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The 1980s Horror Film: The Shining

487 Words2 Pages

One of my relatively favored films that I watch continuously every Halloween season is the

1980 horror film The Shining. This movie consists of drama, horror, mystery and suspense, produced

and directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick himself and novelist Stephen Edwin King. The Shining

focused on the broad strokes of the original Stephen King story, while the visuals, atmosphere, tone,

and sheer terror of the moments Stanley Kubrick caught on film were more than enough to scare most

people to the bone. That's the lasting impression that was left. The twins, the hotel itself and the way it

was shot, the isolation, the eerie transformation of Jack, the room 237, the blood pouring out of the

elevator and flooding the hall, Jack wanting to sabotage his wife and son …show more content…

With wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and psychic

son Danny (Danny Lloyd) in town, frustrated writer Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as the

winter caretaker at the opulently ominous, mountain-locked Overlook Hotel so that he can write in

peace. Before the Overlook is vacated for the Torrances, the manager (Barry Nelson) encounters with

Jack to inform him that a previous caretaker went crazy and slaughtered his family during the winter of

1970. Jack thinks it's no problem, but Danny's "shining" hints otherwise. Settling into their routine,

Danny cruises through the empty corridors on his Big Wheel and plays in the topiary maze with

Wendy, while Jack sets up shop in a cavernous lounge with strict orders not to be disturbed. Danny's

alter ego, "Tony," however, starts warning of murder as Danny is plagued by more blood-soaked

visions of the past, and a blocked Jack starts visiting the hotel bar for a few visions of his own.

Frightened by her husband's amoral behavior and Danny's visit to the forbidding Room 237,

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