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The Shining
(1980)
In Stanley Kubrick's horror classic - it was an intense,
epic, gothic horror film and haunted house masterpiece - a beautiful,
stylish work that distanced itself from the blood-letting and gore
of most modern films in the horror genre. The film's plot had very little
resemblance to its source - science-fiction/horror author Stephen
King's 1977 best-selling novel (his third novel under his own name)
by the same name.
In the film's plot, while serving as an off-season
caretaker of an isolated, snowbound resort (the Overlook) with his
family: wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and son Danny (Danny Lloyd), aspiring
writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) went mad, due to the hotel's bloody
and historic past. The film's title
referred to the extra-sensory, paranormal psychic abilities possessed
by the Overlook Hotel's head cook Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) and
the young boy.
There were two versions of the film: a longer US theatrical
version that was 144 minutes in length (the most commonly-viewed
version), while the European version was 119 minutes in length. Throughout
the film, white text on black sub-titles punctuated the chapters
to briefly introduce each major sequence.
- in the film's opening title credits sequence
without narration or commentary, an aerial camera followed a
yellow VW driving toward a mountainous Colorado resort -
the sprawling and soon-to-be snowbound Overlook Hotel
Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies
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Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) During His Interview
to be the Overlook Hotel's Winter Caretaker
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- "The Interview" - Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson)
entered the Overlook's palatial lobby inquiring about his interview-appointment
with General Manager Mr. Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson); an ex-school
teacher from Vermont, aspiring novelist Jack lived with his family
in Boulder, CO - with passive, skinny, black-haired wife
"Wendy" Winifred (Shelley Duvall) and seven year-old son
Danny (Danny Lloyd); Jack was applying to be the caretaker of the
hotel during the upcoming winter with his family, from November to
May during the 6 months of winter; Jack claimed he was unperturbed
by the idea of retreating into a secluded world for a long period of time
- Ullman revealed the hotel's disturbing, murderous, misogynistic history in 1970 with
a past caretaker named Charles Grady who went crazy with "cabin
fever" and killed his family with an axe: "Kind of claustrophobic
reaction which can occur when people are shut in together over
long periods of time" - a foreshadowing
- meanwhile, back in the Torrance home's bathroom,
Danny received clairvoyant, visionary messages (his gift of "shining")
from his make-believe playmate "Tony" about his father
receiving the job; he had a terrifying, bloody, psychic vision
of the past [was the vision real or only illusion?] - torrential
waves of deep-red blood silently splashed from the double-doors
of an elevator in the hotel's lobby; also in Danny's frightening
vision, a pair of young, mannequin-like twin girls (Lisa and Louise
Burns) each wearing a blue party dress, held hands in a hallway
(Were they Grady's murdered daughters?); a doctor diagnosed that
Danny's visions and psychic powers developed as a reaction of the
boy's fervent imagination and his ex-alcoholic father's abuse and
mistreatment
Danny's Clairvoyant "Shining" Visions
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The Hotel's Bloody Elevator
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The Twin Girls in the Hotel's Hallway
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Danny's Horrified Reaction
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- on "Closing Day," the family's car made
its serpentine way to the hotel for the winter - it was the film's
second drive up to The Overlook; on the journey, the family discussed
the historic Donner Party accident - a trapped and doomed group
of early pioneers; upon their arrival as the hotel was being closed
up, Wendy and Jack were taken by Ullman on an interior
and exterior tour of the Overlook; in its vast Colorado Lounge,
he told them: ("This old place has had an illustrious past. In its hey-day, it was one
of the stopping places for the jetset, even before anybody knew
what a jetset was. We had four presidents who stayed here. Lots
of movie stars...all the best people"); as Danny played darts
in the Game Room by himself and was again startled by an hallucination
of the two twin girls, his parents were also shown
their staff apartment quarters
Danny's Vision of The Twins in the Game Room
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Danny's Clairvoyant Experience with Hallorann in
the Kitchen's Storeroom
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The Two Discussing That They Shared "Shining" Powers
