The Shining (1980)

Ok, let’s face it: you should have already seen The Shining.

If by some chance of fate, you have missed the opportunity to view this cinematic achievement, it’s streaming on Netflix. No more excuses. You’re probably already familiar with the general plot: guy watches over big empty hotel with his wife and young son over the winter, tries to write book, sees ghosts, goes crazy, and tries to murder his family. Maybe that premise doesn’t sound like something you would normally be interested in, so rather than write yet another review on one of the most famous films of all time, here’s a brief list of some of the reasons why you need to see The Shining.

• While much of the pop culture focus is on Jack Nicholson’s character, Jack Torrance, he shares the lead with Torrances’ son, Danny. It’s called The Shining for a reason, folks. The term refers to the boy’s supernatural ability, which borders on psychic and medium. Jack hangs with ghosts at the bar, while poor Danny is the one plagued by visions of blood soaked hallways and butchered twins. Which brings me to…
• Each member of this family is creepy in their own way. Again, we all know Jack goes on a mad, murderous rampage, but before that, he is kinda the normal one. The kid talks to an “imaginary friend” who lives in his mouth, uses a weird monotone voice, and often has a dead stare with his mouth hanging open (but if you saw brutal murders in your head all the time, you’d be pretty wacked too). Shelly Duval seems to have been cast as Wendy primarily for her odd, bug-eyed look, but also for her meek and submissive aura. Wendy is a woman who lives in constant fear for herself and her child, prior to and at the hotel. All three are, in a sense, haunted.
• Stanley Kubrick always has amazing cinematography in his films, which is all the more impressive in a movie that largely takes place in one location. There is the oft-copied shot of the family’s car driving to the Overlook Hotel, but beyond that, The Shining is dominated by meticulously constructed interior shots of their temporary home. The film is known for its Stedicam sequences (with typical Kubrick slow pacing), distorting wide-angle shots, and the breaking of the 180-degree rule. The impeccable set design compliments this perfectly; entire essays have been written on the use of geometric shapes alone.
• The film’s score is what really gets you. Pre-written pieces from avant-garde composers were used for the most iconic sequences. This is balanced by random string noises, effects like Danny’s big wheel and wind, or loud bursts of sound perfectly timed, and all with an echo to give the feeling of vast space. Honestly, this is the bad part about watching it at home. It takes a theater setting to really capture the subtleties of the soundscape Kubrick created, but good surround sound should suffice.
• The Overlook Hotel and the Torrances exist outside of time and space. The spatial reasoning in the film makes no sense, intentionally. The layout of the interiors does not match the exterior, adding to the otherworldly quality of the set. You lose all sense of time in the film, with days and weeks seeming to pass unnoticed.
• There’s a whole movie dedicated to elaborate theories on The Shining, Room 237, also available on Netflix. Fanatics go to great lengths to describe how the film contains larger hidden messages (aka conspiracy theories) ranging from the Holocaust to the staging of the moon landing. The narrators of the documentary analyze each detail in a way that would no doubt please the master director.

The horror is minimal in favor of an overall sense of coldness and dread, more in line with gothic and haunted house films. Those who typically shy away from the genre should still check out this beautifully crafted classic.

SaveSave