Here’s Johnny… and He’s Lost His Damn Mind
If you’ve ever spent five minutes in a hotel room with dodgy wallpaper, poor lighting and the lingering scent of despair, congratulations—you’re one step closer to understanding The Shining. Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 horror classic isn’t just a film. It’s a two-hour descent into madness wrapped in carpet patterns that look like they were designed by a sadistic geometry teacher.
Adapted (barely) from Stephen King’s novel, The Shining is what happens when you take a family man, isolate him in a haunted hotel and hand him a typewriter and a nervous breakdown. What could possibly go wrong?
Table of Contents
Plot Summary: Cabin Fever Meets Supernatural PTSD
Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson, chewing the scenery and then setting fire to it) takes a job as the winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, an isolated mountain resort with a tiny little problem: it’s basically a sentient malevolence sponge.
Jack brings his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall, underappreciated and visibly terrified) and his son Danny (Danny Lloyd, with the creepiest imaginary friend since the invention of tea parties), hoping to write a novel and spend some quality time together. Spoiler: they don’t.
Instead, Jack goes insane, Danny sees ghosts and rivers of blood pouring from lifts (because why not) and Wendy finds herself in a marriage counselling session with an axe.
The Cast: Screams, Scowls and “Redrum”
Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance
If eyebrows could murder, these would have a Netflix docuseries. Nicholson starts slightly twitchy and ends fully feral. By the end, he’s a grinning, axe-wielding meme machine.
Shelley Duvall as Wendy Torrance
Unfairly criticized at the time but now rightly hailed for her portrayal of a woman trapped in a living nightmare. You can practically feel her anxiety through the screen. Spoiler: that wasn’t acting—it was Kubrick’s 127 takes per shot method.
Danny Lloyd as Danny Torrance
Possibly the only child actor in history to be convincingly haunted without making the audience want to leave the cinema. Talks to his finger. Foresees doom. Has the kind of week most kids don’t survive without a juice box.
Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann
The hotel’s cook with “the shining” a telepathic ability passed from generation to generation, apparently only used to pick up psychic emergency calls from haunted kids.
Themes: Madness, Isolation and Interior Design Horror
The Psychological Unraveling of Jack
Jack doesn’t just go mad. He pirouettes into madness like a ballerina on fire. You could write dissertations about whether it’s ghosts, cabin fever, alcoholism, or just the horror of manual typing.
The Horrors of Parenthood
At its core, The Shining is about a father who snaps. Which, let’s be honest, is more relatable than most horror films. Throw in some snow, spirits and soul-sucking wallpaper and you’ve got yourself a classic.
The Supernatural… Or Is It?
Kubrick never confirms whether the Overlook is actually haunted. It’s the cinematic equivalent of gaslighting the viewer for two hours—am I scared, or just confused? The answer: both.
Iconic Moments That Live in Your Head Rent-Free
- “Here’s Johnny!”
Improvised by Nicholson, immortalized by memes. The moment where an axe becomes the world’s worst knock-knock joke. - The Twins in the Hallway
Two ghostly girls. One awkward invitation to play. A flash of blood-soaked corpses. Childhood trauma, served chilled. - Elevator of Blood
The most impractical hotel amenity in cinema. When you want gallons of symbolic gore and a safety hazard, accept no substitutes. - “All Work and No Play…”
Pages and pages of the same sentence. Either a warning about writer’s block or the best visual metaphor for office burnout ever filmed.
Production Hell: Kubrick’s Personal Torture Chamber
Stanley Kubrick, auteur and nightmare employer, subjected Shelley Duvall to psychological warfare disguised as direction. She cried on cue because she was crying constantly. Take after take after take – 127 of them, for the baseball bat scene alone.
Kubrick also famously didn’t tell Scatman Crothers he was going to be axed in the chest. Because apparently, jump scares are more authentic when the actor is genuinely fearing for their life.
Stephen King Hated It. That’s How You Know It’s Good.
Stephen King despised The Shining, largely because Kubrick turned his emotional, ghost-laden novel into a glacial, cerebral horror show with all the warmth of a tax audit. But in a twist of irony, King’s hatred probably helped fuel the film’s legend. Nothing says “cult classic” like the original author disowning it.
Fun Facts to Mention While Hiding Behind a Sofa
- The typewriter Jack uses is a German Adler. Ironically, “Adler” means “eagle” a symbol of freedom, which Jack clearly loses the moment he touches it.
- The hotel interiors were meticulously recreated on sound stages in England. That’s right—The Shining is British horror by stealth.
- Danny Lloyd didn’t know he was filming a horror movie. Kubrick told him it was a family drama. Honestly, that’s more disturbing than the twins.
The Legacy: Still Giving You Trust Issues About Hotels
Forty-plus years on, The Shining remains a towering achievement in horror. It’s unsettling, ambiguous and full of dread. Not the jump-scare, scream-then-forget kind of horror. No, this is the kind that lingers. Like mould. Or bad decisions.
It’s been parodied to death. Referenced endlessly. Still dissected by film students who haven’t seen daylight in months. It gave us Room 237, conspiracy theories about faked moon landings and a sequel (Doctor Sleep) that’s… fine.
Final Verdict: A Masterclass in Beautifully Slow Nervous Breakdowns
The Shining doesn’t just scare you, it quietly moves in, rearranges the furniture of your brain and whispers things you didn’t want to hear. It’s bold, cold and iconic in a way most horror films can only dream of. Or hallucinate.
Bring a blanket. And maybe a priest.
You Might Also Enjoy (Assuming You Survive This Post):
- Rosemary’s Baby: Motherhood, Satan, and ’70s Paranoia
- Hereditary: Family Trauma, Decapitations, and Screaming into the Void
- Psycho: Mother Issues and Shower Curtains That Ruined a Generation
The Shining
Jack Torrance
Wendy Torrance
Danny
Hallorann
Ullman
Grady
Lloyd
Doctor
