Show notes
This week, we are reviewing the prequel to Doctor Sleep, Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece, and Stephen King's least favorite adaptation of his work: The Shining. Plue we have a big announcement in "It Came From Social Media" and play another round of "Horror or Porno".
https://youtu.be/5Cb3ik6zP2I
Synopsis of The Shining
The Shining is the tale of an aspiring writer Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) taking his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and son Danny (Some kid named Danny) to The Overlook Hotel. It lies secluded, deep within the heavily forested mountains of Colorado. He is hired to be the caretaker of The Overlook in the winter off-season. While there he intends to write the next great american novel whose protagonist is worn down by the pressures of capitalism and the lack of leisure time. Meanwhile Danny Torrence is tutored by a magical negro about Danny’s ability to see the future and read minds. Also, the hotel is haunted and Jack goes crazy. Do you really not know the plot to THE SHINING?
https://youtu.be/WJfhB3Vj_G8
Review of The Shining
OK, here we go. I appreciate this movie. It is one of Kubrick’s masterpieces. It’s visually stunning and meticulously crafted. It’s undeniably an great and important movie.
I just don’t like it.
It’s slow. The characters are empty shells of people that lack most semblance of humanity and motivation, other than to:
be scared, or
be menacing.
To be frank, I couldn’t figure out what was going on and why most of the time. The book was better.
COME AT ME HORROR FANS, I don’t like your precious SHINING.
Original artwork by Dustin Goebel whose Instagram you should follow @Dgoebel00
Score for The Shining
Score 8/10
FIGHT ME.
(It should be noted that this is the opinion of only one of the hosts of Horror Movie Talk, David gives it a 10/10)
The ShiningAdd The Shining to your collection or rent the full movie on Amazon.Buy/Rent from Amazon
Spoilers for The Shining
Expand for Spoilers
Differences Between the Book and the Film
The start out, I wanted to talk about the differences between the book The Shining, and the movie The Shining.
Dick Halloran
In the book, Dick Halloran lives and ends up being instrumental in saving Wendy and Danny
In the film, Dick gets pretty much instantly murdered, and only helps circumstantially by bringing up the snow cat.
The Overlook
The hotel is a real entity in the book, it is very literally trying to consume the Torrence family
In the film, the hotel seems to be haunted and there are hints that it is steering Jack, but the connection between Jack's psychosis and the hotel is unclear.
Tony
Tony in the book is Danny's "imaginary friend" that talks to him and shows him things. But really, Tony is a spirit that is more of a guardian angel.
In the film Tony is... What is tony? He seems to be Danny's subconscience or a spirit possessing him... or something.
Hedge Animals (The one welcome change)
In the book, there were a bunch of topiary animals that would move and eventually attack Wendy, Danny, and Dick.
In the film, the hedge animals don't exist, but there is a hedge maze, which figures into the ending.
The Ending
In the book, Jack is distracted by trying to kill his family and forgets to release pressure from the aging boiler in the basement. As a result, the boiler explodes, ripping a hole through the Overlook, and causing it to be burned down to the ground.
In the film, Jack gets lost in the hedge maze and freezes to death.
https://youtu.be/uGOd_cM_voY
Needless to say, Stephen King wasn't a huge fan of the film.
Differences in the Doctor Sleep Movie/Book
The differences are very interesting given that a sequel to the book and a sequel to the movie were created.
So the sequel to the book The Shining includes Dick Halloran being a personal mentor to Danny, and the Overlook no longer existing.
The sequel to the movie uses the source material from the book sequel, but doesn't have the physical presence of Dick, and does have the Overlook still standing in it. Considering the problems that presents, Mike Flanagan does a great job.
https://www.horrormovietalk.com/2019/11/06/doctor-sleep-review/
Speaking of the sequel, check out our review of Doctor Sleep from last week.
It goes without saying that Jack Nicholson is fantastic in this film. He is 100% Jack.
Shelly Duvall is also iconic in this film. She is also the weirdest proportioned human being on film imo.
The Good Bits
There are a few shining moments in this film, where people act like humans. They are:
Wendy speaking to the pediatrician, and
Dick Halloran speaking with Danny about the shining.
