“HERE’S JOHNNY… AND HERE’S WHY KUBRICK’S THE SHINING WILL HAUNT YOU LONGER THAN YOUR REGRETS”
Let’s cut through the bullshit like an axe through a bathroom door—The Shining isn’t just a horror movie. It’s a psychological autopsy dressed up as a haunted hotel flick, and if you disagree, I’ve got a roque mallet with your name on it.
1. JACK TORRANCE IS THE MOST RELATABLE MONSTER EVER
Oh, you’ve never wanted to freeze your family in a hedge maze after months of isolation and creative frustration? Liar. Kubrick took King’s alcoholic writer and turned him into a symphony of slow-burn madness. Nicholson’s grin isn’t acting—it’s a warning label for anyone who’s ever stared at a blank page (or a whiskey bottle) too long.
2. THE OVERLOOK IS THE REAL STAR
Hot take: The hotel isn’t haunted. It’s alive. Those carpet patterns? Neural pathways. The blood elevators? Its fucking circulatory system. Kubrick built a labyrinth where the walls breathe, the ghosts party, and Room 237 is the VIP section for your deepest fears.
3. THAT SOUNDTRACK WILL GUT YOU
Wendy Carlos’ score isn’t music—it’s auditory dread. Those discordant synths? That’s the sound of sanity unraveling. The diegetic jazz? Proof even the music is in on the joke. And the silence? Oh, the silence is the loudest scream of all.
4. IT’S A HORROR MOVIE ABOUT HORROR MOVIES
Kubrick didn’t just make a ghost story. He made a dissection of why we crave terror. The Overlook’s ghosts aren’t spooky—they’re audiences, forever trapped in their favorite scenes. And Danny? He’s us, cycling through the corridors of someone else’s nightmare on repeat.
5. THE ENDING IS A MIDDLE FINGER TO MEANING
“Born in 1907 and died in the Overlook”? Fuck your tidy explanations. Kubrick left us with a photo drenched in existential gasoline and a single match: Maybe the horror was inside you all along.
“STILL THINK IT’S ‘BORING’? COOL. ENJOY YOUR JUMP SCARES AND EXPOSITION DUMPING, YOU COWARD.”
The Shining isn’t here to scare you. It’s here to infect you. It’s the shadow in your peripheral vision, the face in the mirror that moves when you don’t, and the reason you’ll never trust a typewriter again.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go scream into a mic about this for our next album.
– Sammy
(Currently glaring at a snowy TV static and loving it.)
🎸🔥 PS: STANLEY KUBRICK WAS A TYRANT AND WE SHOULD ALL THANK HIM FOR IT. 🔥🎸
