The setting of the movie is the Overlook Hotel in the mountains of Colorado in the present day. Jack Torrance is hired on as the caretaker of the hotel during the winter months when it is closed down, but before the staff leaves they warn him that the extreme isolation might give him cabin fever. Jack moves in with his wife Wendy and young son Danny. Almost immediately things begin to go awry. The hotel has a dark and haunted history and more than its fair share of ghosts. Couple that with the fact that Danny has a unique psychic ability called "shining", which causes him great distress. As the staff predicted, Jack Torrance grows violent and insane and tries to kill his family.
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The Shining is loosely based on the 1977 horror novel The Shining by author Stephen King. While the premise between the two is the same, there are many drastic alterations between the movie and the book. See Differences from the novel for more details.
This is the third movie to adapt a Stephen King novel, and the second film released theatrically. Previous adaptations include 1976's Carrie by director Brian De Palma, and Salem's Lot by Tobe Hooper, which was a television movie that aired in November, 1979. With the success of The Shining, Stephen King mania kicks into high gear with three film adaptations that are released in 1983, beginning with Cujo, then The Dead Zone, and then Christine.
The title of the book and the film is derived from the 1970 song "Instant Karma!" by John Lennon. The song contains the lyric "We all shine on", which King then utilized as a descriptor of Danny and Dick's psychic abilities. In the novel and in the miniseries, Dick Hallorann uses the phrase "shine on" when speaking to Danny.
The central setting of this film is Boulder, Colorado and the surrounding Rocky Mountains. Other settings include the town of Sidewinder, and Denver, which is where the Torrance family lives. The Torrance family apartment was actually filmed in Boulder however at Kensington Apartments. [1]
The opening aerial shots of this movie were filmed at Glacier National Park in Montana. [1] Another horror movie of note that was filmed here is the 1951 sci-fi film The Thing from Another World. [3]
This film marks one of the early uses of the steadicam, which was invented by Garrett Brown in 1975. The steadicam is a stabilizer mount that allows an operator to make smooth filming shots while moving about. The steadicam is used in the opening aerial shots of the Rocky Mountains landscape.
It is well documented that Stephen King was not particularly pleased with Kubrick's interpretation of his novel. This is owed largely to certain narrative decisions as well as plot points and character interpretations. While King has admitted that Kubrick was a visionary director and that The Shining is a quality piece of film, he felt that it was a poor adaptation of his work and that Kubrick knew nothing of the horror genre. Stanley Kubrick has himself fired back at King, noting that his novel was not what he would call "literary".
Fun Facts[]
When learning about Danny's nickname, "Doc", Dick Hallorann imitates Bugs Bunny's famous line, "What's up, Doc?" Bugs Bunny is the property of Warner Bros., which also produced The Shining.
The 2017 film The Dark Tower pays homage to The Shining in a film scenes. In an opening scene there are two girls in a playground wearing blue and white playing patty cake. They are singing "Come and play with us", just like the Grady daughters. A more obvious connection is the character of Jake Chambers who has psychic abilities that is referred to as "The Shine". He used the Shine to survive being attacked by a house demon.
Jack Torrance's famous line "Here's Johnny!" is the trademark introduction for Johnny Carson, the host of The Tonight Show, as spoken by Carson's co-host Ed McMahon.
Baseball bats play a large role in Stephen King stories. In this film, Wendy Torrance uses a baseball bat to defend herself against Jack Torrance. In Cujo, the character of Donna Trenton uses a baseball bat to whoop the crap out of the eponymous canine. In Silver Bullet, Owen Knopfler has a baseball called "The Peace Maker". He is beaten with his own bat by a werewolf.
Family members tend to stab one another in Stephen King stories. In this film, Wendy Torrance defends herself against Jack Torrance with a butcher knife. In Carrie, Margaret White stabs her daughter Carrie with a butcher knife.
Actor D.J. Cotrona was born on the same day that The Shining premiered in the United States. He would go on to play the role of bank robber Seth Gecko in the TV show From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series.
It is interesting to note that the placement of the bathtub in relation to the sink and to the toilet in the Torrance bathroom when Danny Torrance is brushing his teeth is the exact same configuration as the bathroom seen later in Room 237. Danny's interaction with Tony in this scene foreshadows his interaction with the ghost from Room 237.
The Shining is the first film based on a book by Stephen King that utilized the trope of a cursed Indian burial ground. Another King project that makes use of this is 1989's Pet Sematary.
In the 2019 film Us by director and screenwriter Jordan Peele, there is a character named Danny who is tethered to a doppelganger named Tony. This character is named after Danny Torrance and his imaginary friend Tony from The Shining. Coincidentally, the actor portraying Danny/Tony is Duke Nicholson, who is the grandson of The Shining star Jack Nicholson. Peele was unaware of this family connection when casting Nicholson in the role of Danny and Tony. He instructed Duke Nicholson act like Lloyd, the bartender from The Shining.
Differences from the novel[]
One of the biggest departures from the novel seen in the film is the inclusion of hedge maze at the Overlook. The climax of the movie shows an injured Jack Torrance loping through the snowy tracks of the maze in search of his son, Danny. In the novel, there was no hedge maze, but instead were topiary shaped to resemble various animals. By way of the supernatural influence of the hotel, these animals came to life to terrorize Danny Torrance.
In the movie, the naked woman ghost occupies Room 237. In the novel it is Room 217.
In the movie, Jack chases Danny and Wendy around the hotel with an axe. In the novel he used a croquet mallet.
In the movie, Jack kills Dick Hallorann with an axe. In the book, Dick survives.
