The Shining (film)
The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film[7] produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick and co-written with novelist Diane Johnson. It is based on Stephen King's 1977 novel of the same name and stars Jack Nicholson, Danny Lloyd, Shelley Duvall, and Scatman Crothers. Nicholson plays Jack Torrance, a writer and recovering alcoholic who accepts a new position as the off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Lloyd plays his young son Danny, who has psychic abilities ("the shining"), which he learns about from head chef Dick Hallorann (Crothers). Danny's imaginary friend Tony warns him the hotel is haunted before a winter storm leaves the family snowbound in the Colorado Rockies. Jack's sanity deteriorates under the influence of the hotel and the residents, and Danny and his mother Wendy (Duvall) face mortal danger.
The Shining
- Stanley Kubrick
- Diane Johnson
Stanley Kubrick
- The Producer Circle Company
- Peregrine Productions
- Hawk Films
- Warner Bros. (United States)
- Columbia-EMI-Warner Distributors (United Kingdom)[1]
English
$19 million[6]
$47.3 million[6]
Production took place almost exclusively at EMI Elstree Studios, with sets based on real locations. Kubrick often worked with a small crew, which allowed him to do many takes, sometimes to the exhaustion of the actors and staff. The new Steadicam mount was used to shoot several scenes, giving the film an innovative and immersive look and feel.
The film was released in the United States on May 23, 1980, and in the United Kingdom on October 2 by Warner Bros. There were several versions for theatrical releases, each of which was cut shorter than the preceding cut; about 27 minutes was cut in total. Reactions to the film at the time of its release were mixed; Stephen King criticized the film due to its deviations from the novel. The film received two controversial nominations at the first Razzies in 1981—Worst Director and Worst Actress—the latter of which was later rescinded in 2022 due to Kubrick's treatment of Duvall on set. Critical response to the film has since become favorable.
Frequently cited as one of the best horror films of all time, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2018.[8] A sequel titled Doctor Sleep based on King's 2013 novel of the same name was adapted to film and released in 2019.
Plot[edit]
Jack Torrance takes a winter caretaker position at the remote Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, which closes every winter season. After his arrival, manager Stuart Ullman advises Jack that a previous caretaker, Charles Grady, killed his wife, two young daughters and himself in the hotel a decade prior.
In Boulder, Jack's son, Danny, has a premonition and seizure. Jack's wife, Wendy, tells the doctor about a past incident when Jack accidentally dislocated Danny's shoulder during a drunken rage. Jack has been sober ever since. Before leaving for the seasonal break, the Overlook's head chef, Dick Hallorann, informs Danny of a telepathic ability the two share, which he calls "shining". Hallorann tells Danny that the hotel also has a "shine", due to residue from unpleasant past events, and warns him to avoid Room 237.
A month passes and Danny starts having frightening visions, including of the murdered Grady twins. Meanwhile, Jack's mental health deteriorates; he suffers from writer's block, is prone to violent outbursts, and has dreams of killing his family. Danny gets lured to room 237 by unseen forces, and Wendy later finds him with signs of physical trauma. Jack investigates and encounters a female ghost in the room but blames Danny for inflicting the bruises on himself. Jack is enticed back to drinking by the ghostly bartender Lloyd. Ghostly figures, including Delbert Grady, then begin appearing in the Gold Room. Grady informs Jack that Danny has telepathically contacted Hallorann for assistance and says that Jack must "correct" his wife and child.
Wendy finds Jack's manuscript written with nothing but countless repetitions of "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". When Jack threatens her life, Wendy knocks him unconscious with a baseball bat and locks him in the kitchen pantry, but she and Danny cannot leave, due to Jack having previously sabotaged the hotel's two-way radio and snowcat. Back in their hotel room, Danny says "redrum" repeatedly and writes the word in lipstick on the bathroom door. Wendy sees the word in the mirror and realizes that it is actually "murder" spelled backward.
Jack is freed by Grady and goes after Wendy and Danny with an axe. Danny escapes outside through the bathroom window, and Wendy fights Jack off with a knife when he tries to break through the door. Hallorann, having flown back to Colorado from his Florida vacation to respond to Danny's telepathic SOS, reaches the hotel in another snowcat. His arrival distracts Jack, who ambushes and murders him in the lobby, then pursues Danny into the hedge maze. Wendy runs through the hotel looking for Danny, encountering the hotel's ghosts and a vision of cascading blood similar to Danny's premonition.