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- outside, Ullman showed them the adjoining Overlook Hedge Maze
with 13 foot high walls; he also described
the hotel's history, and how the hotel's site was supposedly
located on an Indian burial ground; Wendy
and Danny received a personal tour of the extensive kitchen by the
friendly, black Head Chef Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers); they were
shown the gigantic freezer of food wealth, TV-commercially advertised
products and an abundance of typically American meats, and a storeroom
with a vast quantity of dry goods and canned goods
- Hallorann communicated
clairvoyantly and telepathically with Danny - it was their first "shining" experience
of psychic kinship when Danny heard him ask: "How'd you like some
ice cream, Doc?"; they both realized that the two had similar psychic
powers of clairvoyance and telepathy - a mysterious phenomenon of
ESP that Hallorann's grandmother called "the
Shining"; young Danny was advised about his self-protective
power, and when he asked about Room 237, he was strongly warned to stay out of Room 237
- "A Month Later," in
a lengthy Steadicam tracking shot, Danny pedaled
his low-riding, sturdy blue tricycle in a complete circuit around
the ground floor of the hotel; the family seemed
to have adjusted, and Jack (during breakfast in bed) told Wendy: "When
I came up here for my interview, it was as though I had been here
before"
Wendy and Danny in the Hedge Maze
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Jack's God's Eye View of Hedge Maze
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Wendy and Danny Spotted in the Center of Maze
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- Jack had set up his typewriter (with a blank piece
of paper) in the vast, empty space of the Colorado Lounge, but
was suffering from writer's block; instead of working, he spent
time vigorously throwing a tennis ball against a Native-American
tapestry hanging on the hotel's wall causing an echo; as he peered
down onto a table-top scale model of the Maze inside the room, he
seemed to see his wife and son strolling in the hedges of the Maze,
where in fact, Wendy teasingly chased after her son
- on a typical "Tuesday," "Thursday," "Saturday,"
and "Monday," a large snowstorm was predicted to be moving
in; during one of his tricycle adventures (with accompanying
sounds as the wheels hit the floor and the rug), Danny found himself
outside Room 237 with a locked door; he had a recurring very brief
vision of the twin girls in the hallway; Jack was beginning to lose
touch with reality and showing signs of a descent into madness; after
typing feverishly, he glared accusingly at Wendy with a crazed look
for interrupting him in his work, and told her to never interrupt him again
- after the snowstorm arrived, a disheveled and
unkempt Jack with an unshaven face and lobotomized eyes was staring
meaninglessly into space ("The Kubrick Stare"); Wendy learned that
their phone communications had been cut off due to the storm
- Danny experienced another vision of the two girls
who beckoned him: "Hello, Danny, Come and play with us. Come
and play with us, Danny - forever and ever and ever"; and
then he had a frightening ghostly vision
of the murdered and mutilated twin girls lying in large
pools of blood in the blood-splattered hallway, with an oversized
axe lying on the floor in front of them; but then after he covered
his eyes, the vision disappeared; he sought refuge from his imaginary
friend, Tony, and was reminded that the girls were not real (as
Mr. Hallorann had told him)
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Danny's Vision of The Dead Twins - Axed to Death
in a Hallway
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- during a halting, strained,
and distant conversation with his father, Danny hyper-intuitively
sensed his father's murderous hatred; with curved eyebrows and a
maniacal smile, Jack seemed paranoid about Wendy, but assured Danny
that he would "never do anything" to hurt him
Crazed Jack With Son Danny
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Danny Lured to the Open Door of Room 237
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Danny Appearing Bruised With a Torn Sweater
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- on "Wednesday," Danny was lured
again into the enigmatic Room 237 - with its door standing open;
meanwhile, Wendy found Jack at his typewriter in the Colorado Lounge
experiencing Grady-like, nightmarish visions of murderous atrocity:
("I dreamed that I, that I killed you and Danny. But I didn't just
kill ya. I cut you up in little pieces"); Danny also entered
the room with bruise marks on his neck and with a torn sweater,
and Wendy accusingly blamed Jack for hurting their son: ("You
did this to him, didn't you?")
- Jack wandered off into the hotel and entered The
Gold Room, where he sat at the bar and was sucked into the past -
he mentioned to himself: "God, I'd give anything for a drink.
