Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
It’s hard to name a more iconic modern horror film than Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
“Here’s Johnny.” “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” The dead girls. The ax. The hedge maze. The dog suit. The bloody elevators. The snow. The music. The way the camera glides down hallways, like a nightmare that draws you unwillingly deeper and deeper into the dark.
The Shining is so iconic, it’s easy to forget that the initial response to the film was more of a shrug. After a fraught, over-budget and over-schedule shoot (which so stressed out Shelley Duvall that her hair began to fall out), The Shining was released to weak box office (it improved as it went) and mixed reviews (both Kubrick and Duvall were nominated by those Razzie assholes). Stephen King was vocal about his discontent with the way Kubrick had adapted his story, so much so that he would eventually write and produce a TV miniseries that adapted the book in a way that King felt was appropriate (this miniseries does not get brought up very often these days, presumably out of politeness).
Kubrick continued to mess with the film after its release, yanking an epilogue from prints that were already playing in theaters. The North American responses was so tepid, Kubrick slashed an additional 25 minutes from the film (including an early scene where Duvall’s Wendy Torrance talks with a doctor and establishes that Nicholson’s Jack Torrance is a recovering alcoholic) for the European release.
The Shining’s difficult birth doesn’t much matter these days. It’s an entrenched classic of genre film and Kubrick’s oeuvre, not to mention one of the most obsessively discussed and dissected horror films (and maybe films, period) ever, with everything from critical essays discussing the impossible interior layout of The Overlook Hotel, to conspiracy theories that Kubrick used The Shining as a means to covertly confess to having faked the Apollo moon-landing.
The Shining has haunted audiences for almost 40 years, and certainly seems set to confound, disturb and terrorize for another 40 more. But does this film merit such fascination, or were the audiences of 1980 right to leave it out in the cold?
With the release of the highly-anticipated King adaptation It, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to put the question to our readers and team!
Next Week’s Pick:
Adam Wingard attracted attention among genre fans for his riotous thrillers like You’re Next and The Guest, but the release of his Death Note, adapted from a popular Japanese manga and anime, has proven controversial.
How does Death Note stack up against Wingard’s earlier films? Should he have made it in the first place? How does Death Note work as a standalone movie?
YOU TELL US.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight Thursday!
Our Guests
Travis Warren:
The Shining, is in my opinion, the greatest horror film ever made. It’s my favorite Stanley Kubrick film. Every time I watch it, it refuses to leave my mind for days afterwards. I find the film endlessly fascinating. Each rewatch reveals new layers.
Lauren Humphries-Brooks
The Shining probably holds the distinction of being the most oft-debated horror film, an art-house haunting that has been claimed by the high and low brow alike. Stephen King doesn’t like it, but who really cares? He doesn’t have to. What other horror film has the distinction of having so many different theories abound about its meaning? From the absolute batshit interpretations in Room 237, to more academically viable readings that range from Freudian to feminist to straight adaptation, The Shining is a deeply rich movie in addition to being, at base, a damn good horror film.
What I love about The Shining is that it is such a rich piece of horror. And it is horror, at horror’s best: artistic, lurid, and deeply disturbing. It externalizes the characters’ psychology, turning the haunted hotel into a sort of cerebral maze of the subconscious. Is all the nastiness Jack’s suppressed violence manifested? Is it Danny’s potential schizophrenia made real? Is it a horror that feeds on the violent subconscious of the people that inhabit the hotel? Or is it all of the interpretations together, rendered in cruel and loving detail by a filmmaker who meticulously arranges each scene to be as disconcerting as possible? Thankfully, The Shining doesn’t try to answer all the questions it posits, instead plunging the viewer into a giallo-tinged fever dream that melds the natural and supernatural worlds. It leaves us asking what the hell happened and desperate to return to the Overlook, just one more time. (@lhbizness)
The Team
Stanley Kubrick, like many of the “greats” is a bit of a mixed bag for me. His genius is undeniable but several of his films don’t fully resonate with me. I’ve seen everything he’s done beginning with and including The Killing, other than Paths of Glory. While I only truly loathe one of his films, several of them do little for me. On the other hand, A Clockwork Orange is in my top 10 films of all time and I really enjoy a good few others.
With The Shining, I always thought it was a good film. I’d thought for some time that I needed a rewatch to determine the thoughts of the 35 year old father — with a good deal more life experience and film knowledge — that I’ve become. After this needed push to rewatch it, a few things jump out: the gorgeous shots that make up this film, the incredible sound design and use of the soundtrack, and the incredible performances.
Do these things add up to this being a truly great film? I think so… but I need one more watch before I go there. Thankfully, the winter is around the corner and I’m feeling like that’s the time to take on the task of reading the classic King novel rewatching this, and watching the miniseries to fully develop my thoughts.
Whether a good film or a great one, The Shining belongs in the “hits” column rather than the “misses”, reminding me that some of Kubrick’s intense genius is truly undeniable. Thus, I wholly endorse descending into madness with the Torrance family, whether for the first or fifteenth time. (@ThePaintedMan)
I like The Shining. The Shining is a good movie. A great one.
But as I have gotten older and gotten more comfortable in my own tastes, it’s easier to admit that Kubrick’s aesthetic really isn’t to my personal taste, even as his technical mastery is beyond reproach. The Shining is so distant as to be virtually alien, so cold as to be barely alive. This is exacerbated by Jack Nicholson’s turn towards self-parody in the second half of his career, as Jack Torrance’s flights of mania and deranged glances come off as laughable instead of disturbing and unsettling.
Again, none of this should be seen as a real knock against The Shining. There’s a reason it’s a vaunted classic of this genre and so beloved. But for me, a big part of why horror works is down to an empathetic connection with the characters at the center of whatever monstrous happenings are happening, and not only does The Shining not bother with that, it actively works to obstruct it, creating possibly the single least appealing and sympathetic cast of characters in cinema history. It’s like an entire family of Franklins from Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
The Shining is a masterpiece of mood, of atmosphere, of dread, of subtextual meaning and suggestion. But, for me personally as a viewer, it’s missing on the most important quality to take a film to that next level of adoration.(@TheTrueBrendanF)
2013 was my Year of Kubrick. At that point I’d seen about half of his films and decided to just hit every single one, more or less in order (to accommodate theatrical screenings) and close up a gap in my cinematic experience. I’ve always liked The Shining (beginning with my introduction via The Simpsons) and can say pretty confidently that it’s my second favorite of his works, trailing only Paths Of Glory. The bizarro documentary Room 237 certainly gave me a lot to consider (as well as laugh at and immediately ignore), but clearly this is a movie that gets people’s mental gears moving.
But ignoring all the theories and conjectures, this is still most importantly a masterful horror-thriller with a palpable tension and mood as the viewer is faced with events that could be the hallucinations of madness or contact with the supernatural — maybe both. A slow descent into madness gives way to a frenetic and chilling finale — an astute trick of pacing for the material.
Nicholson’s role as the mentally cracking patriarch is rightfully acclaimed, but Shelley Duvall and Scatman Crothers are equally incredible as the harried wife and intervening telepath. (@VforVashaw)
Watch it on Netflix:
Next week’s pick:
