Retro Review: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining Once Defined Horror, Today It’s Stating the Obvious

Even if you’ve never seen it, it’s hard to separate the legend of The Shining from the film itself. Its key moments have become part of our cultural lexicon. “Heeeere’s Johnny!” “Redrum” “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” It has been parodied by The Simpsons and Key & Peele. It inspired a long-awaited sequel, Doctor Sleep, in 2019. It’s certainly not the first film to be overshadowed by its influence, but The Shining is a frustrating case because it feels designed to make us sit around and wait for those indelible moments. It’s a slow-chill horror with long stretches of anticipation and a few bursts of intensity. It must have been dazzling upon its initial release, but it lacks the same bite today.

Based on the 1977 novel by Stephen King, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining tells the tale of Jack (Jack Nicholson), a seemingly average husband and father, who, stuck inside an empty isolated hotel with his family for a long winter, loses his sanity and tries to kill them. The cause of his breakdown is never precisely defined. It could be the fact that the Overlook was built on an Indigenous burial ground; as the hotel manager notes early on, tribal members rebelled against its construction and perhaps they still are. It could be the stress of a long winter inside (those of us who survived the first year of COVID with our families can relate). Or it could be the writer’s block. Jack fancies himself an author, although he has never written a word, and his madness escalates with each day that his typewriter fails to produce a masterpiece. His well-meaning wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), puts on a happy face for as long as she can, while his troubled son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), starts seeing ghosts.

The Shining, released in 1980, has inspired a wide array of theories as to its meaning. A 2012 documentary, Room 237, let four conspiracy theorists run wild with their interpretations, with one of them arguing that Kubrick used imagery in the film to confess to his role in faking the 1969 moon landing. The irony is that The Shining’s power lies in the simplicity of its narrative. The script hones in on a common form of marital discord—a husband prioritizing his work over his family—and takes it to its most absurd and ludicrous extreme. Other films have explored this dynamic; Phantom Thread comes to mind, as does this year’s Trap. What makes The Shining stand out is its craft: Kubrick’s patience in delaying the bloodshed; the thoughtful cinematography and production design that paints the Overlook as a mausoleum in waiting; and, of course, the gonzo performance by Nicholson, whose overacting feels a bit antiquated today—Nicolas Cage aside—but surely stunned audiences at the time. As Jack, Nicholson builds an entire character around the concept of mugging.

The film really has only one original idea, and it’s a good one. Peeling back the layers of the typical American male, it finds not just rage and resentment but utter and total failure. As the film starts, Jack is unemployed; after losing his job as a teacher, he’s resorted to a series of menial jobs to pay the rent. He drinks to excess. He hit his child at least once. He has decided he’s a writer now, but he has no skills or work ethic. He even fails at murdering his family. Once his sanity departs, he chases after them clumsily. He comes off like a true psychopath, but his waifish, wide-eyed wife gets the better of him at every turn. It’s a special talent of Nicholson’s; the actor is so charismatic that we often don’t recognize at first what losers his characters are. Jack isn’t charismatic per se, but the character’s outsize portrayal of male fury is impossible to ignore

But is it relevant? Nicholson burnished his legend by playing angry young men in an era of profound political disillusionment. The Shining came at the end of a decade that produced Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Chinatown, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, all masterpieces built around iconic Nicholson performances. The next decade found him leaning—successfully, I should add—in to self-parody in The Witches of Eastwick and Batman. Male rage was out, and it has never really come back in as a topic worth exploring. Especially now, in the wake of #MeToo and Donald Trump, watching Nicholson verbally and physically abuse his wife isn’t shocking or edgy. We’ve already looked under the surface of the mediocre American male and found little worth seeking. The Shining knows that. It’s just not a revelation anymore.

The Shining screens at 7 p.m. on Oct. 16 at both Alamo Drafthouse locations. drafthouse.com; and at 11:55 p.m. on Oct. 25 and 26 at Landmark’s E Street Cinema. landmarktheatres.com.