I'd give my god-damned soul for just a glass of beer!"; after
his request (as a madman talking to himself in front of a mirror),
he conjured up a spectral, red-jacketed, chillingly sinister bartender
Lloyd (Joseph Turkel); Lloyd pandered to Jack's irresistible desire
to return to his former alcoholic ways by accepting Jack's credit
and offering free drinks within the Overlook: "Your
credit's fine, Mr. Torrance"; Jack joked about his familial
problems with Wendy, and an accidental, unintentional, "momentary
loss of muscular coordination" three years earlier when he hit
Danny in a fatherly rage
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Jack Speaking to Spectral Bartender Lloyd (Joseph
Turkel) in The Gold Room
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- Wendy interrupted Jack's reverie by rushing into
the bar carrying a baseball bat (signed by Carl Yastrzemski) and
retrieved Jack - she hysterically screamed that Danny had told her
that he had been attacked and strangled by a crazy woman within
the hotel in Room 237; Wendy summoned Jack
to investigate the off-limits Room 237
- simultaneously, in a Miami, Florida area hotel room,
Hallorann was watching TV and suddenly registered horror to his
own "shining" - a dangerous vision of an SOS call for help,
possibly communicated by a drooling Danny's psychic telepathy "shining"
ability about Room 237 in the Overlook; Hallorann was motivated to
travel to the Overlook Hotel on a rescue mission
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The Beautiful Bathtub Female in Room 237
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- after entering Room 237, Jack slowly entered the
half-closed bathroom door of the mysterious, green and orange room
and stood spellbound; he watched as a totally-nude female figure
(Lia Beldam) drew back the sheer white shower curtain, slowly rose,
and stepped from the tub - an attractive, ghostly apparition; the
illusory, beautiful bather calmly walked forward to embrace and
kiss him
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The Female Transformed Into a Old-Hag Corpse
in Room 237
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- Jack realized in his grisly hallucination (and
mirror reflection) that he was kissing a partially-decomposed corpse
- a wrinkled, thick-skinned old hag (Billie Gibson) who rose from
the bathtub; Jack back-pedaled out of the frightful room and fled
down the corridor as the cadaver shuffled toward him with her arms
extended; Jack returned to Wendy and denied that there was anything
amiss in Room 237, and suggested that Danny had committed self-harm
- later in bed, Danny, with his extra-sensory ability,
suffered from another trance; he saw the word: "REdrUM" scrawled
in red across a door, and another brief vision of the blood-flooded
hotel elevator; when Wendy suggested to Jack that they give up
their contractual arrangement with the macabre hotel and leave
- in order to get Danny out of the hotel, Jack flared up: ("I'm
not gonna let you 'f--k' this up!") and stormed off
- wandering around, Jack saw festive party balloons
and streamers in a hallway and heard
the sounds of a 1920s dance band and party revelers within the Gold
Room; it was now transformed into a nightclub ballroom filled with
spectral party-goers dressed as in The Great Gatsby era;
he proceeded to the bar, where Lloyd was still the faithful bartender,
satanically dressed with red, horn-shaped lapels on his jacket;
Jack was offered bourbon on the rocks "on-the-house" ("Hair of
the dog that bit me")
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Jack in the Gold Room With 1920s
Party-Goers and Bartender Lloyd
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- after a waiter's drinks were spilled onto Jack's
jacket, he was led to the stunningly blood-red interior of the
gentlemen's room (filled with mirrors!) by ghostly, British-accented,
quasi-cultured waiter/manservant
Delbert Grady (Philip Stone) (similar to the previous caretaker,
although Grady denied it); Jack suspected that Grady was the one
who "chopped your wife and daughters up into little bits. And then you blew your
brains out," but Grady (after admitting that he had always been
the caretaker) asserted that Jack, an ex-school teacher, had also
always been present in the hotel as its caretaker; he had served
presumably in a past life, in a different time period, or in a
previous reincarnation
- the clearly-racist Grady seduced Jack into believing
that his "willful" and "naughty" son with his
'talent' was summoning a "n----r cook" to the hotel and
needed to be reprimanded; he gave an example from his past about
how his own offensive family had also been corrected: ("My girls,
sir, they didn't care for the Overlook at first. One of them actually
stole a pack of matches, and tried to burn it down. But I corrected them,
sir. And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty, I corrected her");
Jack acquired the idea that it was also his "duty" to protect
(care-take) the well-being of the hotel by enacting a brutal, murderous
plan to kill his family
- at the same time, Wendy was contemplating taking
the Snow-cat to notify the Fire Service rangers that they were
evacuating the premises, even if Jack didn't want to join them; she
found Danny in his bedroom in a trance-like state incanting the
mantra
"Redrum," and speaking with Tony's voice, implying that his personality
had been taken over by Tony, his alter ego; meanwhile, Jack disconnected
the CB radio in the hotel manager's office
- [Note: Hallorann had made plans to fly to Denver's
airport, rent a car to drive to Boulder, and then rent a
Sno-Cat that could take him to the Overlook in the snowstorm, to
check on the Torrances ("unreliable assholes") and see whether
they needed to be replaced.]
