In this blog post, I’ll analyze the genre characteristics of horror films and examine how the horror of madness manifesting in a real-world setting is portrayed through Stanley Kubrick’s ‘The Shining’.
Before We Begin
I first saw this movie last summer when it was screened at a small film club. As the saying goes, “Horror movies in the summer,” we were watching horror films together at the time, and I felt uneasy throughout the entire movie because of the unpleasant, metallic-sounding sound effects and the female ghost, whose appearance was even more spine-chilling than the protagonist’s. On top of that, the air conditioning was set way too cold, so I actually felt chilly while watching it, which made my initial impression of the film less than favorable. However, as time passed and I reflected on the film, I came to realize just how impressive it was. Perhaps because I hadn’t watched many horror films, each scene struck me as unique and fresh, and Jack Nicholson’s deranged performance, in particular, remains unforgettable to this day. For someone like me who had always found typical Japanese horror (e.g., ‘The Grudge’, ‘The Ring’) terrifying, this film left such a strong impression that it changed my personal perspective on the horror genre.
What is horror?
The original meaning of “horror” refers to intense fear accompanied by a physical reaction. As a film genre, horror films are works intended to evoke anxiety and fear in the audience. In other words, the very effect of making the audience experience “fear” defines this genre.
Over time, horror films have spawned various subgenres. Each subgenre differs in the way it evokes fear and in its visual and narrative emphases. The major subgenres are as follows:
Vampire films revolve around traditional imagery—creatures that fear garlic or crosses. A representative work of early vampire cinema is ‘Nosferatu’, followed by various variations such as ‘The Vampire’ and ‘Interview with the Vampire’.
Slasher movies follow a structure in which a masked killer indiscriminately threatens or murders young characters. They are characterized by a narrative in which a psychopathic killer eliminates people for no apparent reason; representative examples include ‘Halloween’, ‘Friday the 13th’, and ‘Scream’.
Splatter movies are a genre in which the screen is filled with blood and mutilated body parts, with visual shock being the primary focus. They often feature scenes that blend disgust and comedy; examples include ‘Evil Dead’ and ‘Dead Alive’.
Occult films create mystery and horror through the conflict between devil-worshipping cults and religious or moral forces. They combine metaphysical themes with psychological analysis to evoke supernatural fear; representative works include ‘The Omen’, ‘The Exorcist’, and ‘The Devil’s Seed’.
Hard-gore movies tend to feature a high level of brutality, emphasizing direct violence such as dismemberment and the exposure of internal organs. Films like ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘Night of the Living Dead’, and ‘Evil Dead’ fall into this category.
In addition, there are countless subgenres and crossovers, making it difficult to categorize horror films into just a few distinct groups. Recently, cross-genre blending has become common, allowing “horror elements” to naturally seep into other genres.
Audience reactions to horror films are extremely mixed. While some are enthusiastic, many others avoid them entirely. Because of this, the bond between the horror genre and its fan base tends to be stronger than in other genres. On the other hand, some have viewed horror as vulgar, and there are also opinions that the genre itself has developed in a hybrid manner.
Some view elements found in horror—such as monsters, demons, ghosts, supernatural phenomena, and madness—as universal cultural symbols of humanity. From this perspective, horror films appeal to the fundamental and universal human psyche, and the phenomenon where audiences feel fear while simultaneously enjoying it can be seen as explaining the genre’s appeal.
The Cinematic Significance of ‘The Shining’
Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film ‘The Shining’ is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. It is Kubrick’s only horror film, and his characteristic technical and aesthetic meticulousness is evident throughout the film. Camera work, musical scoring, editing, and the use of color are all meticulously calculated, ensuring that each scene harmonizes with the others.
One of the most striking techniques is the effective use of the Steadicam. The long take toward the end, tracking through the snow-covered labyrinth, creates a visually overwhelming effect and served as a catalyst for the widespread adoption of Steadicam techniques by other horror film directors.
