A labyrinth, a ghost story, a memory, a failed adaptation, a psychological exploration, a cabin fever story, whatever you call it, The Shining is certainly a masterpiece in the horror genre and may well be one of the most analyzed and interpreted films of all time. It likely sits with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) as the two most academically discussed films in the horror genre, with academics analyzing everything from it representing the horrors of the Holocaust to it being…
I’m scared to close my eyes. I’m scared to open them. We are going to die out here.
Thanks to Second Sight, I was able to watch the festival cut for this one reconstructed from the original Hi8 tapes and 16mm film. If you weren’t aware, the footage was transferred to 35mm for theaters but that 35mm footage is what got retransferred for home release. Until the Second Sight’s reconstruction, nobody ever went back to the original masters to digitize…
Why did I not give this five stars before? Becuase I was an idiot, that’s why.
Honestly I’m just so impressed by how well Flanagan balances the fact that the source material is split between a novel (the sequel to the Shining book) and a movie (since this movie is a sequel to The Shining movie). It’s a delicate balance considering how different the movie and book are for The Shining. But Flanagan does well keeping that balance and working with King to make it more closely aligned with his vision.
What would you do if you found an entrance to the backrooms? Explore it? Run away into it forever? Map it out? Hunt down its secrets? Block off its entrance? Burn down the building? Keep one room, block off the rest? Renovate it? Record it? Bring your friends? Find a monster? Hide in its shadows? Bring something into it? Bring something out of it? Become a monster inside of it? Embrace its darkness? Bexxxe a xxnster? Hixx itx secxxts? L̵e̵t̷…
Theory time.
The motorcycle riding badass is not just a metaphor for H.I.’s internal “true nature”, as the film so clearly eludes to with him appearing in H.I.’s dream and some clever cuts to Leonard Smalls when discussing H.I.’s internal struggle with fighting this so-called true nature of his. This may seem to explain why they have the same tattoo and why H.I. seemingly turns over a new leaf when he obliterates the large bastard, but this would be too…
