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Article by Nathan Hurlbut
With the 1990 television miniseries It being remade into a highly successful, two part theatrical movie, it seems writer Stephen King has reclaimed his title of box-office “king”. The frequency of movies based on his novels reached a peak in the 1980’s and 1990’s, and this market saturation also contributed to a decline in overall quality, with his name eventually losing its luster. However, now that “It” has become the biggest R-rated movie in film history, King is making a bit of a comeback.
One of the earliest of these adaptations was renowned film director Stanley Kubrick’s cinematic version of The Shining in 1980. Receiving mixed reviews by critics at the time of its release (including Stephen King himself, who claimed Kubrick apparently didn’t know how horror movies work), it has gone on to become one of the classics in the horror genre.
The story itself is pretty straightforward. A struggling writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) with alcohol issues takes his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and young son Danny (Danny Lloyd) to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado after he lands a job as the winter caretaker of a mountain resort called the Overlook Hotel. Hoping to use the time to concentrate on his writing, the ghosts that haunt the hotel start to make their presence known, causing Jack’s sanity to slowly deteriorate. Only Danny’s supernatural ability to “shine,” as hotel cook and fellow “shiner” Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) has called it, stands to protect Danny and Wendy from Jack’s growing homicidal madness.
Of course, the notion of being trapped in an enormous hotel during the long months of winter already creates all kinds of fears of isolation and claustrophobia. Add a homicidal figure into the mix, and you’ve got the recipe for a horrific brew.
Upon reading King’s novel, director Stanley Kubrick immediately saw the dramatic potential of this scenario. Coming off the commercial disappointment of his visually exquisite period film Barry Lyndon (1975), Kubrick was also hungry for a project with serious commercial potential as well. After director Brian DePalma had turned King’s 1973 novel Carrie into a box-office success in 1976, The Shining certainly seemed to fit the bill.
However, the scenario of the novel proved more enticing to Kubrick than the details of the story itself. He took great liberties with King’s novel when he, along with novelist Diane Johnson, adapted it into a screenplay that more closely served his own purposes (raising Stephen King’s ire, as I mentioned).
The result was one of the most cerebral, least derivative, and truly terrifying horror movies ever made. The memorable image of Jack Nicholson limping through the snow with an axe and clutching to keep his jacket closed in the bitter temperatures as he proceeds on his murderous rampage is one of the most iconic images in horror film history. As is Jack Nicholson sticking his face into the splintered gap he has created in a bathroom door with that axe to proclaim with maniacal enthusiasm, “Here’s Johnny!”
In fact, it could be argued that what King didn’t like about the movie is exactly what sets it apart from other horror films. Kubrick avoids indulging in horror movie clichés throughout the movie, and even when he does, he turns them on their head to reinvent them in wholly imaginative ways. After all, how often can you watch a movie and have a title card announcing the day of the week cause a jump scare?
Instead, Kubrick opts for a slow burn of dread and expertly creates an oppressive atmosphere that escalates over the movie’s two and a half hour running time. This sense of doom is perfectly pitched to Jack’s slow descent into madness, and Nicholson’s maniacal performance is crucial to the film’s effect. He frequently makes it visibly clear how deranged his character has become, whether it’s something as simple as a carefully arched eyebrow or a dead-eyed stare into the abyss. In the process, his character becomes a truly horrifying vision by the end of the movie. This is no man in a rubber monster suit who jumps out and scares you in the dark. It is a paternal figure meant to protect you turning into a familial monster, a fear that taps deep into your psyche’s primal emotions and creates an Oedipal scenario of epic proportions.
Interestingly, the original cut of the movie had an epilogue scene in which Overlook Hotel manager Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson) visits Danny and Wendy in the hospital where they were recuperating. Kubrick quickly withdrew the film after about a week of general release and had movie theater projectionists physically cut this scene out of the movie before it was shown again, and for good reason. Ending the film without the usual dramatic resolution means the movie’s unrelenting intensity never lets up, and more closely approximates the feeling of a waking nightmare. Meanwhile the film’s final slow tracking shot into a vintage photograph on the walls of the hotel only adds to its sense of mystery and further taps into fears of the unknown.
Good luck sleeping after that.
“The Shining” is playing at the Regal San Bernardino & RPX, the Harkins Theaters Mountain Grove 16, and the Studio Movie Grill in Redlands for one final night on Tuesday, October 1st. It is rated R.