The horror is driving him crazy
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd
Plot: Taking the job of caretaker at an isolated hotel, author Jack, his son Danny and wife Wendy soon begin to feel an evil and spiritual force that could tear them apart. Or even worse, see an old bird naked!
The story of THE SHINING is legendary: over a year of principal photography, daily script rewrites, and Kubrick driving Shelley Duvall insane. From the sounds of it, making the movie was almost as scary as watching it… well not quite. The fear conjured up by Kubrick’s camera and the cast’s performances are impossible to forget. Also, the final 20 minutes are the most consistently scary ever committed to celluloid. It builds relentlessly as Jack torments his wife and child – poor Wendy (Duvall) spends nearly the whole time screaming, crying, or saying ‘No’, whilst Danny is silent, focused and every bit as scary as his deranged father.
There is much debate about the final scene of the film. Google it and you’ll be punch drunk by the amount of differing opinions, and full blown arguments happening in chat rooms all around the world. Here is my take: Jack is a part of the hotel – it owns his soul so he can never leave. But that does beg the question why he took his wife and kids up there…
THE SHINING is a magnificent achievement. It burns slower than the biggest candle, will excite, confuse, and terrify you but most of all it will stay with you for a long time.
Horror Highlights: Pretty much every scene with Danny is terrifying it could be his basin haircut or his intense stare, either way that kid scares the shit out of me. Red rum, red rum, RED RUM anyone?
Biggest Scare: For me the most petrifying part of THE SHINING is a simple scene when the camera tracks Danny on his tricycle around the hotel. The feeling of dread that something will happen, something terrible is horrible, stomach churning and made worse when nothing happens, nothing at all. To elicit fear out of nothing is a gift, and Kubrick had it in spades.
We’ll have another terror for you tomorrow at THN and you can view them all here
