writers: The fact that Jack is a writer who is suffering severely from Writer's Block is the reason the family goes to the hotel in the first place.
Mythology Gag: Kubrick dispensed with several of the novel's plot points but kept references to them in the movie. The book explains just where Danny's imaginary friend "Tony" comes from, who the dead lady in the bathtub is, and who the person in the dog costume delivering a blow job is. The film keeps these elements but with no explanation. Also, Kubrick did not use the novel's climax— exploding boiler destroys the hotel—but still showed the boiler in a couple of scenes.
No, Except Yes: This line, as Jack has pretty much lost it and starts menacing his wife.
Jack: I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just gonna bash your brains in. I'm gonna bash them right the fuck in!
Ominous Latin Chanting: As Jack is chasing down Danny through the hedge maze and Wendy is in the Overlook Hotel desperately searching for Danny, starting to hallucinate, you can hear some incoherent chanting.
Paint the Town Red: The elevator scene.
Politically Incorrect Villain: Grady refers to Hallorann as a nigger. (As Pauline wrote in her New Yorker review, the ghosts in this movie are so evil they're racist.)
Popcultural Osmosis: The twins in front of the elevator (apparently) aren't twins at all, just sisters who dress and look the same. Still doesn't make them any less murdered by their crazy dad.
Pragmatic Adaptation: While the movie departs from the book quite a bit, it can stand on its own.
Precision F-Strike: The first of abuse of Wendy by Jack is verbal, telling her to "get the fuck out of here."
Re Cut:
- When the film premiered, it had a final scene in which Ullman visits Wendy and Danny at the hospital and explains that Jack's body could not be found. About three weeks into release, Kubrick ordered this scene excised from all prints.
- Kubrick then trimmed an additional 30 minutes of footage for the film's European theatrical release. This shorter cut, which was his preferred version of the film, is also used for non-US DVD releases.
Psycho Strings: Half the score sounds very much like Bernard Herrmann's work indeed.
The Radio Dies First: When Jack decides to kill Wendy and Danny, one of his first acts is to disable the radio so she cannot call for help.
Room Full of Crazy: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." It's particularly unsettling because of the sheer number of pages, with the tacit implication that Jack has been gradually losing his mind almost from the instant the family arrived in the hotel.
Sanity Slippage: The hotel causes every caretaker to lose his mind. Stephen King stated his book was about a normal man who goes crazy, and that Stanley Kubrick's film was about a crazy man who goes absolutely bonkers.
Slasher Movie: The movie was a much different take on the kind of slasher movies that were becoming popular at the time. It's much more psychological; basically it's what happens when Stanley Kubrick makes one.
Slasher Smile: Just look at a picture of Jack during the "Here's Johnny!" scene. Of course, he is played by Jack Nicholson, so that sort of thing is expected.
Snow Means Death: Deconstructed in the movie when Jack freezes to death. He clearly didn't die peacefully.
Spared by the Adaptation: The Overlook itself in the film.
Soundtrack Dissonance:
- "Midnight, with the stars and youuuu..."
- "I love you, Danny. I love you more than anything else in the whole world. And I would never do anything to hurt ya, never. You know that, don't ya? Huh?" to Bela Bartok's somber and menacing Music for Percussion, Strings and Celesta.
- Also hearing the light-hearted Looney Tunes cartoons in the background of otherwise deadly serious scenes.
Spooky Photographs: "Overlook Hotel - July 4th Ball - 1921"
Surreal Horror: The movie doesn't explain many of the strange things that happen in the hotel. It is also left deliberately vague whether or not there are supernatural causes at work, or just figments of the characters' imaginations.
Tap on the Head: Wendy hits Jack on the head with a baseball bat and he falls down a flight of stairs. It's unclear which actually knocks him unconscious, but either way he's awake less than an hour later, with nothing more than a headache and a small gash for his trouble.
Through the Eyes of Madness: It's kept deliberately vague whether the strange goings-on at the Overlook are "real" or just a product of Jack's deteriorating mental state.
Trail of Bread Crumbs:
- Jack tracks Danny through the hedge maze by following Danny's footsteps in the snow. Danny quickly realizes what is going on and back-tracks through his own footsteps to throw Jack off the trail.
- Strangely enough, Wendy jokes about having to leave a trail of bread crumbs to find her way around the hotel.
Uncanny Valley: Deliberately invoked by Nicholson's acting towards the beginning of the film; he seems to be cheery and dapper, but there's just something off about it, and it all feels horribly phony. Most likely done to call attention to his need for a drink.
Villainous Breakdown: As Jack chases Danny into the maze and begins to slowly freeze to death, his words become more slurred and begin to degenerate until Jack is just bellowing like an ox.
Villain Protagonist: Debatable. If one interprets the film strictly psychologically, Jack could certainly be considered one of these. However, if one accepts the supernatural interpretation, then the hotel itself (or perhaps what inhabits it) is the real villain.
Wounded Gazelle Gambit: "Wendy? Baby? I think you hurt my head real bad..."
Writers Cannot Do Math: Wendy tells the doctor that Danny's shoulder had been dislocated six months earlier. Later, while bitching to Lloyd the Bartender, Jack says that the dislocated shoulder incident had happened three years earlier.