In the hedge maze, Danny misleads Jack and hides behind a snowdrift while Jack follows a false trail. Danny and Wendy reunite and leave in Hallorann's snowcat, leaving Jack to freeze to death in the maze.
In a photograph in the hotel hallway, Jack is pictured standing amidst a crowd of party revelers from July 4, 1921.
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The Shining opened on the same weekend as The Empire Strikes Back but was released on 10 screens and grossed $622,337 for the four-day weekend, the third highest-grossing opening weekend from fewer than 50 screens of all time, behind Star Wars (1977) and The Rose (1979).[66] It had a per-screen average gross of $62,234 compared to $50,919 for The Empire Strikes Back from 126 screens.[93]
Initial reviews[edit]
The film had mixed reviews at the time of its opening in the United States.[94] Janet Maslin of The New York Times lauded Nicholson's performance and praised the Overlook Hotel as an effective setting for horror, but wrote that "the supernatural story knows frustratingly little rhyme or reason ... Even the film's most startling horrific images seem overbearing and perhaps even irrelevant."[95] Variety was critical, stating "With everything to work with ... Kubrick has teamed with jumpy Jack Nicholson to destroy all that was so terrifying about Stephen King's bestseller."[96] A common initial criticism was the slow pacing, which was highly atypical of horror films of the time.[97] Neither Gene Siskel nor Roger Ebert reviewed the film on their television show Sneak Previews when it was first released,[98] but in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Ebert complained that it was hard to connect with any of the characters.[99] In his Chicago Tribune review, Siskel gave the film two stars out of four and called it "a crashing disappointment. The biggest surprise is that it contains virtually no thrills. Given Kubrick's world-class reputation, one's immediate reaction is that maybe he was after something other than thrills in the film. If so, it's hard to figure out what."[100] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote "There are moments so visually stunning only a Kubrick could pull them off, yet the film is too grandiose to be the jolter that horror pictures are expected to be. Both those expecting significance from Kubrick and those merely looking for a good scare may be equally disappointed."[101] Pauline Kael of The New Yorker stated "Again and again, the movie leads us to expect something – almost promises it – and then disappoints us."[102] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote "Stanley Kubrick's production of The Shining, a ponderous, lackluster distillation of Stephen King's best-selling novel, looms as the Big Letdown of the new film season. I can't recall a more elaborately ineffective scare movie."[103] Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic described The Shining as 'laborious filmmaking' and 'a grab bag of spook stuff, with no rhyme or reason of its own' and that Nicholson's 'mouthy work here makes the late Bela Lugosi look conservative'.[104]
It was one of only two films of Kubrick's last eleven films, the other being Eyes Wide Shut, to receive no nominations from the BAFTAs. It was the only one of Kubrick's last nine films to receive no nominations from either the Oscars or Golden Globes. Instead, it was Kubrick's only film to be nominated at the Razzie Awards, including Worst Director and Worst Actress (Duvall),[105] in the first year that award was given.[106][107][108] These nominations, especially Duvall's, have provoked backlash and controversy for years,[109][110][111] with Razzies founder John J. B. Wilson defending his choice claiming he expected the adaptation to be more similar to the book,[112] and Duvall's nomination was retracted by the Razzie committee on March 31, 2022, stating that she did not deserve it due to the "extenuating circumstances" of Kubrick's treatment of her.[113] Vincent Misiano's review in Ares magazine concluded: "The Shining lays open to view all the devices of horror and suspense – endless eerie music, odd camera angles, a soundtrack of interminably pounding heart, hatchets and hunts. The result is shallow, self-conscious and dull. Read the book."[114]
Reappraisal[edit]
According to Rotten Tomatoes, 83% of 105 critics gave the film a positive review, with an average rating of 8.6/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Though it deviates from Stephen King's novel, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is a chilling, often baroque journey into madness — exemplified by an unforgettable turn from Jack Nicholson."[115] On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 66 out of 100 based on reviews from 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[116] Tim Cahill of Rolling Stone noted in an interview with Kubrick that by 1987 there was already a "critical re-evaluation of [The Shining] in process".[117]
