The Shining

So I think I might be the only person in this class who had never seen The Shining before this class, I promise it wasn't for a lack of trying, though! For about the past year I have been set on seeing this film, but somehow it never happened. And now that I have seen it, I can definitely say it didn't disappoint. By far the scariest thing we have watched thus far (and maybe achieved exclusively through the music tbh), and there was just so much going on that I can now finally understand its  ever-expanding fan base and the endless lore that surrounds its making and story itself.

As far as Clover's codes and conventions for the slasher, there are a number of crossovers. First, the terrible place. As in the Slasher, the Overlook hotel is perceived to be a safe place for the Torrance family, maybe even a place for them to get a fresh start after Jack's incident with his son Danny. But, holding true to the genre, that same place turns into a prison holding its victim's captive. Not only are Wendy and Danny stuck inside during the terrible storm during Jack's rampage, but Jack's mind is also preyed upon by the hotel itself, the isolation rendering him insane. No one is able to escape their past, especially Jack, as his abuse to Danny seems to haunt him, turning into the reason he attacks his family, as he believes that the Wendy now resents him for it. Next, the fucked up family unit. I don't think I need to go into this one, but it is easy to see that the Torrance's are no healthy family. As the killer, Jack cannot be read as strictly masculine, though he might have been in the beginning of the film. As it progresses, it becomes more clear that Wendy, the masculine final girl, "wears the pants" as she does Jack's work at the hotel, protects her son, and even strikes her husband with a baseball bat. Jack on the other hand seems to be just as (and even arguably more) emotional than Wendy, and after injuring Danny, there is an observable castration complex within himself as he seems to have let down his entire family. The weapon of choice is the "pretechnological" axe, acting as an extension of Jack's primitive, animalistic psychosis. In this way, Jack seems to be trying to reclaim his (previously castrated) masculine authority, by utilizing the most phallic weapon he can find.

Now this is all laid out relatively easily, but I kind of got stuck on something else. Throughout the whole film, there seemed to be a heavy emphasis on circles, mazes, and forward motion. It was either Danny riding around in circles on his tricycle, the Overlook's maze and its model presented in front of Jack, the ring figures present in almost all of the carpeting, or ALL OF THOSE FUCKING MOVING SHOTS. You know, the ones where the camera moved quickly at the pace of the subjects and followed them step for step. There was a certain chaotic motion it captured and it honestly made me dizzy and felt quite unsettling. I really wasn't sure what to make out of all of this (and maybe what I am about to claim is kinda bullshit), but as the story unraveled, much like Jack, Wendy, and Danny's minds, it seemed to symbolize the seemingly endless chaos the family had entered. And then Jack remarked that it felt like he had been here before. This makes me want to jump down like five different paths, like what that adds to the uncanniness to the film, but that felt like it spoke very deeply to what the film felt like, for the characters and the spectators. So many shots were repeated, but just slightly different. This repetition seems to embody the history behind the hotel and the previous atrocities that had taken place there. Really, this isn't a full fledged idea or anything, but it seemed worth mentioning to see of any of you guys had any thoughts on it or also noticed this kind of pattern. Now I feel like I need to watch The Shining about ten more times. Thank you and goodnight.