The Shining

10 “You‘ve always been the caretaker.” The Shining is a cult classic, a modern horror masterpiece drenched in eeriness  and a methodical fear-factor from ambience and symbolism. The cinematography is slow, tracking, encompassing and when paired with the score and editing coats the movie in an atmospheric eeriness. The film doesn’t get you with big scares, it breaks you down with mood and environment.  It’s a story of alcoholism and abuse, the overlook hotel doesn’t start madness, it amplifies it. It preys on abusive power dynamics in relationships that turn man to murderer. It preys on the man’s need to restore dominance, prove his power, and his coercive control of a relationship.  Jack being frozen in the end isn't just the death of a madman, it's the death of a cycle. Like how the hotel carries a cycle of murderous caretakers, families will carry cycles of abuse. Jack couldn't corrupt Danny enough to pass on his abusive nature for him to unleash on the next generation, instead he freezes, a physical representation of his abuse put to an end, a cycle frozen before it can happen. The overlook hotel is an anchor of pre-existing evil that turns it into madness, and a willingness to commit the most deplorable of acts. The ending is Jack being absorbed into hotel history and lavishing in his sin. Alcohol for his addiction that perpetuates his abuse, women for his infidelity, he is the devil occupying his own personal heaven.  Terrifying, symbolic, interpretive. The shining is iconic and bold, a visually stunning horror that is far deeper than simple scares and gruesome ends.