In 2001, the film was ranked 29th on AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills list[118] and Jack Torrance was named the 25th greatest villain on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes and Villains list in 2003.[119] In 2005, the quote "Here's Johnny!" was ranked 68 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list.[120] It had Channel 4's all-time scariest moment,[121] and Bravo TV named one of the film's scenes sixth on their list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Film critics Kim Newman and Jonathan Romney both placed it in their top ten lists for the 2002 Sight & Sound poll. In 2005, Total Film ranked The Shining as the 5th-greatest horror film of all time.[122] In 2012, Sight & Sound directors' poll ranked it the 75th greatest film of all time.[123] Director Martin Scorsese placed it on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time.[124] Mathematicians at King's College London (KCL) used statistical modeling in a study commissioned by Sky Movies to conclude that The Shining was the "perfect scary movie" due to a proper balance of various ingredients including shock value, suspense, gore and size of the cast.[125] In 2010, The Guardian newspaper ranked it as the 5th "best horror film of all time".[126] It was voted the 62nd greatest American film ever made in a 2015 poll conducted by BBC.[127] In 2017, Empire magazine's readers' poll ranked the film at No. 35 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Movies", and in 2023 Empire also ranked it No. 1 on its list of "The 50 Best Horror Movies".[128][129]
In 2021, The film was ranked at No. 2 by Time Out on their list of "The 100 best horror movies".[130] Critics, scholars, and crew members (such as Kubrick's producer Jan Harlan) have discussed the film's enormous influence on popular culture.[131][132][133] In 2006, Roger Ebert, who was initially critical of the work, inducted the film into his Great Movies series, saying "Stanley Kubrick's cold and frightening The Shining challenges us to decide: Who is the reliable observer? Whose idea of events can we trust? ... It is this elusive open-endedness that makes Kubrick's film so strangely disturbing."[68]
While Duvall's performance was originally nominated for a Razzie, Razzies co-founder Maureen Murphy stated in 2022 that she regretted giving Duvall the Worst Actress nomination.[134][135] On March 31, 2022, the Razzie committee officially rescinded Duvall's nomination, stating "We have since discovered that Duvall's performance was impacted by Stanley Kubrick's treatment of her throughout the production."[113] The retraction of the nomination was in response to public backlash The Razzies received after refusing to retract Bruce Willis's win for "Worst Bruce Willis Performance in a 2021 Movie", a one-off award for his roles in eight films released that calendar year.[136] Willis's family announced the star's retirement after being diagnosed with aphasia, a cognitive brain condition, on March 30, 2022.[137] The Razzie committee retracted both Willis's win and Duvall's nomination the following day.[113] On Duvall's performance, Vulture magazine wrote in 2019: "looking into Duvall's huge eyes from the front row of a theater, I found myself riveted by a very poignant form of fear. Not the fear of an actor out of her element, or the more mundane fear of a victim being chased around by an ax-wielding maniac. Rather, it was something far more disquieting, and familiar: the fear of a wife who's experienced her husband at his worst, and is terrified that she'll experience it again."[138] Media site Screen Rant described Duvall as "the heart of the film; she is out of her depth in dealing with her husband's looming insanity while trying to protect her young son, all while being fearful of the malevolence around her."[139]
Horror film critic Peter Bracke, reviewing the Blu-ray release in High-Def Digest, wrote:
Influence in popular culture[edit]
Both parodies and homages to The Shining are prominent in U.K. and U.S. popular culture, particularly in films, TV shows, video games and music.[231][232][233][234] Images and scenes including the Grady girls in the hallway, the word "Redrum", the blood spilling out of the elevator doors[235] and Jack sticking his head through the hole in the bathroom door, saying, "Here's Johnny", are frequently referenced in the media.
