'The Shining' - Unfaithfulness Can Be Perfect

A few weeks ago, I basically gave my history with the horror genre, showing how my interest grew from creepy comedies like Ghostbusters to true nightmare fuel like The Devil's Advocate. However, in that collection of classics and enjoyable schlock, one film is the most important in my horror fan development and still ranks as my favorite pure horror film of all time. (I have to stress "pure" since, if horror comedies are included, Gremlins would be #1.) That is the 1980 masterpiece The Shining.

The Shining is one of the most discussed movies in history, so much so that there's even a documentary all about the various fan theories. (Check out Room 237.) The most discussed topic, however, is the divide between Stephen King, the writer of the original book, and the now legendary director Stanley Kubrick. The movie took the original premise of the novel about a family snowbound in a haunted hotel for the off-season while the patriarch goes insane and changes almost every detail. King had despised the movie for years due to the radical departures from his book (though his stance had softened just a little over time). However, all this gives me a major conundrum. With how much this movie and the book are talked about, what can I possibly add to the conversation?

Well, I said how this movie opened my eyes to the horror genre before. I can now explain how. See, I already had found joy with macabre comedies like Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice. However, when I would go to Halloween parties in my middle school years, the movies that were always loaded up were slasher flicks. I never cared for slashers (with very few exceptions) due to the overuse of cliches that were pushed by Halloween, over-reliance on jump scares, and unlikable or unrelatable characters that seem to exist solely to get arrows through their throats. By the time I was in college, I was still averse to straight horror films due to the overemphasis on jump scares and ridiculous gore. However, the game Silent Hill opened me up to what would be the most important thing any movie should have: atmosphere. I absolutely loved the sense of dread and tension in that game. I read in an interview that one of the inspirations for the feel of the game was The Shining. I rented it from Blockbuster then, and my mindset changed forever.

The first thing that stands out is the score by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind. That synthesizer tune coupled with the tracking shots of Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) driving through the mountains to the Overlook Hotel was absolutely hypnotizing. That opening sequence grabbed me immediately. The score complemented the scenes even at their quietest. The most effective times were when the titular telepathic abilities came into play. In the middle of the film, Jack's telepathic son Danny (Danny Lloyd) sends a psychic message to the hotel's chef Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) about what was going on there. It is a sequence with no dialogue and very few sound effects; it's told entirely by the visuals and the shrill score, and it is one of the most horrifying moments I had ever seen.

In fact, most of the movie is free of dialogue. Stanley Kubrick was the epitome of a visual storyteller as seen with 2001: A Space Odyssey, and that mindset worked perfectly here. The movie is 2 1/2 hours long,and I'd estimate that there's talking in only about 40% of that runtime. The rest is using weird tracking shots, well chosen images, and the score to tell the story. One of my favorite movies ever is Fantasia which did the same things.

As for the differences between the book and the movie, the changes worked in the movie's favor. Though I have read and enjoyed the book, one of the changes that worked the best was adding ambiguity. Kubrick famously didn't believe in ghosts; in fact, that was one of the reasons King opposed Kubrick doing the film. In the book, the ghosts clearly manipulated Jack into wanting to kill his family. The film sets things up to be much grayer. While ghosts are present, there can be legitimate arguments that Jack is just losing his mind from being shut in during the blizzard. In fact, the characterization of Jack is one of the biggest differences between the book and the movie. In the book, Jack is a decent guy with a personal demon who slowly loses his mind. In the movie, Jack is an already disturbed man who loses his filters throughout the film. Both work in their respective forms.

The Shining ranks as one of the greatest horror movies in history. That's not why it's my all-time favorite. It is because, even after multiple watches, it still provides peerless atmosphere, memorable visuals, a haunting score, and a journey into insanity one can never forget. It opened my eyes to what the horror genre can truly do, and I am forever indebted to it for that. If you haven't watched it yet, it turned 40 this year. This is the perfect time to take a trip to the Overlook.

What do you think? Want to argue some of the symbolism? Let me now, and Happy Halloween!