Cody types up some Film Appreciation for The Shining (1980).
There have been many films based on the works of author Stephen King – but of all the adaptations that King felt didn’t live up to the source material, the one that seems to have gotten to him the most is director Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film The Shining, based on King’s 1977 novel of the same name. As the years have gone by, King has taken every opportunity to discuss the fact that he thought The Shining was a letdown – and since he was so willing to talk about it, interviewers and fans at Q&As have made sure to bring it up regularly. He has simply been dismissive of some of the “lesser” movies; he seems to have stopped watching Children of the Corn sequels altogether and said that Graveyard Shift deserved to be consigned to showings on Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater on The Movie Channel. But he would dig into the issues with The Shining.
King has had some positive things to say about Kubrick’s film. He has said there are things about it that are flawless, beautiful, marvelous... but he has also compared it to “a beautiful car with no engine.” He has said that Jack Nicholson did a wonderful job in the lead role, and yet he has also pointed to Nicholson’s performance as one of the problems, as King felt his character seemed crazy from the start, when the story is supposed to gradually build up to him going crazy. King always had “real problems” with the adaptation, and he made sure Kubrick knew about those problems during production. But the filmmaker was not deterred. King’s biggest problem seems to be that he felt he wrote a very “warm” book with what he believed to be sympathetic characters. He loved the people he was writing about. But Kubrick took his story and made a very “cold” film, and the things King loved about his characters didn’t make the transition between warmth and cold.
A lot of King’s Constant Readers are on his side in this argument. They agree that Kubrick messed up the adaptation. I’ve watched early ‘80s Q&As with King, and fans in the audience would express their disappointment with the film – and King would assure them that the movie would be forgotten soon enough, but the book would endure. Looking back 45 years later, he was half right. His book does endure. But so does Kubrick’s movie. It probably would have been easy to believe, in the early ‘80s, that Kubrick’s The Shining might fade away. It received a mixed reception when it was released in May of 1980 and was overshadowed by Friday the 13th, which was released the same month. Many felt that it was too long, so Kubrick would mess with the running time, snipping out a 2 minute epilogue after the movie had already been in theatres for a week. For the European release, he cut out a full 25 minutes, including some important information that never should have been cut. Reviewers called the film lackluster, disappointing, and said it destroyed King’s story. It was nominated for Razzies. But very soon after its release, The Shining was re-evaluated. It wasn’t long before it was being named as one of the greatest horror movies ever made, guaranteeing that it would also endure.
As for where I stand... I have an opinion that King and many Constant Readers would consider blasphemous. I prefer Kubrick’s film over King’s novel, feeling that Kubrick did a great job of bringing the story to the screen in an interesting way, taking the scares that were set up on the page and improving them along the way while trimming out ideas that wouldn’t have worked in a movie.
While reading the book, I can see why King would take the adaptation more personally than he has in other cases, because it really comes off like he was Working Stuff Out while writing it. His own issues with alcohol and drugs have been widely publicized, so you can imagine that he could relate to the character of Jack Torrance, a failed teacher and struggling writer who is trying to overcome alcoholism for the sake of his wife Wendy and their young son, Danny, who he accidentally injured while drunk. King’s own intervention was still a decade away when he wrote The Shining, but he was very clearly already struggling with his demons.
Jack takes a winter caretaker job at an isolated hotel that happens to be packed with restless spirits – entities that little Danny is especially aware of, since he has extra-sensory abilities described as “the shining.” For a book that centers on three people who are largely confined to one location, The Shining is a very wordy and over-written book that’s packed with stream-of-consciousness deep dives into the minds of each of the characters. Their minds aren’t the most pleasant place to be... really, these people that King loved so much are miserable. Jack and Wendy’s marriage is on shaky ground, Danny is afraid they’re going to split up. And while Jack thinks he’s one of the nicest guys around, it’s clear from very early on that he’s really not that good of a guy. To use a word he favors, he’s a prick. King loved the guy. I can’t stand him. King has issues with Nicholson’s version of the character being questionable from the start, but at least Nicholson entertains me in a way the guy on the page doesn’t.
For many of The Shining’s pages, there’s not a whole lot actually going on. It’s mostly just Wendy and Danny hanging out and Jack gradually cracking while going through papers on the history of hotel. When the action really kicks in, there’s a balance of the tragic and terrifying (Jack rampaging through the hotel with a mallet) with the goofy (killer hedge animals outside). For many people, The Shining is one of their favorite books. I think it’s okay, but when I revisit King’s work, it’s a book that I find to be a bit of a chore to get through.
The movie, on the other hand, I can watch over and over and love it every time.
Jack Nicholson stars as Jack Torrance, a writer and former school teacher who’s introduced while undergoing a lengthy interview with hotel manager Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson, the first on-screen James Bond) for the caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel in the Rocky Mountains. Built from 1907 to 1909, a time when there was little interest in winter sports, the Overlook only operates from May 15 to October 30, then it closes down until the following May due to the enormous cost that would be required to keep the road open to the nearest town, a place called Sidewinder. That’s a 25 mile stretch of road that gets an average of 20 feet of snow. The Overlook location was chosen for its seclusion and scenery, and its “tremendous sense of isolation” is exactly what Jack is looking for. He wants to dedicate 5 months of peace to his latest writing project.
Jack is warned that the solitude and isolation can become a problem. There was a tragedy at the Overlook in the winter of 1970, when caretaker Charles Grady killed his wife and their two daughters... but Jack assures his employers that the gig will be smooth sailing for him, his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their young son Danny (Danny Lloyd).
