Movie: The Shining (1980) and The Shining (1997)

Redrum Redrum, Redrum. Redrum.

Note: I had seen these movies before.

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining has been voted the scariest movie ever made on several occasions, but I find that I just can’t agree with that. At all.  I think it is a very visually stunning movie that has a plot that makes almost no sense. The soundtrack drove me batty – especially when it would suddenly get twice as loud for no reason. The acting is awesome, but many of the lines are poor. I think it is a huge disappointment.

Before all the readers of this blog (all two of you) get upset, let me say that I am looking at this film first as an adaptation of the book and secondly as a horror movie. Kubrick is not known as a Master of Horror, now is he? I think this film falls flat on both fronts.When the wave of blood explodes from the elevator and rushes toward the viewer, it is brilliant, but I have to ask myself where it is supposed to be coming from. Kubrick took the title and the idea of a family trapped for the winter in a hotel and then left almost everything else about the story out. The history of the Overlook is missing, so you don’t know who the man in the dog mask is or why he is important. The lady in room 237 (not even the same room number) is just some lady. The biggest problem I have is the fact that you have no clue as to why Jack is going insane. One minute he’s working on his novel, the next he is breaking down doors with axes. Few horror movies have a ton of plot; it’s mostly people running around screaming, but at least you know that the crazy inbred psychos are killing the coeds because they are crazy inbred psychos.

This film is beautiful, however. The iconic images of the twin girls standing in the hallway (“Come play with us, Danny.”) is haunting as is the aerial shot of Wendy and Danny in the hedge maze. The actors are great. Jack Nicholson is demonic, as always. Shelley Duval looks genuinely freaked, though I wish she would stop screaming and do something already. But the true star is young Danny Torrance who steals the show in both of his personalities (though just who is Tony supposed to be in this movie?)

The second version of The Shining was a television miniseries, so it has the benefit of having almost three times as much time to tell the story. It also has a screenplay by Stephen King which pretty much guarantees that it will stick closer to the book. I found this version both scarier and more enjoyable. The real tragedy of the tale comes through as you watch the inevitable decline of Jack Torrance, a man who just wants to do something good for his family and chooses to do it at the most haunted spot in America. Now, before all you naysayers proclaim how much better the Kubrick version is, watch the scene where jack is beating Wendy with the oversize croquet mallet. Chilling. But I really wanted Danny to die in this one because the child actor playing him drove me crazy!

Book Four: The Shining

Note: I had read “The Shining” before, but it was in German that time…

Imagine yourself on a overstuffed couch in the middle of the living room. There are double doors next to you leading outside. The sun is shining in and you are bathed in its comforting glow. You can hear family and friends moving around the house but they don’t intrude. This is how I first read “The Shining” and it still scared me. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to re-read the book at night when it was storming outside…

“The Shining” is one of the few books that genuinely scared me. Most horror novels intrigue, or titillate, or amuse me; this one made me want to leave all the lights on. And yet, it’s also a very sad story. The Torrances – Jack, Wendy, and their son Danny – move into the Overlook Hotel as winter caretakers. They will be stranded alone there as soon as the first snowstorm hits, with very limited contact with the outer world (hey, it’s 1977 and there’s no internet.) What they don’t know is that they aren’t really alone in the hotel, and what’s there really really wants to get its teeth into Danny. If that synopsis doesn’t put your hackles up, just take a look at the cover.

Warren Beatty is attacked by fluffy dogs and zombie boys

This book explores a couple different ideas that I found interesting. One is how children interact with the world. Danny is only five when the story takes place, but in some ways he is old for his age. His father is an abusive drunk who has gone on the wagon, so Danny is familiar with random acts of violence. Maybe this is the secret to his equanimity. Take the following excerpt for example. Danny has just been attacked by a firehouse:

“It was nothing to be afraid of. Why, he could go back and put that hose right into its frame, if he wanted to. he could, but he didn’t think he would. Because what if it had chased him and had gone back when it saw that it couldn’t…quite…catch him?” (p. 174)

This sequence is familiar to one from “Salem’s Lot” where the young boy is able to accept the vampire attack – and thus lives- while his father rejects the idea and perishes. Almost the entire novel of “IT” centers on that idea, too. King must realize that childish coping mechanisms, pulling the blanket under your feet so the monsters can’t get you, are more effective than adult ones.

I could go on and on, but instead here are some of my favorite quotes from the book.

“Still grinning, her huge marble eyes fixed on him, she was sitting up. Her dead palms made squittering noises on the porcelain. Her breasts swayed like ancient cracked punching bags.” (p. 217)

“Ordinarily he liked all of his characters, the good and the bad. he was glad he did. It allowed him to try to see all of their sides and understand their motivation more clearly.” (257)

“Medoc, are you here? I’ve been sleepwalking again, my dear…” (p.280)

“In his faded tartan bathrobe…he looked to her like an absurd twentieth-century Hamlet, an indecisive figure so mesmerized by onrushing tragedy that he was helpless to divert its course or alter it in any way.” (p297)

Lowdown:

Still a scary-ass book.

Bodycount: 1

Total bodycount: 500, 18 unaccounted for, one dog, and two towns burned down