Furthermore, the film’s atmosphere is not merely a matter of technique. Kubrick’s signature meticulous direction, combined with the actors’ performances and the arrangement of sound and lighting, effectively illustrates the process by which surreal madness gradually seeps into the realistic setting of the hotel. Some critics and scholars have even hailed this film as one of the greatest horror films of all time.
Plot Analysis of ‘The Shining’
‘The Shining’ faithfully follows the classic “haunted house” formula while expanding that formula to include real-world settings and familial tensions. The typical structure of a “haunted house” narrative is roughly as follows:
1. The protagonist stays at the “haunted house,” either by chance or by necessity.
2. Strange events occur in that house (or location).
3. Trapped in the house, the protagonist becomes bewildered and terrified by the supernatural phenomena around them.
The film is set at the Overlook Hotel, perched atop a mountain in Colorado. During a job posting to find someone to manage the hotel—which is closed for five months during the winter—Jack Torrance, a novelist and teacher, volunteers, calling it the perfect work environment. When Jack comes to tour the hotel with his wife, Wendy, and son, Danny, the caretaker tells him the story of a man who, in a similar situation several years earlier, went mad from the silence and murdered his family.
Danny possesses supernatural abilities—the so-called “Shining”—and the hotel’s Black chef, Halloran, recognizes Danny’s gift. He warns Danny never to go into Room 237. With only the three of them left in the hotel, Jack becomes increasingly unstable as his writing stalls, while Danny is tormented by anxiety after seeing hallucinations of twin girls at the end of the hallway.
Jack witnesses a female ghost seducing him in the bathtub of Room 237 but does not tell Wendy. His sanity begins to unravel when he witnesses a lavish party thrown by ghosts in the hotel’s ballroom and encounters the ghost of the former manager (Grade), who murdered his own family.
Sensing something ominous, Halloran heads from Miami to the hotel, but all communications have already been cut off. Wendy is shocked to discover hundreds of pages of manuscript in Jack’s study, each repeating the phrase “All Work and No Play Makes Jack a Dull Boy.” Jack then becomes violent, and Wendy knocks him unconscious and locks him in the pantry.
However, Grad’s ghost frees Jack, and Jack, wielding an axe, chases after Wendy and Danny. Danny hides in the labyrinthine garden, while Wendy hides in the bathroom. Halloran is killed by Jack while trying to save Danny, and Danny manages to lose his father by covering his footprints. Eventually, Wendy and Danny escape the hotel in the car Halloran had driven there, while Jack, left behind inside the hotel, freezes to death in the snow.
The film ends with a scene showing Jack’s face superimposed on a commemorative photo from the 1921 prom. In this way, the film goes beyond a simple ghost story to imply themes of historical repetition and the absorption of identity embedded within the space of the hotel.
The Horror of the Most Familiar Space: Home
The core of the fear people feel when watching a “haunted house” movie arises precisely when the “home”—the most familiar space—is transformed into something abnormal. While a home is inherently a place that evokes feelings of comfort and security, the shock is far more intense when the familiar is monstrous or distorted. Just as people often say, “People are scarier than ghosts,” the subversion of a familiar object generates intense fear.
In ‘The Shining’, the source of fear is not simply a closed room or a dark space. Rather, it is the space itself—spacious, bright, and perfectly symmetrical, like the Overlook Hotel—that creates the horror. This perfect symmetry and order, devoid of any disorder, actually creates a suffocating sense of pressure. If there were even a glimmer of hope to break through a wall and escape from a confined space, there would be some room for the mind to breathe; however, the spaces in ‘The Shining’ exclude all hope with their seemingly endless horizons and continuous straight lines.
Amid vast spaces with no visible end, horizons that seem unreachable, and perfect order, a person cannot help but go mad. The fear generated by this extreme reality is precisely the core of the spatial horror this film portrays.
