The Shining, a horror movie that does impress on you!
The Shining is a 1980 horror film, produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick and co-written with novelist Diane Johnson. The film is based on Stephen King’s 1977 novel of the same name.
The Shining is about Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), an aspiring writer and recovering alcoholic, who accepts a position as the off-season caretaker of the isolated historic Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies. Wintering over with Jack are his wife Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) and young son Danny Torrance (Danny Lloyd). Danny possesses “the shining”, psychic abilities that enable him to see into the hotel’s horrific past. The hotel’s cook, Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), also has this and is able to telepathically communicate with Danny. The hotel had a previous winter caretaker who went crazy and killed his family and himself. After a winter storm leaves the Torrances snowbound, Jack’s sanity deteriorates due to the influence of the supernatural forces that inhabit the hotel, placing his wife and son in danger.
Horror film critic Peter Bracke reviewing the Blu-ray release in Hi-Def Digest writes:
Just as the ghostly apparitions of the film’s fictional Overlook Hotel would play tricks on the mind of poor Jack Torrance, so too has the passage of time changed the perception of The Shining itself. Many of the same reviewers who lambasted the film for “not being scary” enough back in 1980 now rank it among the most effective horror films ever made, while audiences who hated the film back then now vividly recall being “terrified” by the experience. The Shining has somehow risen from the ashes of its own bad press to redefine itself not only as a seminal work of the genre, but perhaps the most stately, artful horror ever made.
Speaking about the theme of the film, Kubrick stated that “there’s something inherently wrong with the human personality. There’s an evil side to it. One of the things that horror stories can do is to show us the archetypes of the unconscious; we can see the dark side without having to confront it directly.
Vocabulary
Horror film: a film in which very frightening or unnatural things happen, for example dead people coming to life and people being murdered.
Aspiring: someone who is trying to become actor,politician, writer, etc.
Do you have any advice for aspiring young journalists looking for work?
Aspiring writers and poets are always sending in their work, but very little of it gets published.
off-season a period of the year when there is less activity in business:
We tend to go skiing during the off-season because it’s cheaper.
Off-season rates for a double room are about $50 a night.
(in sports) the period of the year during which games are not played, between the end of one season and the start of the next.
caretaker: custodian a person employed to take care of a large building, such as a school, and who deals with the cleaning, repairs, etc.
someone who takes care of a person who is young,old, or sick
psychic: someone who is psychic has a mysterious power that lets them know what other people are thinking, or what is going to happen to them Synonyms and related words.
snowbound: (of vehicles or people) unable to travel because of heavy snow, or (of roads) not able to be traveled on or reached because of heavy snow:
Hundreds of vehicles have become snowbound.
deteriorates to become worse.
The weather deteriorated rapidly so the game was abandoned.
deteriorate into: The economic situation could quickly deteriorate into social unrest.
to lambast to criticize someone severely, especially in a newspaper article or speech lambast someone for (doing) something:
The administration was lambasted for failing to respond immediately to the crisis.
Inherent: an inherent quality is a basic or essential feature that gives something its character. The design of the building had inherent weaknesses.
inherent in: What are the long-term risks and dangers inherent in this kind of work?
archetypes: a very typical example of a particular type of person or thing
archetype of: He was the archetype of a scientist.
a little slow tonight expression used to say that a place like a bar, restaurant, hotel, etc is not busy at the moment.
slip: to move or to slide something.
to put something somewhere, or to give something to
to give something to someone quickly and quietly, so that other people do not see what you are doing: Michael slipped the bar of candy into his pocket.
slip someone something: If you slip him some cash he’ll get you good seats.
what will it be: expression that can be used to ask what someone will order.
white man’s burden: the alleged duty of the white peoples to manage the affairs of the less developed nonwhite people.
On the wagon: Said to express that a person has stopped drinking alcohol, but it can also be used to refer to stopping any bad habit, for example, drugs.
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