Movie Review – The Shining (1980)

A couple of weeks ago I finished reading The Shining, Stephen King‘s classic tale involving the supernatural and an isolated hotel in the Rocky Mountains.

The book was great, and I’ve been having a desire to see the 1980 movie based on the book.  I’ve only see parts of the movie here and there, and that was many years ago.  I’ve never seen the whole movie from start to finish.  After finishing (and thoroughly enjoying the book), it was a matter of taking the time to watch the movie.

Directed by film legend Stanley Kubrick, The Shining stars Jack Nicholson in the lead role of Jack Torrance, a writer and recovering alcoholic who accepts the job of a winter caretaker at a prestigious mountain resort.  Supporting him are Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance, Jack’s wife, and Danny Lloyd as Danny Torrance, Jack and Wendy’s young son who happens to have a special skill with his mind.

The film also features Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann, Philip Stone as Delbert Grady, and Joe Turkel as Lloyd, a friendly bartender who gladly serves Jack his drinks.

The Shining begins with Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) arriving at the Overlook Hotel in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, and interviewing for the position of the winter caretaker.  Stuart Ullman (Barry Nelson) likes Jack and hires him for the position even though Jack does not have any experience.  Jack informs him that he’s looking for change, and working at the hotel will allow him to continue working as a writer.

During the interview, Ullman tells Jack that Charles Grady, the previous winter caretaker, fell victim to cabin fever, and he murdered his wife and their two daughters.  This doesn’t seem to be a concern for Jack.

Back in Boulder, Colorado, Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd), the young son of Jack and Wendy, is talking to his imaginary friend Tony when he has a premonition about the Overlook Hotel.  Danny collapses and wakes up in bed and being examined by a doctor.  The doctor examines the boy and thinks that he’s fine.

When the doctor sits down with Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) and they talk about Danny, Wendy admits that Jack injured Danny a couple of years ago, but it wasn’t intentional.  She tells the doctor about how Danny messed up his dad’s office, and Jack accidentally broke Danny’s arm when he disciplined him.

After Jack is hired for the position of winter caretaker, he drives his wife and son to the Overlook Hotel.  They arrive just as the last guests are leaving and the hotel is closing for the winter.  Ullman greets the family and gives them a tour of the massive resort.  He briefly explains the hotel’s history, and he mentions that it was built on top of a Native American burial ground.

The Torrance family meets Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), the Overlook’s head chef.  Dick gives Wendy and Danny a tour of the vast kitchen as well as the provisions stored in the freezer and pantry.  There’s enough food stored at the hotel to feed an army.  While giving the tour, Dick notices that there’s something special about Danny.

Dick treats Danny to a bowl of ice cream.  He then tells the boy about his ability to communicate telepathically with people.  Dick used to hold entire telepathic conversations with his grandmother when he was younger.  He calls this gift “the shining.”  Danny doesn’t want to talk about his ability to “shine,” though he doesn’t explain why.  Dick warns Danny that the Overlook Hotel also has an ability to “shine,” and it has many memories.  He also warns Danny to stay out of Room 237.

The Torrances settle into the Overlook and fully explore the interior and exterior of the building.  Outside of the hotel is an impressive hedge maze, and there’s even a model of the maze inside of the hotel.  Meanwhile, it’s soon going to snow and further isolate the family from the rest of society, and Danny repeatedly has terrifying visions of ghosts.

Jack continues his work as a writer, but he becomes increasingly frustrated when he becomes stuck and has writers’ bloc.  His behavior becomes violent and he’s prone to violent outbursts when he’s interrupted or disturbed while working.

Sure enough, the snow finally falls and the phone lines are cut.  Wendy learns how to operate the radio and communicate with the local sheriff’s department.

Later, while Danny is riding around the hotel on his tricycle, he notices that Room 237 is unlocked and the door is partially open.  Danny decides to give in to his curiosity and enter the room, going against the warning from Dick Hallorann.

Moments later Wendy discovers Jack asleep at his typewriter and screaming from a nightmare.  After she wakes him, Jack tells her about his dream of killing her and Danny.  Just then Danny walks up to his parents.  He’s in a daze as he had been violently attacked and beaten.  Wendy instantly thinks that Jack was the one who hurt Danny.

As Wendy cares for Danny, Jack wanders to the bar in the hotel’s Gold Room.  When Jack and Wendy were being given a tour of the hotel by Stuart Ullman, Ullman mentioned that all of the alcohol was removed when the hotel closed for the winter.  It was an insurance policy.  But now the bar was fully stocked, and to top it off, a bartender named Lloyd (Joe Turkel) is on duty.  Lloyd knows Jack and gladly serves him his alcoholic drinks.

Danny sends a telepathic blast to Dick Hallorann down in Miami, Florida.  It’s a distress call.  An S-O-S.

A short while later, Wendy finds jack and tells him that there’s a stranger somewhere in the hotel.  She tells him that Danny told her that he was attacked by an old women in Room 237.  Jack then goes and investigates, and he encounters a beautiful naked woman in the room.  Suddenly the woman changes into an old, partially decomposed woman, and Jack flees the room in terror.  Jack then tells Wendy that there was nothing in Room 237.  The two of them get into an argument about Danny’s safety, and Jack retreats back to the Gold Room.

This time there’s an extravagant party taking place inside of the Gold Room.  It’s a party straight from the 1920s.  When a waiter named Delbert Grady (Philip Stone) accidentally spills a drink on Jack’s jacket, he takes Jack into the men’s room to help get him clean.  Inside of the men’s room, Jack admits that he recognized Grady from a newspaper article.  Jack knows that this is the same Grady who was caretaker last year and went crazy, killing his family and himself.  In other words, Grady, and the rest of the people at the party, are ghosts.

