Film Review: The Shining (1980)

Fig. 1 The Shining (1980) Film Poster

Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is a struggling writer who in need for inspiration and difference takes a job as an off-season caretaker at the Overlook Hotel. As soon as Jack and his family arrive to take up the position strange things occur all starting off with the Dick Hallorann, (Scatman Crothers) the hotels cooks psychic connection with Torrances son Danny which he calls shining and his revelation that the hotel also shares an element of this shining. Danny (Danny Lloyd) starts to see happenings of the hotels past through his psychic ability which is in the form of an invisible and maybe imaginary friend called Tony who eventually alerts Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) to the strange happenings through his repetition of redrum (murder backwards). It is then Wendy and Dannys mission to escape what has become a psychotic murder lusting Jack.

Fig. 2 Psychotic Jack

The Shining is unlike most horror films in that it doesnt set out to scare you through gore and making you jump out of your skin. It is a horror film that countertypes the usual foundations of the genre by setting out to frighten you through what we would usually be at ease from familiarity. This element of horror is so much harder to do than the stereotypical features but Stanley Kubrick does it so ingeniously by emphasising the horrifying aspects of normality. Take Danny and Tony for

example, we are familiar with young children with imaginary friends but what makes this aspect of the film wrong, un-homely even is the creaky, deeper voice of Tony emerging from Danny himself quite similarly to William Friedkins The Exorcist where the demonic voice of a little girl goes on to creep the audience out. However, what is even more disturbing of Tonys embodiment of Danny through his voice is Wendys ability to ignore the wrongness of it. Kubrick also uses the setting and his camera work to express the horror within familiarity. The Overlook Hotel is a typical looking hotel yet it still somehow makes the audience shiver when they are directed down the corridors through the characters such as Danny. It could well be the camera work that creates this sense such as the low angle close ups of Dannys tricycles wheels on the psychedelic patterned carpet of the hotels hallways slowly making its way down the corridors and round 90 degree perfect turns that somehow seem as though he has to squeeze his bike down there as if it is really narrow. This outrageously detailed carpet contrasting the plain walls may just be the reason why it feels as though the walls are closing in on the camera perhaps leading you in one direction as if the hotel is controlling your ability to navigate in the same why that the maze in one scene takes Danny and his mother down one path only to turn back and take another because there is only one way through. The film relies more on a sense of claustrophobia and growing paranoia to generate a sense of unease that gradually evolves into all-out horror. (Biodrowski: 2009) The character Danny is a clear example of this with his exploration of the hotel and its hallways in that he seems to be lead to scenes where he encounters ghostly presences rather than by choice as if the hotel is trying to tell him something, maybe even forewarn him.

Fig. 3 Claustrophobia and sense of paranoia in setting

It cannot be ignored how many mirrors feature in the film and how obviously they feature when Jack has his own encounters with the hotels ghosts. This could be Kubricks way of telling us that these apparitions are in Jacks head or are parts of Jacks subconscious which would make sense because they only appear when he is able to see himself through something except when he is locked in the store room, but even then he just hears the voice of one of the ghosts, he doesnt actually see him. The appearance of these mirrors just makes the film brim with Kubricks ideology for suggesting psychological purpose in the setting. It is as if the emptiness and loneliness the characters face during the film by being in this hotel is transferred to the setting when things get too much for them. This emptiness and loneliness is magnified through the disconnected relationship between the character family. The three characters spend more time alone and are only really together when something strange happens. The psychological horrors are already happening before the family

leave to go to the hotel with the parents unable to believe there is something wrong with their son or rather are too scared to believe there is and then arriving somewhere that further isolates them becomes too much with happenings such as the marks on Dannys neck setting off the horror in Wendys subconscious that Jack has gone back to harming her son and also Jacks recovering from his drinking problems making him feel outcast and as though he cannot achieve the writing he needs to. Kubrick isnt out for screams, but he manages to make his movie thoroughly unnerving by keeping the horror so close to home. (Maslin: 1980) Kubrick focuses on making the horrors of family abuse and disagreements the onset for the psychological scaring that takes place during the film rather than something quite alien and even non-existent like monsters the reason to be scared. However, Kubrick still manages to leave many elements of the film ambiguous and veiled such as how Jack appears in the 1921 photograph of the ball at the hotel at the end of the film. Is this a way of having a further psychological effect on the audience and making them creeped out even more because of the lack of knowledge they have and such as the photograph the continuing of strangeness in the familiarity. Kubrick aimed to keep the answers out of reach and had a mantra he exhorted to all concerned its a quote from H.P. Lovecraft: In all things that are mysteriousnever explain. (Nathan: Unknown)

Bibliography
Biodrowski, Steve. (2009) cinefantastique.com http://cinefantastiqueonline.com/2009/02/theshining-1980-horror-film-dvd-review/ (Accessed 11/01/2012) Maslin, Janet. (1980) Flaws Dont Dim The Shining http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/060880kubrick-shining.html (Accessed 11/01/2012) Nathan, Ian. (Unknown) Empire Essay: The Shining http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=132700 (Accessed 11/01/2012)

List of Illustrations
Fig. 1. The Shining (1980) Film Poster From: The Shining Directed by: Stanley Kubrick. [film poster] On impawards.com http://www.impawards.com/1980/shining_ver1.html (Accessed 11/01/2012) Fig. 2. Psychotic Jack (1980) From: The Shining Directed by: Stanley Kubrick. [film still] On blogspot.com http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Lot8d41Qw4/SHMJtjfgHEI/AAAAAAAAAFw/VamjdM4lbUc/s320/The.Shining.DVDRip.CD2.avi_002818401.jpg (Accessed 11/01/2012) Fig. 3. Claustrophobia and sense of paranoia in setting (1980) From: The Shining Directed by: Stanley Kubrick. [film still] On wildsound-filmmaking.com http://www.wildsound-filmmaking-feedbackevents.com/images/the_shining_tricycle.jpg (Accessed 11/01/2012)