Kubrick’s Cinematography and Visual Strategies
One cannot discuss ‘The Shining’ without mentioning Stanley Kubrick’s techniques. Instead of relying on the sensational elements typical of B-grade horror—such as blood and pitch-black darkness—this film blends psychological and supernatural symbolism with sophisticated cinematography to create a sophisticated brand of horror. It does not merely depict an uncertain future through darkness but reconstructs that anxiety and its eruption through symbolic imagery.
Early in the film, Jack’s car heading toward a remote mountain hotel is captured using a “bird’s-eye view” and extreme long shots, hinting at the hotel’s isolation. While the primary colors visible from a distance are vivid, as the camera draws closer, the frame shifts to an arrangement of white and black, visually illustrating the characters’ fate of being trapped in the isolated hotel. The composition—which interweaves red against a backdrop of dazzling light and a white screen—evokes the images of blood and fallen corpses seen through Danny’s vision, leaving a powerful impression.
A striking scene in the hotel’s interior is the long take that follows Danny’s tricycle using a Steadicam. The Steadicam minimizes camera shake, creating an exceptionally stable tracking shot. The audience moves along the long hallway with an unshaken gaze, feeling an increasingly strong premonition that something strange awaits at the end. The hallway alternates between carpeted and wooden floors, producing eerie sounds, and its labyrinthine design repeatedly reinforces a sense of anxiety similar to that found in maze scenes.
The film’s title, ‘The Shining’, refers to Danny’s psychic abilities—specifically, his power to sense and see through supernatural phenomena. This supernatural element serves as another source that triggers fear of the unknown. Jack’s behavior reveals a process of self-disintegration through repetitive and obsessive actions; scenes such as throwing and catching a ball against the wall or the repetitive sound of a typewriter function as devices that gradually break down his mental state.
In the film, Jack becomes obsessed with the figures responsible for a murder that occurred ten years earlier—referred to in the text as “Cred” and the bartender’s ghost—and begins to threaten his family. In contrast, Danny uses her “Shining” to see scenes of past murders and foresee future threats. In this way, the interplay between the supernatural and the fragmentation of family relationships, conveyed through various techniques and symbols within a confined space, completes the film’s horror.
Mirrors, Fragmentation, and the Loss of a Father—A Socially Critical Message
‘The Shining’ implicitly reveals not only personal fears but also a social message. Midway through the film, a scene where Danny is cradled in Jack’s arms and conversing with him is presented as a reflection in a mirror, but the audience sees only the image within that mirror. This directorial choice—where the child does not look directly at her father but stares at Jack’s reflection in the mirror—shows that Danny has already recognized Jack’s inner division.
Jack’s split personality is starkly revealed in the manuscript where the phrase “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” is repeated. Through this, Kubrick seems to present the collapse of patriarchal authority and the fragmentation of family relationships themselves as a central pillar of the horror. In other words, the film dramatizes the fear that when the father’s authority as the head of the household crumbles, the entire family may collapse.
The social context of the United States around the 1980s—wounded political pride, economic shifts and unemployment, drug problems, and high divorce rates—triggered family disintegration and the erosion of patriarchal values. This historical backdrop intertwines with the film’s metaphorical devices, emphasizing the destructive force that befalls both the family and the nation when the “patriarch whom they trusted and followed” begins to lose his grip on reality.
In the film, the brutal murder scenes and images of blood from the past serve not only as simple horror devices but can also be interpreted as symbols of the madness of war and the bloodshed experienced by the United States in the past. In other words, personal and national violence mirror each other, and Kubrick’s distinctive perspective distorts our view of society.
Ultimately, ‘The Shining’ offers a critique of patriarchal society through the story of a patriarch—once trusted and obeyed—who goes mad and threatens his family. The paradoxical horror of “the head of the household” trying to kill us is why this film resonates so powerfully with audiences.
Overall, by interweaving the subversion of the familiar space of the home, intricate scene design and symbolism, and the loss of paternal authority and family disintegration, the film conveys both multi-layered horror and social criticism simultaneously.