Director Tim Burton, who credits Kubrick as an influence, modeled the characters of Tweedledum and Tweedledee in his 2010 version of Alice in Wonderland on the Grady girls (like so many viewers of the film, Burton identifies the girls as twins in spite of Ullman's dialogue to the contrary).[236]
The Simpsons 1994 episode "Treehouse of Horror V" includes a parody titled "The Shinning". Similarities include Sherri and Terri, the twins in Bart's fourth grade class looking visually similar to the Grady girls, Homer writing "No TV and No Beer Make Homer Go Crazy" and Homer breaking into a room with an axe and uttering 'here's Johnny', only to discover that he had entered the wrong room and using the introduction for 60 Minutes instead.[237][238][239] The season 30 2019 episode "Girl's in the Band" has Homer, driven mad from working double shifts at the nuclear power plant, experiencing a Gold Room party scene with Lloyd followed by an axe-wielding Human Resources Director who resembles Nicholson's character.[240]
Dutch dance music duo Hocus Pocus sampled Nicholson's "Here's Johnny" line in their 1993 dance song "Here's Johnny".[241] In 1995, the song reached number one in Australia for six weeks, making it the first dance single to do so without radio support in Australia.[242][243]
American heavy metal band Slipknot pay homage to the film in their first music video for their 2000 song "Spit It Out", directed by Thomas Mignone. The video consists of conceptual imagery of the band members each portraying characters enacting iconic scenes from the film, with Joey Jordison as Danny Torrance; Shawn Crahan and Chris Fehn as the Grady sisters; Corey Taylor as Jack Torrance; Mick Thomson as Lloyd the Bartender; Craig Jones as Dick Hallorann; James Root as Wendy Torrance; Paul Gray as Harry Derwent; and Sid Wilson as the corpse in the bathtub. The video was banned from MTV for overtly graphic and violent depictions, including Corey Taylor's smashing through a door with an axe and the scene wherein James Root viciously assaults Corey Taylor with a baseball bat. Mignone and the band eventually re-edited a less violent version, which was subsequently aired on MTV.[244][245]
The film's haunted ballroom scene served as inspiration for English musician Leyland Kirby to create the Caretaker alias; his debut album Selected Memories from the Haunted Ballroom (1999) featured a prominent influence from the film.[246]
American rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars produced a music video[247] for their 2006 single "The Kill" which is an extended homage to the film. The music video is set in a haunted hotel, and replicates imagery from the film including the black intertitles with white text, Jack's typewriter, Lloyd's bar, Jack bouncing a tennis ball against a wall, the ghostly woman in the bathroom, the murdered Grady sisters, and the hotel guest being fellated by another man dressed as a bear. The music video was directed by lead singer Jared Leto.
The film was played at the drive-in theater alongside Psycho as part of the Night of Horrors combo in Twister from 1996.[248] In the 2003 animated film Finding Nemo, Bruce the shark says "Here's Brucey!", which is inspired from the "Here's Johnny!" quote.[249]
The 2017 song "Enjoy Your Slay" by American metalcore band Ice Nine Kills is inspired primarily by the novel as well as the film adaption. The song also features Stanley Kubrick's grandson Sam Kubrick as guest vocalist.[250][251]
The TV series Psych has a 2012 episode titled "Heeeeere's Lassie" in which the plot and characters are based on the film.[252][253][239] "Here's Johnny!" was parodied by British comedian Lenny Henry in an advertisement for Premier Inn. It was banned from being screened on a children's TV network.[254]
Vince Gilligan, being a fan of Kubrick and his "non-submersible moments", has included references to Kubrick movies in many of his works.[255][256] "I'm happy to see that his inspiration has shown in noticeable ways in our work in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul", says Gilligan.[257] Breaking Bad's 2010 episode "Sunset" has a cop radioing for assistance and begins, "KDK-12" – the radio address at the Overlook, before being axed. The axe-murdered Grady twins in The Shining are turned into the axe-murdering Salamanca twins in Breaking Bad. The descent of the main character, school teacher Walt, into the dark killer has some similarities to Jack's arc. Reflections are used in both to show the characters change.[258][239] Better Call Saul has a "Here's Johnny" scare in a flashback. Gilligan has also likened his early writing situation, getting snowed in and not writing, to feeling like Jack while going insane.[259]
Steven Spielberg, a close friend of Kubrick,[260] included a sequence dedicated to The Shining in the 2018 film Ready Player One when they could not get rights to use Blade Runner for a similar sequence. The Overlook Hotel is recreated, including the Grady sisters, the elevator, room 237, the lady in the bath tub, the ballroom, and the 1921 photo, in addition to using the score. Spielberg considered this inclusion a tribute to Kubrick.[261]
In his 2019 novel The Institute, Stephen King refers to the film, writing, "The little girls, Gerda and Greta, were standing and watching with wide, frightened eyes. They were holding hands and clutching dolls as identical as they were. They reminded Luke of twins in some old horror movie."[262]
In 2020, the fifth-season episode "Our Mojo" of Lucifer paid homage to Kubrick and The Shining by having a young boy riding on a tricycle down a corridor in a hotel with wallpaper similar to the carpet pattern in the film.[263]