Grady informs Jack that he (Jack) has always been the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel.  He also explains that Danny has been attempting to communicate telepathically with Dick Hallorann and bring him to the hotel.  Grady tells Jack that Danny’s mental talent is a threat, and he and Wendy need “a good talking to,” just like Grady did to his own daughters.  Grady also admits to “correcting” his wife’s behavior as well.

After Dick recovers from the strong telepathic blast, he calls the sheriff’s department and asks them to use the radio to check on the family staying in the Overlook Hotel.  When the officers are unable to communicate with them, Dick boards a flight and flies from Miami to Denver.  He then borrows a snowcat and makes the snowy trek to the Overlook.

Meanwhile, Jack disables the radio as well as the Overlook’s snowcat.  He then seeks out his wife and son.

Wendy is wandering the hotel when she discovers the manuscript that Jack has been writing for the past couple of months.  His entire work is a single phrase repeated over and over, “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy“.  She’s then surprised by Jack, and Wendy uses a baseball bat to defend herself.  Wendy knocks out Jack and drags him into the pantry.  The door is locked and Jack awakens, trapped inside of the room full of food.  He begs and pleads for Wendy to release him, but she refuses.  Wendy then leaves Jack and returns to Danny inside of their apartment in the hotel.

A short while later the ghost of Grady speaks to Jack through the locked door.  He informs Jack that “others” now have doubt in Jack’s abilities to “correct” his wife as she had gotten the better of him.  Jack convinces Grady that he’s still the person for the job, and Grady unlocks the door, freeing Jack from the pantry.

In the apartment, Danny goes into a trance and continues repeating the word “redrum”.  He takes his mother’s lipstick and writes “REDRUM” on a door.  Wendy wakes and sees Danny holding a knife and saying “redrum” over and over.  She panics when she looks into a mirror and sees that “REDRUM” is reflected as “MURDER“.

Just then Jack takes an axe and starts chopping through the apartment’s locked door.  Wendy and Danny run and hide in the bathroom.  Wendy opens a tiny window and has Danny escape through it and run outside.  Jack enters the apartment and then starts chopping the bathroom door, terrifying his wife in the process.  He breaks open a hole and yells, “Here’s Johnny!”  When Jack reaches inside and tries to unlock the door, Wendy slashes with her knife and cuts Jack’s hand.

Suddenly Jack’s attack stops.  Wendy stands there waiting and listening for him, but he’s nowhere to be found.

At that point Dick Hallorann has arrived at the hotel.  When he walks around and looks for Danny, Jack attacks him with the axe and kills him.  Jack then goes outside and follows Danny into the hedge maze.  When Wendy later runs through the hotel, she discovers Dick’s dead body as well as a bunch of skeletons.

Danny runs through the hedge maze and stays a step ahead of his crazed, axe-wielding father.  He ultimately makes a set of false footprints in the snow, and Jack loses track of Danny.  The boy is able to slip away while Jack wanders through the hedge maze and slowly freezes to death.

The Shining ends with Wendy and Danny using Dick Hallorann’s snowcat to escape from the Overlook Hotel.  A camera moves through the hotel and shows us an old photograph from a party held in 1921.  In the middle of the photo is a man closely resembling Jack Torrance.

Is Jack Torrance a reincarnation of an original worker at the hotel?

Did the Overlook Hotel “absorb” Jack and make him a part of its history?

FINAL THOUGHTS

Is 1980’s The Shining a good horror movie?

There’s little doubt that The Shining is a fantastic movie.  It’s visually appealing, the Overlook Hotel is creepy, Jack Nicholson’s performance is superb, and there’s a touch of both horror and the supernatural.

The Shining is not a slasher film.  Nor is this really a paranormal film.  This movie centers on Jack Torrance and how, with the help of ghosts urging him, he goes psychotic and tries to brutally murder his family.

Fans of Stephen King’s original novel might be a little disappointed with the 1980 movie.  Although the film follows many aspects of the spirit of the story, several major differences include:

• The development of Danny’s ability to “shine” and him restoring his father’s sanity at the end of the book, although by that point it’s too late.
• The omission of the hotel’s broiler (the broiler explodes at the end of the book, and it destroys the hotel) as well as the topiary animals that come to life and attack people.
• The changing of Room 217 to Room 237.
• Omission of the scrapbook, the main item that causes Jack to further investigate the bloody history of the hotel and become possessed by it.

Those are just some of the differences between the book and the movie.  When you read the book and then watch the film, you’ll see even more changes.  Of course, this happens to many novels that are later made into full-length movies.

The Shining is a horror film best enjoyed at night and in a dark room.  You have to pay attention to this film to get the most out of it, especially when Jack has conversations with the ghosts.

The Shining (1980) – movie trailer

Although The Shining may be fairly tame for today’s audiences, this is still a high-quality film worthy of your attention.  If you enjoy horror films, then you absolutely must see 1980’s The Shining.

Grady Daughters – “Hello, Danny. Come and play with us. Come and play with us, Danny. Forever… and ever… and ever.”

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Lloyd – “Women: can’t live with them, can’t live without them.”
Jack Torrance – “Words of wisdom, Lloyd my man. Words of wisdom.”

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Delbert Grady – “Your son has a very great talent. I don’t think you are aware how great it is. That he is attempting to use that very talent against your will.”
Jack Torrance – “He is a very willful boy.”
Delbert Grady – “Indeed he is, Mr. Torrance. A very willful boy. A rather naughty boy, if I may be so bold, sir.”
Jack Torrance – “It’s his mother. She, uh, interferes.”
Delbert Grady – “Perhaps they need a good talking to, if you don’t mind my saying so. Perhaps a bit more. 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.”

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Danny Torrance – “Redrum. Redrum. REDRUM!”

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Jack Torrance – “Heeere’s Johnny!”