Music is also a huge part of what makes this film work. The score is filled with mid-20th century composers like György Ligeti , Krzysztof Penderecki, and Béla Bartók. The aleatoric music of Penderecki has in particular become the de facto style of modern horror films.
The Confusing Parts
I still have questions about this film. I've read the book, which filled in most of the gaps, but really it's a completely different story. So here are a few things that I still don't understand what Kubrick was going for:
What causes Jack to go insane?
What purpose do the ghosts serve in the hotel? To be spooky?
What’s up with Tony? Is Danny Possessed? Is it Danny’s Subconcience?
The sexual stuff… why?
Why does Dick come back?
Why is Jack in that photo at the end?
So really, my beef with this movie is that there isn't a lot ofconnective tissue, or rather, it does a really bad job of answering "why" things happen.
Final Recommendations
Definitely see The Shining if you haven't. It is a really important and influential film in the genre and in filmmaking as a whole. However, be prepared to be disappointed that it doesn't live up to the hype, and like me, you find it slow and emotionally cold.
Horror Movie Talk Episode 71: The Shining Review Transcript
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This episode of horror movie talk is brought to you by better get help dot com. If there's something interfering with your happiness or preventing you from achieving your goals, better get help. Online counseling can help. They offer license professional counselors her specialized in issues like depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, anger, rage, seething hatred, family conflicts, hallucinations, LGBT Q matters, grief, homicidal psychopathy and more. You're gonna get help on your own time and at your own pace, and anything that you share is absolutely confidential. And if for some reason you're not happy with your counselor or if you end up killing your whole family, you can request a new counselor at any time at no additional charge. Best of all, it's truly affordable for our listeners who use the special code HMT a checkout. You'll receive a free act sharpener mail to you when you sign up so get started today. That's better. Get help dot com Hello and welcome to horror movie talk and opinionated and accidentally funny Horror Movie review Show your panel of expert hosts each week are Dr Bryce Hansen, who holds a phD in spook ology, and Professor David Day, the foremost expert on scare. No nose. New theatrical releases always get priority. But we also review older horror movies both good and horrible. I'm Bryce Hanson, and I'm Davide. And we have a special special special guest today. Our friend Aaron Hanson, our friend. Aaron. How are you doing, Aaron? Doing good. Thanks for Kevin. How dare you? Bryce knows I have a new toy, and he's being the the child that we all know he is and denying the use of it. He's not gonna allow me to do my my my sound effects. Yeah. So we're gonna have a lot of clips today because David has has his computer set up now drops. Oh, we're at risk of too much entertainment. No, no. Watch out. Is the fun patrol. Okay, so, uh, we've got a great episode today. I'm super excited about this one. Before we get into it. Let's talk about our website. It's at horror movie talk dot com. Please go there and you'll find past episodes and posts and block post of a horror movie topics and also links to our social media. You can follow us on Facebook. Twitter, instagram, tic tac picked on YouTube you to Lincoln Din. Just search for horror movie talk or horror movie talk podcasting. He'll find us there. We post new episodes every Wednesday. So please subscribe and leave a rating on iTunes. We're trying to get up to 200 ASAP, and we're at, you know, 48 right now. So, uh, you ready? If you leave a rating that it is a big impact on our visibility. So what are we gonna talk about? We're gonna talk about the Shining. Have been So I've been so like, excited for and dreading this episode because Bryce Bryce is not a a cubic fan, and, uh, I don't know. I'm just I'm just worried. I'm just worried about how this will go. Don't worry. Okay. Ah, we'll start out giving a brief review and our score for the movie. We score on a scale of 1 to 10 1 being a miserable dredge where it makes you angry. Five being an average film that hits all the expected marks and 10 being so good it transcends genre boundaries. After we give our score will get into spoilers and take a deeper dive in one into what we liked and hated about the film. Um, you know, it's the shining. So if you're if you're worried about spoilers, yeah, I mean, you know, really shouldn't. Why are you listening to this show? Should have watched it by now. Right? It's been years on kind of What kind of pathetic person hasn't seen the shining It? I mean what? I mean, no one in this room, right? Yeah. We've all seen the Shining. Yeah, later will be doing a couple special special bits. I'm really excited about this one we're going to do it came from social Media, where we'll read a couple comments from our social media feeds on people reaching out to us. And then, yes,...
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