In The Shining, a very large amount of the “evil” done is by Jack, not just by the hotel. If anything, the inability of Jack to change his actions even though he recognizes the destructive results and most importantly, regrets most of those actions is a good example of that IMHO.
So someone care to explain the furry reference to those of us who haven’t read the book?
What? It’s not a feel-good comedy?
I’ve read all but the Cadillac one. And even when King has no explicit supernatural agent (so, yeah, there’s an exception to every generalization, thanks for the revelation), he still doesn’t seem to “get” the muddy mundanity of human selfishness and self-loathing, which is the source of all (imo) real evil. The “evil” in Apt Pupil is simple and cartoonish, and still somehow feels fantastic and not-human: it’s Evil as a separate entity, or quality, or something; it’s not simple human failing. Ditto SR and GM. IMO, of course; literary exegesis is always a matter or subjective opinion.
If you want books about the “muddy mundanity of human selfishness and self-loathing,” why demand it of King? Why not leave it to other authors who would probably do it better? I mean, he’s chosen his genre, and his genre lends itself very well to the kind of supernatural happenings that he seems to find his forte. It’s not like horror’s not big enough to accept both human and non-human monsters (indeed, I seriously doubt it started with the former).
I don’t. I just offer it as an explanation of why I personally find his stuff childish and shallow.
It’s been a while for me, filmwise. But what was the deal with the kid? Was he normal before being driven into a The Who-esque Tommy-style autism by Jack’s drunken savage beating of him or was he always a little off?
See, to me it’s weird that you say this in a discussion of The Shining. After all (in the book), long before anyone has an inkling that the hotel exists, Jack has gone through a period of drunkenness during which he actually broke his son’s arm in a fit of rage. But he’s not a monster, just a human being with some serious flaws, who made a huge mistake, and he tries to atone for it. Then ironically, the job he takes as part of his personal rehabilitation exposes him to a (granted, external) evil which can only use him because of his aforementioned problems.
In the book, he’s an extremely bright, precocious, charming kid. The kid who played him in the movie was simply the worst actor of all time, or possibly stoned. Or the worst actor of all time and stoned.
I hate that kid.
Not to mention the part of the book that mentions his alcoholic father’s abusive and dysfunctional behavior when Jack was a child, indicating the source of Jack’s quite human flaws.
OK, King either roxxors or suxxors. Fine and dandy. Can we talk about the movie now?
As far as the furry-suit dog guy goes if I remember correctly they were ghosts from a costume party that was hosted at the hotel and basically the guy in the dog suit was fellating the other guy. I don’t think there is a way a person who had not read the book could discern what was going on in that scene, but it is pretty freaky in any case.
Which character is driven evil in DC? Certainly not Dolores. She responds to a lifetime of abuse, and finally goes over the edge when she finds out her daughter has been sexually abused by her husband, and all the college money she’d scrimped for was gone.
She was definitely not evil.
I assumed that koeeoaddi was talking about the husband.
I’ve said this very thing to friends when talking about this movie. It would have been better if he had told Jack to move some crates to find a ventilation grill, or told him where the key was hidden, and to have Jack let himself out.
The incongruity (to me) is that this was a physical action that was taken by a paranormal entity. Other than that, it was visions and suggestions that made the family either question their own sanity, or else surrender to madness. It was left up to the viewer to decide whether there were really ghosts, or whether it was some sort of a Gothic family folie à trois brought on by long isolation. This scene removes the ambiguity and weakens the movie, because it it immediately raises the question as to why there weren’t physical actions taken directly against the family, rather than trying to work their evil through Jack.
Yes, thank you, D the C. He beats his wife savagely throughout their marriage and goes on to molest their teenage daughter. The devil didn’t make him do it, either, as far as I can remember.
Sorry to continue the Stephen King roxxors hijack, Ogre. Just wanted to clarify.
Incidentally, I thought the photograph at the end of the movie was delightfully creepy. Similar thing was done a few years before, though, in Burnt Offerings.
I’ve read the book, long ago, so my memory is for crap. Isn’t there more meat behind the whole furry sex tangent?
I was a teenager when I read the book, and I was disappointed that the film didn’t include the moving topiary, which was one of my favorite parts, and which also could have set a another precedent of physical manifestation in lockstep with the pantry escape scene.
But looking back, the special effects technology of that time would’ve made such a scene all but impossible for Kubrick to pull off with any believability. I’ve only seen bits of the mini-series remake. Did it include the topiary stuff?
Yes it did, though I don’t think it really looked too great.
Yes it did, and was, IMO, far superior to the Kubrick movie (if you can handle the little kid and his annoying fish-lips which I only just barely can. Stephen Weber makes up for it).
He was not always a little off. What is made quite clear in both the novel and the film is that Danny Torrance “shines”. The episodes are detailed in the novel, and his episode in front of the bathroom mirror in the apartment in Boulder ( Denver? ) does a nice job of representing this. Coupled with the pivotal sequence with Scatman Crothers in the kitchen where Crothers discusses Shining with Danny, we are led to believe that the boy, like the old man, has always had this talent and that it is not unique to him or his generation.
Dick Halloran ( Crothers ) shares that he and his gramma talked without using their voices when he was a boy.
Let’s look at it a bit less dramatically and a bit more clinically. A small child has events where he has visions or hears things or “knows” things. Hardly the sole purvey of Stephen King. Medical history is filled with young people who have multiple personality disorder to one degree or another, sometimes as a result of trauma, other times not.
The boy has issues. Whether the hotel ( resident evil, indeed… ) is an amplifier for evil, and amplifies and makes USE of Danny and his Shining is open to interpretation of the story, but it is not fair to say that Jack beat Danny.
Jack didnt beat Danny in the book, and in the movie it is a weak moment, IMHO. Jack was fucked by the ghost in room 237, and Danny was beaten by the ghost. Jack didn’t touch the boy. The beating is a sop, a reference to the broken arm ( dislocated shoulder? ) that Jack did inflict on Danny while Jack was still a teacher at Stovington Prep.
The encounter when Danny is near-catatonic, sucking his thumb and Jack is accused of beating him lets the power play occurring within Jack’s mind and between Jack and the hotel/evil power be diluted, and I hate that moment. We are distracted from a central theme, and confused- is it just an angry abusive recovering alcoholic and nothing supernatural is going on, or is it the hotel wreaking havoc on everyone?
Cartooniverse, who watches this film once a year or so. 