Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Shining

Released Year: 1980
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Casted by:
Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance
Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance
Danny Lloyd as Danny Torrance
Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann
Story:
Jack Torrance arrives at the Overlook Hotel to interview for the open position of winter caretaker, with the aim of using the hotel's solitude to work on his writing. The hotel itself is built on the site of an Indian burial ground and becomes completely snowbound during the long winters. Manager Stuart Ullman warns him that a previous caretaker got cabin fever and killed his family and himself. Jack’s son, Danny, has ESP and has had a terrifying premonition about the hotel. Jack's wife, Wendy, tells a visiting doctor that Danny has an imaginary friend called Tony and that Jack had given up drinking because he had physically abused Danny after a binge.

The family arrives at the hotel on closing day and is given a tour. The elderly African-American chef Dick Hallorann surprises Danny by speaking to him telepathically and offering him some ice cream. He explains to Danny that he and his grandmother shared the gift, which he calls "shining." Danny asks if there is anything to be afraid of in the hotel, particularly Room 237. Hallorann tells Danny that the hotel itself has a "shine" to it along with many memories, not all of which are good. He tells Danny to stay out of room 237.

A month passes and Jack's writing project is going nowhere. Meanwhile, Danny and Wendy have fun and go in the hotel's hedge maze; Jack discovers a model of this maze, showing Wendy and Danny inside it, in one of the hotel lounges. Wendy is concerned about the phone lines being out due to the heavy snowfall and Danny has more frightening visions. As time passes, Jack becomes frustrated and slowly starts acting strangely, prone to violent outbursts. Danny’s curiosity about Room 237 finally gets the better of him when he sees the room has been opened. Later, Danny shows up injured and visibly traumatized, causing Wendy to think that Jack has been abusing Danny. Jack wanders into the hotel’s Gold Room where he meets a ghostly bartender named Lloyd who serves him bourbon on the rocks. Jack complains to the bartender about his relationship with Wendy. Afterward, Wendy shows up and informs him that Danny told her a "crazy woman in one of the rooms" was responsible for his injuries. Jack investigates Room 237 and has an encounter with the ghost of a dead woman there, but tells Wendy he saw nothing. Wendy and Jack argue about whether Danny should be removed from the hotel and Jack returns to the Gold Room, now filled with ghosts having a costume party. Here, he meets who he believes is the ghost of the previous caretaker, Grady, who tells Jack that he must "correct" his wife and child. Later, Jack sabotages the hotel's two-way radio and the snowcat, cutting off both communication with and access to the outside world.

Meanwhile, in Florida, Dick Hallorann gets a premonition that something is wrong at the hotel and takes a flight back to Colorado to investigate. Danny starts calling out "redrum" frantically and goes into a trance, now referring to himself as "Tony." Wendy discovers Jack's typewriter and that he has been typing endless pages of manuscript repeating "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" formatted in various styles. Horrified, she confronts Jack, but he threatens her before she knocks him unconscious with a baseball bat and locks him in a kitchen pantry. Jack converses through the door with Grady, who then unlocks the door, releasing him.

Danny has written "REDRUM" in lipstick on the door of Wendy’s bedroom. When Wendy sees this in a mirror, she sees that the letters spell out "MURDER". Jack, armed with a fire axe, then begins to chop through the door leading to his family's living quarters. Wendy frantically sends Danny out through the bathroom window, but cannot fit through it herself. Jack then starts chopping down the bathroom door with the axe and leers through the hole he has made, shouting "Here's Johnny!", but backs off after Wendy slashes his hand with a butcher knife. Hearing the engine of a snowcat Hallorann has borrowed to get up the mountain, Jack leaves the room and begins to wander about the hotel, ambushing and killing Hallorann with the axe in the lobby. Wendy escapes the bathroom and flees through the hotel, but encounters several ghosts along the way. Meanwhile, Jack pursues Danny into the hedge maze by following his footprints, but is misled when Danny manages to walk backwards in his own tracks and leaps behind a corner, covering his tracks with snow. Wendy and Danny escape in Hallorann's snowcat while Jack slowly freezes to death in the hedge maze.

In the final scene, the camera slowly zooms in on an old photograph taken at the hotel on July 4, 1921 as Midnight, the Stars, and You is played through the hallways. A smiling Jack Torrance is at the front of the crowd of revelers.
L² Scored: 9/10

L² Comment:
Love watching this film, it always spook me out... got a lot of goosebumps when i see it, maybe the movie's music is making the whole movie works :)

From the novel of Stephen Kings, but the writer doubt about the film and does not really love it that time but this movie is getting a bit hit in 1980. Shelley Duvall looks weird but kinda high fashion face :P Jack Nicholson in another hand is always one of my favorite actor. An epic movie which u should not miss in your lifetime...

1 comment:

  1. I once saw a Sylvester-Tweety cartoon that had almost the exact same plot as "The Shining".

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