The Shining

What can I say about Stanley Kubrick's The Shining that hasn't been said to death already? It's a horror classic in every sense of the term, and my favorite horror film of all time. I just recently caught a screening of it at the new Alamo Drafthouse at Crystal City, Virginia, and it was well worth it. Seeing The Shining in a packed theater was a bucket list moment for me. I felt like I was seeing the film for the first time. The actual first time I saw it was in middle school on a rented DVD from the library, and it really disturbed me, even though I saw each iconic moment coming. I could barely sleep that night, one of the few horror films I had ever seen that had genuinely scared me, and I loved every minute of it. I found it unbelievable that a film this powerful and frightening still held up, decades after its 1980 release. But what exactly makes it so brilliant, and still so powerful to this very day? How did what is essentially a horror film disguised as a psychological drama about the destruction of a family become one of the most iconic, influential films in cinema history? As soon as the opening sequence starts, with that incredible droning synth music by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind (reminiscent of Hector Berlioz's Dies irae, an motif that appears in many other film scores like those by John Williams), and those stunning helicopter shots following the Torrance's car as it travels through the Colorado mountains to the Overlook Hotel, you can tell something is deeply wrong. The opening scene, including the surreal backwards-scrolling titles, already sets the tone for an unconventional, avant-garde, yet deeply creepy story. Such beautiful mountainside vistas create such a jarring juxtaposition with the haunting, ear-piercing shrieks on the soundtrack. It's a perfect title sequence that leaves the audience dreading what is to come, but you don't want to look away, since it foreshadows just how hypnotic the experience of viewing The Shining is. When the audience gets to the Overlook, they see the meticulously-constructed set designs on location at Elstree Studios in England. The sets have to have taken a large chunk of the film's massive budget for the time, since they are massive. You get such a sense of epic scale from the Overlook, juxtaposed with the claustrophobia of the snowbound location. There is so much space there, but so little to do as the Torrances stay isolated there for months on end. The Stanley Hotel was an even more claustrophobic, smaller setting in the novel, and the 1997 Miniseries version (that Stephen King greenlit out of spite for Kubrick; I haven't seen it and do not plan to) used it as an Overlook stand-in. But Kubrick filming it in this massive set creates a unique contrast between claustrophobia and open space that somehow feels all the more isolating. Set design even creates a (possibly intentional) continuity error, as the hedge maze doesn't appear in the first establishing shot of the hotel. The use of colors is just as fantastic, with stunning bold reds, greens, and oranges throughout the floor and wall patterns of the Overlook: many modern movies just don't look colorful like this. Part of The Shining's pure creepiness comes from the masterful cinematography by Kubrick's regular John Alcott, who previously framed the beautiful candle-lit scenes of Barry Lyndon. The countless symmetrical shots (the most iconic of which being Danny's encounter with the Grady twins) are beyond hypnotic, impossible to take your eyes off of. It's shot mostly with wide-angle lenses, making the actors' faces look more distorted, often looking towards the camera, adding to the feeling that something is wrong. The numerous minutes-long takes traveling through the hotel are even more hypnotic, with the help of the production using Garrett Brown's Steadicam. We are walking and running through the vast hotel with the characters, in some of the most haunting sequences and adding a layer of subjectivity to the filmmaking. Kubrick utilizes several techniques, such as slow zooms and crash zooms, in such an innovative manner that enhances the disturbing tension. There is absolutely no handheld camerawork or distracting stylistic choices to be found, unlike in a lot of modern horror films: just pure, hypnotic Kubrickian visual style. A24's horror films owe themselves to The Shining when it comes to visual style, and for good reason. Editing is an aspect of The Shining that is often overlooked when the film is praised, but is as masterful as anything else in the film. Early on, one of the first suspicious moments in the Overlook occurs as we are introduced to the blood elevator, intercut with subliminal, split-second images of the Grady twins staring at the camera, and images of Danny screaming bloody murder. Besides moments like these, the editing of the film maintains a mostly strict continuity, which is what makes these editing moments stand out. Probably the most horrifying example is Danny's encounter with the Grady Twins, as an image of their mangled, murdered corpses, blood all over the wall, is intercut with their "come play with us" dialogue and Danny's frightened face. It's such a brilliant use of montage, making the imagery all the more frightening to the audience. After the long takes, the cuts are often to cathartic jumpscares, a release of tension that is never false or forced like in most modern horror films. When it comes to sound design, The Shining immediately creates a feeling of pure terror that influenced future horror soundtracks for decades to come. The only pieces recorded for the film itself are the brief synth motifs by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind, which are standouts in the film's soundtrack. One motif, of a pulsating heartbeat and an ear-piercing ringing sound, is used as Danny and Hallorann shine with each other to incredible effect. With that exception, like in 2001 and Barry Lyndon, Kubrick uses pre-existing pieces, mostly avant-garde music; and you can easily see why he chose the pieces he did. The constant screeching strings and bombastic brass of the music adds to the terror of each and every scene it's in. Kubrick apparently overlapped pieces of music over each other in the sound mix for the film, adding to the chaos of each scene; it must have been a nightmare to edit the sound for this film in the analog era. It's still such a thrillingly effective soundtrack. The Shining contains what is, in my opinion, possibly the best performance I have ever seen in a horror film, alongside Toni Collette in Hereditary: Jack Nicholson as the abusive alcoholic father-turned sadistic psychopath Jack Torrance. Stephen King was unhappy with the film's portrayal of Jack as mentally unstable, since he was more of an everyman in the book, haunted by entities in the Overlook, deeming Nicholson's portrayal as "too crazy". That still does not stop Nicholson from giving one of the greatest acting performances recorded on film. He looks appropriately disheveled and aggravated, ready to kill someone, full of vein-popping, psychotic anger, characteristic of Nicholson's best work. Many criticized the performance on release for being too over-the-top: even Steven Spielberg didn't love the film when he first saw it due to Nicholson's animated performance. But time has been kind to the performances in the film, and Nicholson is no exception. You can tell Kubrick drove him and Shelley Duvall (who I will discuss in the next paragraph) towards their breaking points on set. He is beyond terrifying. In possibly the scariest scene in the film for me, after he kills Dick Hallorann, he looks straight a the camera with a sinister gaze, as though he is about to terrorize someone in the audience. As frightening as he is in The Shining, he adds so much dark humor when he interacts with the spirits in the hotel. Out of context, the scenes of him drunkenly chatting with Lloyd (which might be my favorite scene in the whole film) and Mr. Grady are kind of funny, giving the audience a feeling of nervous laughter. Kubrick did not usually like casting big stars in his films, but he made the right choice in Nicholson. Shelley Duvall gives another incredible performance as the tortured mother Wendy Torrance. She is so fascinating to watch because she is an unconventional movie star: not considered conventionally "beautiful" in her time, she was mostly known as a character actor in Robert Altman films, perfect for her insecure, disheveled character. From her early scene with the psychiatrist, you know the amount of concern and fright she has been through in her life as she recounts the story of her husband injuring Danny. When you see her terrified, it is so believable and beyond disturbing. The audience's sympathy is immediately with her. Many criticized her performance when the film was released, even getting a Razzie nomination. This is absurd considering how horrifying her performance is. During calm dialogue scenes, there's something so cold and distant and wrong about how exchanges go between her and other characters: you can tell that the disturbing aspects of her life have been normalized. All that being said, she did not at all deserve the torment she got from Stanley Kubrick on set. He was so dictatorial to her, making her shoot the scene of her waving the baseball bat at Jack Nicholson 127 times, putting her under such extreme stress that she lost hair. It becomes increasingly difficult to separate the art from the artist when a director does this on set; I think Duvall would have done just as great without Kubrick trying to break her mentally. The small supporting cast is fantastic as well: focusing on only a few characters helps to make the story all the more intimate. Danny Lloyd is brilliant as the troubled son Tony, usually found talking to his creepy imaginary friend Tony. When you see him horrified by his father trying to murder him, it is frightening and believable, and then he becomes intimidating when Tony takes over and starts shouting the iconic "redrum". It's by far one of the best child performances I have seen. Scatman Crothers is just as good as Dick Hallorann, the cook of the Overlook Hotel who can "shine" and see things just like Danny and Jack. He has such a wonderful screen presence, being one of the few characters we fully trust in a story with multiple unreliable narrators. This was one of his last roles before he passed, giving even more of a hopeless, disturbing quality to his death in the film. We even have a nice, quick cameo from Tony Burton, who you may know as the co-trainer "Duke" in the Rocky movies, which was unfortunately cut from the European Cut. Joe Turkel, Mr. Tyrell in Blade Runner, is fantastically creepy as the spirit of the bartender Lloyd, and so is the devilish Delbert Grady played by Phillip Stone. And that old lady in the bathtub is so creepy to this day. I am fascinated by this film's place in the history of the horror film. It was a stepping stone in the genre, becoming iconic since its release, but few filmmakers actually learned the lessons Kubrick taught in The Shining about doing horror right. Kubrick himself took the job to direct the film because he had rarely seen horror films that actually, well, horrified their audience. The film was released in 1980, but undeniably a product of the 70s horror genre, in which horror films could be smart, adult, and just as well-made as any other great