And yet, while Jack is off at his job interview, Danny sees a vision that warns of terrible things awaiting the family at the Overlook. This vision puts him in a trance and a doctor is called to the Torrance home. Through Wendy’s conversation with the doctor (played by Anne Jackson) while Danny is recovering, we learn important information that was dropped from the European cut: Danny started talking to his imaginary friend Tony, “the little boy who lives in his mouth,” part of his extra-sensory perception, around the time he was having trouble adjusting to going to nursery school – an experience that didn’t last long before Danny had to be taken out to school due to an injury. His shoulder was dislocated when he was roughly grabbed by an angry, drunken Jack. That incident convinced Jack to give up drinking. But his taste for the drink and potential for violence is a major part of the story.
The family goes to the Overlook, and they haven’t been there for long before Danny is seeing glimpses of ghostly little girls (the Grady kids) and picking up that there’s something off about room 237. But, for the first time, he also meets somebody else who has this same kind of extra-sensory perception: Scatman Crothers as hotel employee Dick Hallorann, who can communicate with Danny telepathically and tells him they have “the shine.” Dick admits that a lot of things have happened in the Overlook, some of them not good, but the things that Danny sees there can’t hurt him. They’re just like pictures in a book. But yeah, he should stay away from room 237.
A month goes by with the Torrances living in the Overlook all by themselves. And just when the place is hit by a massive snowstorm, the ghostly activity in the place increases... and Jack’s mind begins to crack. While Jack says he has never been as happy or comfortable anywhere else, he becomes strange and grouchy. The scene where he gripes at Wendy for coming into his writing room and distracting him is one of my all-time favorite moments in cinema history (and one I have related to on many occasions). Jack has a nightmare that he killed his family and chopped them into pieces... and he starts interacting with the ghosts that inhabit the place. Ghosts like the woman in room 237. Lloyd the bartender, who helps him fall off the wagon. And Grady, that homicidal caretaker. These ghosts get into Jack’s head. Convince him that Wendy and Danny are conspiring against him, trying to keep him from living up to his obligations to his employer. At their urging, Jack eventually starts cutting off their ways to reach the outside world. And, for the climactic sequence, he starts chasing them around the hotel with an axe – and during this terrifying, violent experience, the ghostly activity in the hotel surges even more. This sequence is simultaneously a glorious and disturbing thing to behold.
Danny is able to telepathically reach out to Dick at his off-season home in Florida and makes it clear to him that the Torrances need help. Dick sets out on a cross-country rescue mission... but will he get to the Overlook in time?
I can’t say for sure when I saw The Shining for the first time; since it was released more than three years before I was born, it was a movie I was always aware of and saw for the first time sometime during childhood. It’s a movie I have always liked – and as the years have gone by, my appreciation for it and enjoyment of it has only grown more and more. I have always loved Jack Nicholson’s performance. Sure, there’s a hint of craziness in there from the moment he steps onto the screen, but that seed of craziness grows and blooms into something amazing as the film goes on. He is entertaining to watch in every single scene, especially when he’s going off on Wendy about distracting him and when he becomes truly menacing toward the end of the film, telling her, “I’m not gonna hurt ya; I’m just gonna bash your brains in.”
Shelley Duvall had a rough time during the production; it has been said that Kubrick was very tough on her, to an unnecessary degree. She wasn’t the only actor who had trouble working with Kubrick on the film – he was known for shooting a lot of takes, and Scatman Crothers reportedly broke down in tears when asked to perform a scene for the umpteenth time – but she was the one who was most broken down by the excruciating experience. But she had a positive outlook on the film in retrospect and she’s terrific in the movie. And watching it, you would never know that Kubrick made her threaten Nicholson with a baseball bat for 127 takes.
I would also count little Danny Lloyd as one of the big child actors I’ve ever seen – and what makes watching his scenes especially interesting is the fact that he had no idea that he was working on a horror movie. Kubrick shielded him from all of the horror elements, so he just thought he was starring in a family drama.
I have had pleasant viewing experiences watching The Shining with several friends and loved ones over the decades... and while, somehow, I have largely forgotten my first theatrical viewing of the movie, which came during a theatrical horror marathon in Columbus, Ohio back in the early 2000s, one of my most memorable viewings of the film was another theatrical one. In stark contrast to my experiences with the holiday in the United States, Halloween isn’t much of an event in Brazil, a country I visit often... but the holiday seems to be gaining in popularity there. When Brazilian McDonald’s locations start getting the Halloween trick-or-treat buckets, Halloween must be becoming more of a thing in the country. Something else that indicated to me that Halloween is becoming more popular in Brazil is the fact that, on Halloween 2024, a theatre in the city where I stay when I visit Brazil put up decorations and screened multiple horror films – including a revival screening of The Shining.
I attended that theatrical showing of The Shining in Brazil with blog contributor Priscilla and was pleased to see that the theatre was packed with people who had come to the show wearing their Halloween costumes. Others who weren’t wearing costumes were wearing T-shirts for horror films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It reminded me of going to horror marathons and conventions in the States. I was in Brazil, but I was surrounded by My People – and we had all come together to watch The Shining on Halloween. It was great time.
It lasted a while, because The Shining has a running time of 144 minutes. Technically, it’s a long movie, especially when it comes to films in the horror genre, but I have never felt like it had an unreasonably long running time. There are a lot of movies 144 minutes or longer that I have wished would have been shorter, but The Shining is not one of them. I find that its minutes go by quickly, its story being told at a good pace. Before I know it, we’ve reached the climactic sequence again. Then the movie is over – and it won’t be long before I’m anxious to watch it again.
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