- at "8 am," Wendy (wielding a
baseball bat) approached Jack's work den in the Colorado Lounge,
where she looked down from above onto Jack's typewriter - she saw
only a single sentence; there were endless reams of pages all with
the phrase: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" - evidence that her struggling,
self-deceptive husband was truly insane
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Wendy's Shocking Discovery of Jack's Redundant
Manuscript
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- behind her, Jack appeared
with a smiling, demonically insane, shining face, now transformed
into a doppelganger Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde; he berated her: ("Wendy,
darling, light of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya... I'm just gonna
bash your brains in"); retreating, she backed
up the stairs at the beginning of a prolonged stalking, and defensively
clobbered him with the bat (on his hand and then on
his head), and he toppled backwards; she dragged his unconscious
body by his feet into the food storeroom, and enclosed him inside,
as he begged to be released: ("Wendy, baby, I think you hurt
my head real bad. I'm dizzy. I need a doctor. Honey, don't leave
me in here"); although she was expecting to escape and
use the Sno-Cat to seek a doctor, Jack revealed to her that had cut
the Sno-Cat's distributor wires and damaged the CB radio ("You're
not goin' anywhere")
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Jack Threatening Wendy: "I'm not gonna hurt ya...
I'm just gonna bash your brains in"
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- at "4 pm," Grady released and unlocked
the locker door to let Jack out, and continued to reprimand him
to discipline his unruly family; in the Torrance apartment, Danny
methodically repeated "Redrum" in Tony's voice, and wrote "Redrum" on
their bathroom door - spelling "Murder" in the
dresser mirror's reflection; Wendy realized
that Jack was intent on murdering them
- in another memorable sequence, the crazed, demented
and bellowing Jack was now an axe-wielding homicidal madman with
a deformed limp, who approached their outer apartment door with an
axe - and after bashing through it, he looked in and declared: "Wendy,
I'm home"; Danny and Wendy retreated to their locked bathroom,
where Danny slipped out the window, but Wendy was unable to fit through
the window and was left cowering inside
- at the inner locked bathroom door, Jack compared
himself to the "Big
Bad Wolf" in the "Three Little Pigs" fairytale ("Then I'll huff
and I'll puff...") before smashing his way in with
his axe; as Wendy cowered with a knife, he again peered through the
splintered door and delivered Johnny Carson's Tonight
Show catch-phrase greeting: "Heeeeeeeere's Johnny!";
as Jack reached in to open the door handle, Wendy whacked his
hand with her sharp knife blade and drew blood
- with the sound of Hallorann's approaching Sno-Cat,
Jack retreated to stalk after the intruder in the kitchen and lobby,
to find "the outside party" that Grady had warned about;
meanwhile, Danny had come back inside to hide in a metal kitchen cabinet
- Hallorann called out: "Anybody
here?" Jack jumped out from behind a pillar, swung the axe at him, and put
it through his chest, leaving the sacrificed, murdered man lying
across a large Indian design on the floor of the lobby; Danny's
hidden location was revealed when he screamed in terror
Jack's Axe-Murder of Hallorann in the Hotel's Lobby
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- while rushing upstairs to find Danny, Wendy glanced
into one of the hotel room's open bedroom doors, and caught a
disturbing, perplexing glimpse of a sexually perverse scene from
the hotel's sordid past (a decadent sexual act of fellatio being
performed in a bedroom); she also saw Hallorann
lying bloodied in the lobby; in the hallway, a tuxedoed, bloody-faced
injured guest (Norman Gay) toasted her with a glass and a smile: "Great
party, isn't it?"; she also viewed cob-webbed skeletons
of past hotel guests seated in familiar positions; she also experienced
the vision (familiar to Danny) of the elevator doors releasing torrents
of blood
Wendy Searching in the Hotel For Danny
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Wendy Witnessing Sexual Perversion in One of the Hotel Rooms
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Ghostly, Bloodied, Injured Guest: "Great party, isn't it?"
