The Shining (1980)

The Shining (1980)


"Heeere's Johnny!"

In honor of Halloween, I have decided to review a horror film.

The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall (She is one of the most peculiar looking actresses I have ever seen, with stringy black hair, googly eyes and big teeth, but she is definitely a talent.), did not win Best Picture for 1980.  Ordinary People won (review will come later).  Some argue that Raging Bull should have won, but I haven't been able to watch it yet.  It's rated R, so I have to wait for the kids to go to sleep, and once the kids are finally in bed Tyler wants to go to sleep, so it's just sitting there in its Netflix case, waiting for the day it can at last be viewed.

So until I do manage to watch Raging Bull, I can't really say which movie deserved the Oscar.  That being said, I am going to say that The Shining should have won over Ordinary People.  The Shining is one of the best horror films out there, a classic, and deserved an Oscar.  I guess it wasn't appreciated in its time, because it wasn't even nominated, but I think nowadays people appreciate how awesome it is.

1997 TV miniseries.

The movie was based on the book by Stephen King, but differs greatly from the book (I couldn't get through much of the book, so I can't quite say by how much), much to the chagrin of King.  He didn't like the movie at all when it came out, and made his own TV version in 1997 that was closer to the book.  His version has its merits, but can't compete with the original.  I do understand that he thought that Jack Torrance, the main character and ultimately the villain, should have started out normal, a la Norman Bates (Jack Nicholson is definitely spooky right from the beginning), and then become crazy because of the supernatural impact of the Overlook Hotel.  That's how he wrote it, with the Overlook Hotel itself acting as the villain, and it's an interesting idea.  But I think Kubrick's take works.

Jack Nicholson plays Jack Torrance, who is a former teacher trying to write a book.  He is hired to look after the grand and expansive Overlook Hotel during the winter, alone with his wife and young son.  We find out through his wife, Wendy, that he used to have a drinking problem, but quit after dislocating their son, Danny's, arm in a fit of drunken rage.  Wendy seems to be pretty much the perfect wife and mother.  She is supportive, caring, upbeat, and amiable.  She brings her husband breakfast in bed, entertains Danny, takes an interest in Jack's work, and even takes over Jack's caretaker duties so that he can focus on his writing.

Unfortunately for Wendy, Jack, already a bit on the creepy side (Jack Nicholson plays crazy so well), begins to get even stranger as soon as they arrive at the Overlook.  He loves the Overlook at first sight, and its influence on him is immediately palpable.

The Overlook is really like a character in its own right.  It appears to be a massive, beautiful hotel catering to the wealthy, and it apparently does great business during the spring and summer months, but it has an evil side that becomes ever more obvious.  It is mentioned early on that the Overlook was built on an old Indian burial ground, and that the Indians had fought to try to prevent its construction.  It is also mentioned to Jack by the manager, when he interviews for the caretaker position, that some years before, a prior caretaker, Mr. Grady, "came up here with his wife and two little girls...he had a good employment record, good references, and from what I've been told he seemed like a completely normal individual.  But at some point during the winter, he must have suffered some kind of a complete mental breakdown.  He ran a muck and killed his family with an axe.  Stacked them neatly in one of the rooms in the West wing and then he, he put both barrels of a shot gun in his mouth.  Police thought that it was what the old-timers used to call cabin fever, a kinda claustrophobic reaction that can occur when people are shut in together over long periods of time."  Clearly, the Overlook has a spooky history.

Danny, Wendy and Jack's son, is revealed to have special powers.  He has an "imaginary friend" that is not so imaginary, named Tony, described by Danny as "a little boy that lives in my mouth."  Danny talks to Tony, and when Tony talks back, Danny moves his finger and speaks in a high, eerie voice.  Tony shows Danny things.  He knows things that he shouldn't know.  For example, he tells Danny that his dad was hired for the job and is about to call his mom and tell her, and this comes true moments later.  Tony is scared of the Overlook, and Danny insists on knowing why, so Tony shows him images of blood rushing through elevator doors, and the two girls that were murdered -visions so terrifying that Danny passes out.

When Wendy, Danny, and Jack first arrive at the Overlook, and are given the grand tour, Dick Hallorann (played by Scatman Crothers, who also starred with Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest), the chef, reveals to Danny that he also has special psychic powers, which he calls "Shining."  When asked about the Overlook, Hallorann tries to reassure him, but when Danny questions him about a room in the hotel, Room 237, Hallorann's friendly demeanor changes -he tenses up with fear:

Danny: Mr. Hallorann, are you scared of this place?
Hallorann: No.  Scared - there's nothin' here.  It's just that, you know, some places are like people.  Some "shine" and some don't.  I guess you could say the Overlook Hotel here has somethin' almost like "shining."
Danny: Is there something bad here?
Hallorann: Well, you know, Doc, when something happens, you can leave a trace of itself behind.  Say like, if someone burns toast.  Well, maybe things that happen leave other kinds of traces behind.  Not things that anyone can notice, but things that people who "shine" can see.  Just like they can see things that haven't happened yet.  Well, sometimes they can see things that happened a long time ago.  I think a lot of things happened right here in this particular hotel over the years.
And not all of 'em was good.
Danny: What about Room 237?
Hallorann: Room 237?
Danny: You're scared of Room 237, ain't ya?
Hallorann: No I ain't.
Danny: Mr. Hallorann.  What is in Room 237?
Hallorann: Nothin'.  There ain't nothin' in Room
237.  But you ain't got no business goin' in there anyway. So stay out.  You understand?  Stay out.

