The Shining - jarring moments (and not in a good way)

[Ogre]

I’m watching The Shining on the SciFi channel with my wife (who’s never seen it, since she avoids horror movies.) Now, let it be known that I am a huge fan of this movie. Most everything about it makes it a masterpiece. However, there are a few moments that always make me think, “Oh come on. What the fuck?”

The chief of these is when Delbert Grady unlocks the pantry, letting Jack out. Up until this point, everything that happens leads one to believe that this is a film about madness and isolation. Everything about the supernatural occurrences in the film are unreliable. Until the pantry gets unlocked. Suddenly (IMO,) it’s all blown to hell. Now the ghosties are real, yadda yadda yadda, and it’s a run-of-the-mill, if well-done and atmospheric, ending.

Another occurs during Shelley Duvall’s flight through the Overlook near the end. The scene where she is just floored by the guy dressed up in a furry costume takes me completely out of the experience. Hell, the furry costume was just bad.

Finally, Shelley Duvall. Ugh.

[pool]

Funny when you think in the novel, Wendy was described as more of a voluptuous blonde. What were they thinking?

[Guinastasia]

If you’ve read the book, it’ll make more sense. It IS about the supernatural.

(Oh, and the guys in the furry suit and that were getting it on. It’s also explained in the book.)

[Ogre]

I’ve read the book. To me, the movie is a completely different work of art.

[ivylass]

Didn’t King absolutely loathe the Kubrick adaptation?

[hey_alright]

@pool

Funny when you think in the novel, Wendy was described as more of a voluptuous blonde. What were they thinking?

That guy who directed the movie didn’t think a voluptuous blonde would be the type of woman who would be willing to be married to Jack, who is basically a loser.

[Ogre]

@ivylass

Didn’t King absolutely loathe the Kubrick adaptation?

Yeah, but has been seen more recently praising it up and down, since the movie is far better known than his book.

[Sublight]

Grady unlocking the door: I’ve said exactly the same thing about that scene. Had Grady just given Jack information about how to get out, the scene would have worked much better.

Shelley and the guy in the costume: remember that up until the very end, she has no reason to think anything is happening beyond her husband turning into Jack Nicholson. Then as she’s trying to escape, Grady and the furries pop up (I forget: does she see the furries before Grady and the bloody elevator?). I think her shock could be explained as coming from the realization that there are other people in the hotel, rather than just the costume.

[Leaper]

Ah, so THAT was why Rebecca de Mornay was cast in the miniseries.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

King said that Kubrick did not believe in “good and evil” as supernatural forces – Kubrick did not believe in the supernatural at all, in fact – and that King had a hard time communicating the idea of the Hotel as a repository of evil to Kubrick. To Kubrick, evil was how people behaved and could not exist externally to humans or be “stored” anywhere As a result, Kubrick kept trying to sort of "naturalize’ everything in the story and make it a non-supernatural story about madness but was not entirely successful.

This is a quote from Stephen King I pulled from Wiki but which think was originally in Danse Macabre:

“I think there are two basic problems with the movie. First, Kubrick is a very cold man—pragmatic and rational—and he had great difficulty conceiving even academically, of a supernatural world … Not that religion has to be involved in horror, but a visceral skeptic such as Kubrick just couldn’t grasp the sheer inhuman evil of the Overlook Hotel. So he looked, instead, for evil in the characters and made the film into a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones. That was the basic flaw: because he couldn’t believe, he couldn’t make the film believable to others.”

I must say, I’m completely sympathetic to Kubrick’s viewpoint but he probably shouldn’t have tried to make a supernatural thriller in the first place.

[WOOKINPANUB]

I think the brief scene with the furries was jarring in a very * good * way, simply because it is so unexpected and inexplicable. In fact, I don’t know if it’s creepier if you know what it’s referencing or not (I had read the book so even though it completely took me by surprise, I knew what it was about).

The only thing that takes me out of it these days, after having watched it probably fifty times, is that Jack Nicholson’s character is so much the Nicholson we’ve come to expect today. Back then it was new and shocking but now were used to him so it’s just good ol’ Jack.

[freckafree]

I’ve always hated the “Whoa…now he’s IN the old photo!” hackneyed ending to the movie.

[WOOKINPANUB]

@freckafree

I’ve always hated the “Whoa…now he’s IN the old photo!” hackneyed ending to the movie.

Really? I thought it was a very effective, chilling touch (maybe I’m some just kind of Shining fangirl).

[Johnny_L.A]

@Ogre

Finally, Shelley Duvall. Ugh.

I’d have done her.

[lissener]

@Stephen King

“I think there are two basic problems with the movie. First, Kubrick is a very cold man—pragmatic and rational—and he had great difficulty conceiving even academically, of a supernatural world … Not that religion has to be involved in horror, but a visceral skeptic such as Kubrick just couldn’t grasp the sheer inhuman evil of the Overlook Hotel. So he looked, instead, for evil in the characters and made the film into a domestic tragedy with only vaguely supernatural overtones. That was the basic flaw: because he couldn’t believe, he couldn’t make the film believable to others.”

See, for me, the greatest fault in Stephen King–the thing that, above all the many, many other reasons, makes him a hack–is that he’s unable to acknowledge the human banality of evil, to coin a cliche. He’s too fond of creating external (i.e., supernatural) excuses for instances of evil. This makes his stories, IMO, children’s stories, and not equal to the great literature of the ages.

[Ogre]

@lissener

See, for me, the greatest fault in Stephen King–the thing that, above all the many, many other reasons, makes him a hack–is that he’s unable to acknowledge the human banality of evil, to coin a cliche. He’s too fond of creating external (i.e., supernatural) excuses for instances of evil. This makes his stories, IMO, children’s stories, and not equal to the great literature of the ages.

Precisely. King has it exactly all wrong, which makes Kubrick’s take on the story far, far, more interesting to me than King’s…not to mention Kubrick’s fantastic sense of cinematic aesthetics.

[Johnny_Hildo]

One of King’s main complaints (and one of mine, frankly) was that Jack was pretty much barking mad from the get go.

[Qadgop_the_Mercotan]

@lissener

See, for me, the greatest fault in Stephen King–the thing that, above all the many, many other reasons, makes him a hack–is that he’s unable to acknowledge the human banality of evil, to coin a cliche. He’s too fond of creating external (i.e., supernatural) excuses for instances of evil. This makes his stories, IMO, children’s stories, and not equal to the great literature of the ages.

:dubious:
Never read “Apt Pupil” or “Dolan’s Cadillac”, have you? Much less the aforementioned “Shawshank Redemption” and “Green Mile”?

King understands the banality of evil, and has delved deeply into it. Both with and without supernatural elements thrown in.

That doesn’t mean some of his work isn’t “hack” quality. Frankly, a good chunk of it is. And a lot is just a good scary read. Like “the Shining”, where the hotel fatally corrupted a good but seriously flawed man.

But a sizeable amount of his work also rises to the level of literature, in my estimation anyway.

[Zsofia]

@Johnny Hildo

One of King’s main complaints (and one of mine, frankly) was that Jack was pretty much barking mad from the get go.

That’s the huge problem with the casting of Jack Nicholson - I mean, it’s supposed to be about him going crazy, right?

[koeeoaddi]

I thought Jack Nicholson was ridiculous – almost unwatchable – and Shelley Duvall was a much more interesting Wendy than Rebecca De Mornay.

@Qadgop the Mercotan

:dubious:
King understands the banality of evil, and has delved deeply into it. Both with and without supernatural elements thrown in.

Dolores Claiborne is a good example of old fashioned character driven evil.