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More Shocking Sights
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Cob-Webbed Skeletons of Past Guests
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Bloody Elevator
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- in the film's climactic conclusion, Jack hobbled
and staggered after his retreating son through the blizzard into
the outdoor garden's icy maze: ("Danny! I'm coming! You can't
get away! I'm right behind ya"); Danny
- using an old Indian trick to retrace his steps in the maze, escaped
from Jack's pursuit into Wendy's arms, and the two managed to flee
in Hallorann's Sno-cat; Jack was left to meet his demise in the
convoluted maze - where he froze to death from the cold elements
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Jack Pursuing Danny Into the Icy Hedge
Maze (Who Retraced His Steps and Escaped), and Eventually Getting
Lost and Freezing to Death
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- the closing shot was an extremely
long, zoom-in tracking through a hallway outside the Gold Room
toward one framed, b/w photograph, from the Overlook's evil time-zone,
taken during the hotel's hey-day (1921) at the July 4th Ball -
Independence Day; broadly grinning and waving, a younger-looking
Jack was revealed to be forefront in
the picture and dressed in black tie and dinner jacket; behind
him were ghostly revelers all dressed in smart, 1920s formal evening
garb; Jack completely embodied the spirit
of the massacre of innocents
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The Opening Title Credits Following a Yellow Car Toward a Colorado Resort
Jack's Family: Wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall)
7 Year-Old Danny (Danny
Lloyd) - With Imaginary Friend Tony in Mirror
The Torrance Family Driving to Jack's New Job at the Hotel
The Exterior of the Hotel
Tour of the Hotel's Grounds
Wendy and Danny with Head Chef Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) in the
Kitchen
Steadi-Cam Tracking Shot of Danny on His Tri-Cycle
Jack's Blank Page of Paper in His Typewriter
Another Cycle Trip For Danny Around the Hotel
Danny At Room 237 - Door Locked
Jack Feverishly Typing at His Typewriter
Crazed Look on Jack's Face When Glaring at Wendy
Jack Staring Off Into Space ("The Kubrick Stare")
Jack's Nightmare of Murdering His Family
Hallorann in a Hotel Room in Miami, Florida
Hallorann Receiving Danny's "Shining" Warning About the Hotel
Danny's Further Vision of "REdrUM" (or MURDER)
In the Gentlemen's Room To Be Cleaned Up by Mr. Delbert Grady - Suspected
to be the Hotel's Previous Homicidal Caretaker
Danny Incanting the Mantra "Redrum" and Speaking Trance-Like with Tony's
Voice ("Danny's not here...")
Danny Writing "Redrum" on Their Bathroom Door - Reflected in a Mirror
as "Murder"
Jack Using an Axe to Enter Their Outer Locked Apartment Door
"Wendy, I'm home!"
Jack Knocking on the Locked Bathroom Door - and Enacting the "Three Little
Pigs" Fairytale
Jack's Bathroom Door-Smashing Axe Attack on Wendy: "Here's Johnny!"
Jack in Pursuit of Danny After Murdering Hallorann
The Ending: The Zoom-In to a 1921 Photograph, With Jack in the Forefront
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