Empire Magazine (2008) Greatest Movies List - #52: The Shinning

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shinning (1980) is a fascinating movie because it is a Stanley Kubrick film but in certain aspects it is disappointing because it is not entirely Stephen King’s The Shining. This is a perfect example of two great artists clashing because they are both very good at what they do and are also determined to do their own thing. Consequently the movie is in ways very different from the book on which it is based, and yet it is still a horror classic. One might even say a classic film, period, if only for Jack Nicholson’s manic performance.

Kubrick’s adaptation came out 39 years ago and yet after close to four decades it remains an engrossing and frightening experience. I started hearing about it when I was in middle school because a teacher in my school was playing it for a class and word got around quick. Every now and then I would see clips of it on TV, or even in other movies because it has so many scenes that stand out. Eventually I bought a copy of King’s novel and was surprised at how many differences there are between the book and the movie when I finally watched the whole thing from beginning to end on Netflix.

Consequently I find myself of two minds when it comes to the question of whether the book is better than the movie. On the one hand there are plenty of things from the book I wish had been included in Kubrick’s version, from character developments to plot points. On the other hand the movie is so simultaneously gorgeous and frightening that last year I bought it on Blu-Ray as part of three-disc collector’s edition that included two other Kubrick films.

One of the things that I love about this movie is how Kubrick manages to use the environment, especially the snow, to instil a sense of dread. Whenever I see a blizzard blanketing the streets, just like I did yesterday, I tend to think of two movies: John Carpenter’s The Thing and Kubrick’s The Shining. It’s no coincidence that both are horror stories. In The Shining almost all of the action is set in the Overlook Hotel, a beautiful establishment located in the equally beautiful mountains of Colorado. It’s a great place for a vacation in the summertime, but in the wintertime after a blizzard the roads are cut off, communication with civilization becomes difficult, and there’s nothing outside but the howling wind and the deadly cold.

For Jack Torrance (Nicholson) this seems like the perfect place for him and his family to spend a few months. A former teacher, Jack needs a quiet place where he can work on his book and the managers are offering him a good salary to take care of the hotel while it is closed for the winter season. During the job interview the manager does his due diligence and tells Jack a previous caretaker developed a really bad case of cabin fever and brutally murdered his wife and two daughters. That might make want to look for a job at Holiday Inn, but Jack still takes the job.

No blood has been spilled yet, but after a job interview like that any audience member would know some scary stuff is on the way. There are other not-so-subtle alarm bells, such as when Jack’s son Danny (Danny Lloyd) gets a warning about the hotel from his imaginary friend Tony, who shows Danny a vision of rivers of blood gushing from the hotel elevators. Then during the drive up into the mountains Jack, Danny and his mother Wendy (Shelley Duvall) discuss the local geography, which eventually steers the conversation to the Donner Party. This particular group of pioneers got stuck in the snow in the mountains and had to result to cannibalism to survive.

These conversations and incidents do a good job of building up tension and dread as the family makes its way towards their temporary home. For a while things seem like they will be fine, especially when the friendly head chef Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers) shows Wendy and Danny all the wonderful amenities of the hotel they will get to enjoy. Halloran it turns out is somewhat of a psychic and notices Danny has the same gift, or as he calls it, the ability to shine. Before they part ways Halloran gives young Danny a serious piece of advice: stay away from room 237.

As the movie progresses we see Kubrick pull out some of his best cinematic tricks. There is the way the camera follows Danny as he travels through the empty hotel on his tricycle, a beautiful bird’s eye view shot of Danny and Wendy going through the hotel’s hedge maze, and the sound of Jack’s typewriter reverberating through the hotel as he works on his book. Much has been made of the imagery and themes in the movie, so much so that a documentary, Room 237, was made to explore all of the perceived interpretations and meanings behind the film.

I can’t begin to imagine what Kubrick was trying to say, whether it was something about the genocide of Native Americans, or something about Greek mythology, but either way I think he made one of the best horror movies of all times. Nicholson gives one of the greatest performances of his career as a recovering alcoholic who is slowly sinking into insanity and becoming a threat to his own family. The music, by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind, really helps to ratchet up the tension, especially in the scene when Wendy discovers what Jack has been writing this whole time.

The Wendy character is one of the reasons that stops me from saying this is a perfect movie. In the book she is a lot more active and has a lot more fight in her, whereas in Kubrick’s version she spends a great deal of time screaming in terror. To achieve this Kubrick was allegedly hostile towards Shelley Duvall on set, which should never be allowed even if it is for the purpose of getting a good performance.

As for Stephen King, he was so dissatisfied that he decided to rectify things by writing and producing a TV mini-series that would finally respect his original vision. I have never seen it but I would very much like to if only to see Wendy stand up to her husband instead of just cowering away as he smashes a door with an axe.

Finally there is a sequel on the way, based on King’s literary follow-up Doctor Sleep, which follows a grown-up Danny Torrance. Given that the great Mike Flanagan, the director of The Haunting of Hill House and Gerald’s Game, is behind the camera I have no doubt he will deliver plenty of scares while being respectful of King’s novel. However he way he has big shoes to fill. Danny’s first big screen adventures became a classic. I certainly hope his next one will as well. A scene set in a blizzard would definitely help achieve that.