Soon, the hotel staff have left, and the Torrance family is left alone in the isolated hotel.



At first, Danny enjoys playing in all the open space, and Wendy seems to be having a good time, but Jack's increasingly strange behavior starts to worry her.  She goes to check on him to see how his writing is going, and he completely loses his temper with her:

Wendy: Hi, hun!  Get a lot written today?
Jack: Yes.
Wendy: Hey!  Weather forecast said it's gonna snow tonight!
Jack: What do you want me to do about it?
Wendy: Aw, come on, hun.  Don't be so grouchy.
Jack: I'm not being grouchy.  I just want to finish my work.
Wendy: Okay, I understand.  I'll come back later on with a couple of sandwiches for ya, and maybe you'll let me read something then.
Jack: Wendy, let me explain something to you.  Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you're breaking my concentration.  You're distracting me.  And it will then take me time to get back to where I was.  You understand?
Wendy: Yeah.
Jack: Now, we're going to make a new rule.  When you come in here and you hear me typing or whether you don't hear me typing, or whatever the fuck you hear me doing; when I'm in here, it means that I am working, that means don't come in.  Now, do you think
you can handle that?
Wendy: Yeah.
Jack: Good.  Now why don't you start right now and get the fuck out of here?  Hm?

Danny's visions become worse and more frequent.  Images of blood, the two girls, and the murder that took place continue to plague him.

He also notices the effect the hotel is having on his father.  He enters Jack's room at one point to find his dad sitting on his bed, staring into space.  When Danny addresses him, he responds in a bizarre, disturbingly hollow voice:


Danny: Dad?
Jack: Yes?
Danny: Do you like this hotel?
Jack: Yes.  I do.  I love it.  Don't you?
Danny: I guess so.
Jack: Good.  I want you to like it here.  I wish we could stay here forever... and ever... and ever.

Jack also begins to see strange and frightening things around the hotel.  He finds a young, nude woman in Room 237, and kisses her, only to have her transform into the rotting corpse of an old woman cackling at him.  He backs out of the room in terror.  Jack also has a terrible nightmare, where he apparently reenacts the grisly murder committed by Grady: "I dreamed that I, that I killed you and Danny.  But I didn't just kill ya.  I cut you up in little pieces.  Oh my God.  I must be losing my mind."

After Wendy accuses Jack of harming Danny, and they get in a fight, Jack makes a trip to the grand ballroom.  He enters to find the room to find a bartender.  Without looking at all surprised, he goes to the bar and orders a drink.  Later, he returns to find the ballroom full of people, and chats with a waiter that has spilled a drink on him.  The waiter later introduces himself as Delbert Grady, the same last name as the man who had murdered his wife and children years before:

Jack: Mr. Grady, you were the caretaker here.
Grady: I'm sorry to differ with you sir, but you are the caretaker.  You've always been the caretaker.  I should know, sir.: I've always been here.

Danny eventually reveals to Wendy that it was an old woman in Room 237 that had caused his injuries, and Wendy rushes to find Jack to tell him.  What she finds instead terrifies her.  Next to his typewriter is a large stack of the papers -the book Jack has been working on all this time.  Written across every page are the words: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," over and over.  Eyes widening in horror, Wendy jumps when Jack walks in and catches her.  He walks toward her menacingly, and she wields a baseball bat at him, warning him to stay away from her in terror:

Jack: How do you like it?
Wendy: Jack!
Jack: How do you like it?  What are you doing down here?
Wendy: I just wanted to talk to you.
Jack: Okay, let's talk.  What do you wanna talk
about?
Wendy: I can't really remember.
Jack: You can't remember... Maybe it was about... Danny?  Maybe it was about him.  I think we should discuss Danny.
I think we should discuss what should be done with him.  What should be done with him?
Wendy: I don't know.
Jack: I don't think that's true.  I think you have some very definite ideas about what should be done with Danny and I'd like to know what they are.
Wendy: Well, I think... maybe... he should be taken to a doctor.
Jack: You think "maybe" he should be taken to a doctor?
Wendy: Yes.
Jack: When do you think "maybe" he should be taken to a doctor?
Wendy: As soon as possible.
Jack, in a mocking voice: As soon as possible.
Wendy: Jack! What are... you...
Jack: You think his health might be at stake.
Wendy: Y-Yes!
Jack: You are concerned about him.
Wendy: Yes!
Jack: And are you concerned about me?
Wendy: Of course I am!
Jack: Of course you are!  Have you ever thought about my responsibilities?
Wendy: Oh Jack, what are you talking about?
Jack: Have you ever had a single moment's thought about my responsibilities?   Have you ever thought, for a single solitary moment about my responsibilities to my employers?  Has it ever occurred to you that I have agreed to look after the Overlook Hotel until May the First.  Does it matter to you at all that the owners have placed their complete confidence and trust in me, and that I have signed a letter of agreement, a contract, in which I have accepted that responsibility?  Do you have the slightest idea, what a moral and ethical principal is, do you?  Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future, if I were to fail to live up to my responsibilities?  Has it ever occurred to you?  Has it?
Wendy: Stay away from me!
Jack: Why?

