Here's the second part of my horror leftovers--and one I initially skipped over because, well, look at it. It's Kubrick's horror masterpiece, one discussed and analyzed for forty years now. Every famous shot has become icon, parodied and homaged enough times to eclipse the other fifty-six billion Stephen King works and adaptations that have sometimes tried to step before its shadow. And yet, I do have something to say about how, for me, there is that one moment that really exemplifies why it's considered such a masterpiece of scintillating scariness. So the heck with it--here's my short but succinct look at The Shining.
You probably know the setup. Jack Torrance, played by the devilishly awesome Jack Nicholson, takes his family up to the Overlook Hotel to be its stewards for the winter. Compared to his counterpart in the King original, Jack is far less sympathetic, but Nicholson takes you right in with his performance of rising looniness. When he's ranting to a spectral bartender, there's that dishevelled, bug-eyed, growling manicness that only he could pull off--coming a few years after One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where he pretended to be a nut with some guts, this time saw him going all the way.
But before that, we of course get Kubrick showing off his photography chops with the opening shot of the mountain landscape--even today with drone cams it'd probably be quite something to pull off. The film is a slow burn for modern audiences--and it may even seem a tad hokey for some, at first. There's some vague murmuring between Scatman Cothers' character and youngster Danny Lloyd about the latter's apparent psychic superpowers--which is all overshadowed by Jack's ghost-encouraged descent. The title cards punctuation the days are slightly awkward, with their apparent attempt at jumpscares of all things.
Then we get to the Room 237 sequence. Here, Jack, starting to go over the edge as he openly declares his resentment to his family, decides to investigate the hotel room that seems to be the source of Danny's fright. This, to me, is a masterclass in horror filmmaking. Kubrick hits a note of rising tension, driving it in like a knife into your back, and never lets up. A lot of modern horror tries the sudden and fast route of flashing some nonsense in your face going oogah-boogah, and more often than not just incites laughter that fades with a momentary spike of adrenaline. But a real master doesn't compromise--no, Kubrick knows you're not comfortable, and he's all too happy that way. He instead just keeps driving it up--some may chuckle at first, but when that same skin-twisting note continues, and in fact rises, the laughter that may come with some lame latter-day Paranormal Activity jump scare is nowhere to be found. It's weird, it's grotesque, and it's just getting started.
The latter part of the film is where all the fun is to be had--as Jack's sanity finally slips, ghostly images come out to play, and you're invited in to join the madness. We all know the famous line as Jack chops his way through the doors--one that was improvized, no less, and up against a strict personality like Kubrick it's a relief it got in there--but everything around is no less a perfectly paced rollercoaster as Danny and his mother Shelley Duval try to survive. Honestly, for anyone who's had a good paternal relationship, seeing this, where a loving parent turns homicidal, it's even more harrowing, drawing on those primal childhood fears of a patriarch turned punisher. The superb long shots down the corridors just add to the overbearing feel of it all.
That's my personal natterings on The Shining, and what it represents to me. It takes a while to really snap, but when it does, it reminds you why, four decades later, it's still held up. There was a TV remake--or re-adaptation, if you prefer--sponsored by King, hewing closer to the next, which nobody remembers. And, more recently, there was Doctor Sleep--which, by the standards of latter-day Stephen King films wasn't half bad I felt, but definitely lacked the masterwork of direction Kubrick provided. Sure, some moments are a little shaky, sure some of the imagery might inspire more confused chuckles, but when Nicholson turns on his crazy eyes, ones even his Joker would recoil from, that all ceases to matter. For me, just an everyday man turned insane feels that much more disturbing than any supernatural killer clown--and this is the film that proves just why.
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