Chopping down a hedge maze with an axe in the freezing cold and covered in snow is a non-starter. It’s absolutely the wrong tool for the job.
If I were in Jack’s place and had a moment of logical thought, I would try to find my way out by simply following a path that takes every available right turn. It would undoubtedly not be the most mathematically efficient route, but there’s a pretty good chance it would get me to an exit point.
If you’ve been doing that consistently since you entered the maze (and if it’s a planar maze, but it is), then that would eventually get you out. If you haven’t consistently been doing that, though, it can just lead you in circles.
So if you eventually reach a point where you end up realizing you’re just going around in circles, what are the odds of success if you switch over and start going left?
According to Zootopia 2 you should use a snowplow. 
Jack was following Danny’s footprints. After Danny doubled back and covered his footprints, Jack was confused. Being that he was out of his mind (and probably quite blotto on ghost whiskey) it’s no wonder he got lost.
I don’t buy it.
Jack was quite happy to chop through a door to get to wife Wendy Torrance, and he chopped Mr. Holleran in the chest.
An ax may not be as effective as a hedge trimmer to cut holes through foliage, but I can’t see why he didn’t make an attempt.
The name of Rob Reiner’s director character in Spinal Tap, “Marty DiBergi,” must be a cut-and-paste of bits of the names of three (or four?) world-famous directors.
Scorsese, Bergman, and…who? Demille?
Dino De Laurentiis?
If Jack just wanted to get out of the maze, he could have followed his own footsteps back out. I think he wanted to kill Danny more than he wanted to save himself. Since he didn’t know where Danny went, he just stayed there and froze.
Or am I forgetting something about that scene; it’s been forever since I saw it.
I always assumed the “berg” was from “Spielberg.”
De Palma
The early-90s Disney animated series Talespin occasionally featured a Soviet Union-esque enemy nation called “Thembria.” Them-bria - as in “us versus them.”
Or the US vs Thembria.
The United States analogue in the Talespinverse was called “Usland,” so that checks out.
Just a riff on the We-ins and the More-wes.
This Old House, the song. This was popular on Your Hit Parade when I was a small child in the 50s, and I remember thinking at the time that the house was a metaphor for the body – i.e. my body is breaking down and there’s no point in trying to fix it up because I’ll be dying soon.
For some reason I looked it up again, and apparently it is quite straightforwardly about a house, and the song comes with a backstory: the man (Stuart Hamblen, country singer) who wrote the song (and recorded it first) was on a hunting trip (with John Wayne, apparently) and came across this very ramshackle little house way out in the country, and inside they found the long-dead corpse of an old man, and the slightly-less-long-dead corpse of a dog at his feet. This inspired the song.
“This old house once knew my children
This old house once knew my wife
This old house was home and comfort
As we fought the storms of life
This old house once rang with laughter
This old house knew many shouts
Now it trembles in the darkness
When the lightning walks about
Ain’t gonna need this house no longer
Ain’t gonna need this house no more
Ain’t got time to fix the shingles
Ain’t got time to fix the floor
Ain’t got time to oil the hinges
Nor to mend the window pane
Ain’t gonna need this house no longer
I’m getting ready to meet the saints”
One other fun fact: In the Rosemary Clooney version of this song, which is the one I was hearing as a child, there is a bass voice joining in the chorus. This is Thurl Ravenscroft, who among other things was also the voice of Tony the Tiger.
And more importantly, sang “You’re a Mean One, Mr Grinch.”
And did lots of voices at Disney theme parks, and in Disney cartoons.