THE SHINING

"The Shining" is a strange 2 hours and 26 minutes. After putting a considerable amount of thought to everything that goes on during the film, I am left thinking that there are some aspects of Stanley Kubrick's classic which are simply meant to confuse it's viewers. This is why many people may hate it, or be frustrated by it, but its what has helped it to stand alone and endure as a cult, as well as main-stream, Hollywood classic.

If you are generally in touch with popular culture at all, then there are some things about "The Shining" that you are already familiar with. The chilling twin girls standing in the hotel hallway, the unforgettable "Here's Johnny!", and the infamous "REDRUM" are some of the most parodied and widely referenced images in the history of films. However, beyond the endless "Family Guy" spoofs, there is an incredibly refined film. Kubrick's methods are so effectively creepy because they don't resort to the cheap and predictable "jump scares" of most horror films. Instead, they create situations and imagery which is exceptionally unsettling. Kubrick also employs ominous music to brilliantly suggest the presence of danger in many scenes, even when nothing harmful is to come. Any movie that makes a viewer this uncertain of exactly what might happen next is tremendously, and precisely done. Of course, I must mention that the inspiration for the bizarre supernatural story comes from the master of all things creepy, Stephen King. Never having read the original novel, I cannot be certain, but King's well publicized resentment of the film adaptation of "The Shining" proves that Kubrick took the necessary liberties with the story.

Now I'll talk about Jack. If not for Jack Nicholson's impeccably convincing insanity, "The Shining" would not be half the movie that it is. The character of frustrated father and recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance allows Nicholson to display exasperation, rage, and dark humor in a way that is psychotically believable. Yes, Shelley Duvall is a perfect horrified mother and wife, but the cast of this movie starts and ends with Jack Nicholson. One of the greatest testaments to his mastery and comfort with the role is the fact that the most memorable line in the film was entirely improvised. But its not just the axe swinging "Here's Johnny" scene which makes Nicholson's performance legendary. The argument between Torrance and his wiferegarding "what should be done with Danny" has left audiences as horrified as Wendy Torrance for over 35 years. Even in slightly more subtle scenes like the conversation between Jack and the non-existent hotel bartender, and his wicked stare out the window at his wife and son, the audience gets an overwhelming sense that something about this character is simply not right.

When it comes to the story itself, "The Shining" is one of those movies which sparks endless discussions and a wide array of interpretations. As I stated earlier, its damn near impossible to piece together every part of the story into a conclusive and linear narrative. It seems easy to chalk the protagonists mental breakdown up to a spiritual presence in the hotel, until the final shot of the film shows him present at a 1921 gathering at the same location. Is Jack Torrance some sort of immortal being who has gone through a cycle of starting, then murdering families at this remote hotel? Or, perhaps he is a sort of reincarnation of the man who killed his family there many years before. Its even possible that young Danny Torrance is the true source of the Overlook's evil atmosphere. Well I'm not one of those crazy, too-much-time-on-my-hands, internet conspiracy theorists, but I have my own hypothetical explanation for "The Shining" that may be different from any you've ever heard before. My imagination may be getting ahead of me, but its possible that Jack and Danny Torrance come from something of a family line of Overlook Hotel family murderers. In the final shot of the movie, it is never confirmed that the man in the dated picture is Jack Torrance. Maybe this man was Jack's father, who killed his wife and twin daughters at the hotel years before. The twins we see may truly be the ghosts of Jack Torrance's sisters, as he was left alive by his father so that he could carry on the tradition with his own family. Danny is possessed with the gift of "the shining", which spurs him to act strangely, and sometimes violently. My take is that Jack Torrance is inhabited by a similar spiritual presence, as his father before him was, but realizes its potential harm. Jack wants to kill Danny so that this ritual of Torrance men murdering their whole families, except their sons, does not carry on to the next generation. The film leads you to believe that Mr. Grady, who appears to Jack during a hallucination of a hotel party, was the true murderer of the twins years before. But in my version, Mr. Grady is simply a creation of Jack's off-balance mind with the purpose of convincing the character that he should in fact kill Danny. You'll notice that during his conversation with Mr. Grady, Torrance is facing a wall almost entirely covered with mirrors. Mr. Grady is not there, he is Jack's internal voice telling himself "this is the right thing to do. The boy has to die". Farfetched and over the top? Maybe, but so is this whole film, in the best way possible.

Of course, almost forty years of ridiculous speculation may be exactly what Stanley Kubrick wanted from this film. To dislike "The Shining", one must either be absolutely terrified by it, or trying to hard to make logical sense of it. Its ambiguity combined with its chilling performances in front of, and behind, the camera are what set it right near the top of the horror movie mountain.

RATING: 8.8/10