Horror movies have been and continue to scare and frighten those who watch and pay attention. The watcher can escape into the world by immersing themselves into the true terror some horror movies provide, especially in the classics. In “The Shining” movie adaptation by Stephen King, the story follows a family who leaves their town so the father, Jack Torrance, can be a caretaker while trying to write a book. He drags along his wife, Wendy, and his son, Danny. Danny has an imaginary friend named Tony who speaks through him. They all make the trek out to the hotel called the Overlook, which was heavily inspired by the Stanley Hotel in Colorado, USA. Jack takes the job, despite the fact that the previous winter caretaker had gone mad and killed his entire family. Jack believed that it was just a rumor and wanted to take the job anyway. As the movie carries on, Danny gets more involved with Tony, and Jack gets angrier.
Overall, the storyline was a good watch. Stephen King adaptations are always a great movie or series. The graphics are amazing, and there is always some suspense going on that leaves you on the edge of your seat throughout the movie. It makes you wonder what crazy thing is going to happen next. However, I didn’t like how slow it was in the first half of the movie. It only started ramping up in action towards the last 45 minutes of the movie. The way Wendy is portrayed is a screenplay and adaptation error. In the original book, Wendy isn’t such a dumb character, she’s able to do more with her actions and make them more meaningful. Modern audiences might find the damsel-in-distress trope to be annoying or painfully obvious as modern productions have it less in your face. It’s a shame how Wendy is portrayed as she is through out the entire movie and makes dumb decisions that would put her and Danny in danger of being harmed from Jack the entire time. She has this perpetual terror on her face like she doesn’t know if she could do anything to help herself. She can only run away and attempt, but fail, to protect herself and her son.
I did like the movie, but I would only watch it to enjoy it. It takes on the themes of alcohol abuse and insanity. Jack was struggling with his own alcoholism throughout the movie when he has several hallucinations about being in a bar and having access to all the alcohol he wants. It is also hinted in the story that Jack was abusive towards Danny when Wendy mentions that Danny had his shoulder dislocated when Jack pulled him off of the ground.
Some back story on the movie and its book original by Stephen King, it started when King was sleeping in the Stanley Hotel with his family and he awoke after a terrible nightmare about his own son, Joe. Britannica highlights the origin of the book from an interview with King in which he said, “That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming. He was being chased by a fire-hose. I woke up with a tremendous jerk, sweating all over, within an inch of falling out of bed.”