film, even winning Oscars. This era brought us The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Carrie, Don't Look Now, among many other great horror films that were great films in any genre. After The Shining was released, mainstream Hollywood horror became more campy and fun, but consequently less scary, and mainstream Hollywood horror in the 90s and 2000s became so unimaginative and unoriginal, relying on tired cliches. Only when directors like Jennifer Kent, Robert Eggers, Jordan Peele, Ari Aster, Julia Ducorneau, among many others arrived on the scene in the 2010s, along with A24, did horror filmmakers get the creative freedom they needed to make something great. The reference all of these filmmakers can agree on to do horror right is The Shining, since it is such a powerful horror film that easily transcends its genre. But like modern A24 horror films, The Shining was, to say the least, polarizing on release. Many critics outright hated the film, criticizing the performances and deeming it not scary, negatively comparing it to the book. It got no Oscar nominations on release, and two Razzie nominations, even Roger Ebert and Steven Spielberg dismissed it, and it was only moderately successful at the box office. Yet The Shining's enduring legacy and popularity over time has proven that it has gotten better with age, and will continue to influence filmmakers for decades. I am biased towards The Shining, since, as mentioned before, it is one of the only horror films that scared me. That's partly because The Shining can really happen: somewhere in the world, a real-life abusive father or family member is trying to kill their family, maybe even a child like Jack does. It is beyond horrible and impossible to comprehend why someone would do such a thing to their spouse, even more so to their child. Even though the story is rooted in the supernatural, it may all be in the abuse perpetrator's head, and comes from a legitimate fear. What's even more unbearable to think about is that many other families in the world probably ended up like Grady's: his wife and twin daughters hacked to bloody pieces with an axe, the perpetrator going insane and blowing his brains out. Wendy and Danny Torrance were lucky to escape. Domestic abuse is a legitimate issue in the world, that if unaddressed, there will be more Jack Torrance's and Delbert Grady's in the world. When I watched Jack Torrance cut down the doors to the Torrance's room with his axe (in a scene reminiscent of the great 1913 short film Suspense, and the great 1921 horror film The Phantom Carriage), I was shaking my legs with sweaty palms in the theater. Another reason why the film is so horrifying is the slow pace and constant threat of violence. You are left worried sick for Wendy and Danny, that Jack Torrance will murder them with his axe and history will repeat itself, accompanied by a lengthy buildup in a 2 1/2 hour feature. There are only two real moments of onscreen violence: the first the sight of the Grady twins' bodies, and the second being the death of Dick Hallorann at the hands of Jack Torrance. That of Dick Hallorann is the only actual murder that occurs onscreen in the film, and only in the last 20 minutes. For me, due to the painful buildup and the ominous long take of Hallorann walking towards his doom, in a hopeless moment, later cut to the axe going into Hallorann and making a bloody fatal wound to his heart, intercut with Danny screaming bloody murder in front of a black background: this scene made me audibly gasp and cover my mouth, petrified in the theater. Violence had finally come. Jack Nicholson then gets up, after committing a murder, his character now beyond redemption, staring into the camera with his teeth gritted, eyebrows down, his face horrifying, staring into the camera with his mouth agape: I was horrified and the image will never leave my mind. This, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hereditary, Alien, and The Babadook are the films that have frightened me the most. I dearly miss genuinely scary horror films like The Shining. The power and terror of it has only been recaptured a couple of times, and only recently with the great arthouse horror films of the 2010s like The Witch, The Babadook, and Hereditary. Even its sequel Doctor Sleep, while a very good film, still could not 100% capture the hypnotic, distinct magic of Kubrick's original vision. But even then, it is staggering that a major studio, Warner Bros., in 1980 had the balls to bankroll a huge-budget psychological horror art film, with a big star in it, based on an already acclaimed novel, and give it the blockbuster treatment. The only other example I can think of is The Exorcist, another iconic and still-powerful horror masterpiece. Modern horror filmmakers, who aren't exactly making superhero films, are not being given nearly the financing and major studio backing, nor the creative control to make a big-budget art horror film like this; I do not think we will see a horror film like The Shining ever again. Regardless of how you interpret it, regardless of how faithful it is to King's novel, regardless of the bad reviews on release, regardless of the amount of times it's been spoofed in other media (my favorite easily being the Simpsons Treehouse of Horror segment "The Shinning"), The Shining will never get overhyped, and will continue to leave its mark on popular culture and cinema history, and will inspire countless filmmakers for decades to come.  For me, it is one of the films that scared me the most, one of the films that inspired me to be a filmmaker, and my favorite horror film of all time, and one of my favorite films, close to my favorite, of all time.  Hope you all had a happy Halloween!