Wendy: I just wanna go back to my room!
Jack: Why?
Wendy: Well, I'm very confused, and I just need time to think things over!
Jack: You've had your whole fucking life to think things over, what good's a few minutes more gonna do you now?
Wendy: Please!  Don't hurt me!
Jack: I'm not gonna hurt you.
Wendy: Stay away from me!
Jack: Wendy?  Darling?  Light, of my life.  I'm not gonna hurt ya.  You didn't let me finish my sentence.  I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya.  I'm just going to bash your brains in.
Jack: Gonna bash 'em right the fuck in!  Ha ha ha.
Wendy: Stay away from me!  Don't hurt me!
Jack: I'm not gonna hurt ya...
Wendy: Stay away!  Stop it!
Jack: Stop swingin' the bat.  Put the bat down, Wendy.  Wendy?  Give me the bat...

As he continues to approach, she strikes him unconscious, and then locks him in the walk-in freezer with the temperature turned up.  She tries to use the radio to call for help, but Jack had disassembled it.  The phones are down, and Jack has even disabled the Snow Cat, the only way off the mountain in the heavy snow: "Wendy?  You have a biiiig surprise coming to you.  You're not going anywhere.  Go check out the Snow Cat and the radio and you'll see what I mean.  Go check it out."  To add to Wendy's problems, Danny is acting peculiar, and scaring her.  He is talking in Tony's voice, saying that Danny has left: "Danny isn't here, Mrs. Torrance."

Jack is released from the walk-in freezer by Grady, who tells him that he needs to take care of his wife:

Grady: I feel you will have to deal with this matter in the harshest possible way, Mr. Torrance.
Jack: There's nothing I look forward to with greater pleasure, Mr. Grady.



Meanwhile, Wendy wakes up to Danny standing by her bed, holding a knife and chanting "Redrum!  Redrum!" repeatedly in a strange voice.  She calms him down, and his voice returns to normal, just before she notices the word Redrum written in lipstick on wall, reflected in the mirror to spell "Murder."

At that moment, Jack appears, attempting to break down the door with an axe, spouting the famous improvised "Heeere's Johnny!" line.  Wendy sends Danny out the window to freedom, but is trapped herself, screaming in terror and trying to ward Jack off with a knife.  I've got to hand it to Wendy -amidst all this crazy, scary chaos, she is pretty tough.  She fights back.  Grady observes to Jack, as he sits locked in the freezer, "Your wife appears to be stronger than we imagined, Mr. Torrance.   Somewhat more... resourceful.  She seems to have got the better of you."

Danny, in his fright, had sent a message to Hallorann using his powers, to tell him they're in trouble.  Hallorann, renting a Snow Cat, has made his way to the Overlook, and his arrival distracts Jack.  He leaves Wendy alone in order to kill Hallorann, allowing her to get outside.  This is the one plot point I did not like in the movie.  I get that perhaps Kubrick thought it would make Jack more frightening if he actually committed a murder, but Hallorann's long voyage to help them seems completely pointless, considering he is instantly killed on arrival.  He does, however, provide the Snow Cat that Wendy and Danny use to escape, after Danny flees from his father through the sprawling outdoor hedge maze, Jack shouting, "Danny!  I'm coming!  You can't get away!  I'm right behind you!" as he pursues him.  I like that in the book Hallorann survives.



Jack is shown, in the morning, to have frozen to death in the maze, and a picture of the Overlook on the wall from years before shows Jack in the picture, smiling.  It's like Jack said earlier: "I love it, I really do.  I've never been this happy or comfortable anywhere...I fell in love with it right away.  When I came up here for my interview, it was as though I had been here before.  I mean, we all have moments of déjà vu, but this was ridiculous.  It was almost as though I knew what was going to be around every corner."

We never get a clear explanation for what is happening at the Overlook.  We get a reference to an Indian burial ground, but what's really going on remains a mystery.  Who is Jack?  Why is he drawn to the Overlook?  We'll never know.

Spooky from start to finish, with lots of iconic lines and moments.

And in honor of Tyler...

"The Simpsons" Treehouse of Horror V (1994)

Homer: No TV and no beer make Homer something, something.
Marge: Go crazy?
Homer: Don't mind if I do!