There are horror movies, and then there is The Shining. As time passes, The Shining jumps around a bit in my personal list of all-time favorite movies (as well as favorite Kubrick movies, but that's another post), but it never leaves, like the echoes of the murdered twin girls, bloodied and ever staring in the tight hallway. As much as I enjoyed the book -- in Stephen King terms, I'm a Constant Reader -- the movie has largely wiped away my memories of the text and replaced them with indelible images and genuinely unsettling sonic landscapes. Uproxx has posted a nice long-form piece about what The Shining means to various horror directors, but if I'm ever asked what The Shining means to me, the first thing that comes to mind for me isn't quite related to the movie.
I was nine years old when The Shining was released in theaters, and as Halloween and Friday the 13th jump-started the horror renaissance as the '70s turned into the '80s, the anticipation for the film was strong enough to generate a solid ad blitz, from newspaper ads to thirty-second television spots like this:
As a SK fan, I knew of the book, but was quite unprepared for what the trailer had to offer -- an opening shot of a young boy (not so much younger than me, with a similar haircut) running away from a psychotic ax-wielding father chasing him in a snow-covered hedge maze -- and I went from curious to terrified in about five seconds. The last twenty-five seconds of the trailer seemed to take hours, and when it was finished, my eyes were wide and unblinking, and my heart was beating out of my chest. I was hooked and horrified at the same time.
I watched this ad at my grandparent's creepy-ass house, just before my late-spring-to-early-summer bedtime. (If The Shining was set in The Overlook Hotel, call my grandparent's house The Underbite Motel.) I was spending the night, sleeping over in a living room surrounded by large windows framing obsidian snapshots of a moonless northern Michigan night. The Underbite was creepy in the daytime, with poorly lit creaky hallways leading to darkened rooms with strange smells, so when night fell, the eerie vibes were amplified. And if you had to go to the bathroom, you had to navigate this shambolic maze, fumbling for a light switch all the while.
So after staying up past my normal bedtime and intoxicated on a mixture of warm Canada Dry ginger ale and salty Pringles, my body was primed for relief. But when the trailer for The Shining came on, and the adrenaline surge hit, any urge for evacuation immediately vanished. Which was fine for a while, but as the surge faded, the urge to pee came flooding back. Now I was torn -- I had to pee so bad that my scleras were yellowing, but I was so afraid to move from the couch that I could imagine never getting up until the next day at high noon -- and as my grandparents headed off to bed, I knew that the moment of choice was fast approaching.
Many things were running through my mind in those moments after Earl and Sheba shuffled off to sleep:
* DON'T THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH I HAVE TO PEE I HAVE TO PEE I HAVE TO PEE
* DON'T LOOK AT THE TV 'CAUSE THE NEXT COMMERCIAL COULD BE FOR THE SHINING
* DON'T TURN OFF THE TV 'CAUSE THE TV COULD TURN ITSELF ON AND PLAY THE AD
* DON'T LOOK OUTSIDE 'CAUSE JACK NICHOLSON IS OUT THERE WITH HIS AX
* DON'T LOOK DOWN THE DARK HALLWAY 'CAUSE I'M GOING TO DIE
Faced with these mercurial and conflicting thoughts, there seemed to be only one rational solution. After all, I needed to pee, but I couldn't walk down the hall to the bathroom, because I would surely be killed and/or pee my pants at some point during the journey. So after seeing some large potted plants by the couch, I pulled down my pants -- never taking my eyes off the nearest picture window, because if I did I would surely be killed -- and pissed into the biggest and closest plant for what seemed like forever. And once I was done, I backed into my makeshift couch bed and pulled the blankets over my head. Sleep seemed miles away, but at least my bladder was good to go, and eventually I drifted off to safety, not knowing I would have the fodder for one of the best stories of my life. And for me, that's the lasting legacy of The Shining.
The plant died soon after, by the way.
I was nine years old when The Shining was released in theaters, and as Halloween and Friday the 13th jump-started the horror renaissance as the '70s turned into the '80s, the anticipation for the film was strong enough to generate a solid ad blitz, from newspaper ads to thirty-second television spots like this:
As a SK fan, I knew of the book, but was quite unprepared for what the trailer had to offer -- an opening shot of a young boy (not so much younger than me, with a similar haircut) running away from a psychotic ax-wielding father chasing him in a snow-covered hedge maze -- and I went from curious to terrified in about five seconds. The last twenty-five seconds of the trailer seemed to take hours, and when it was finished, my eyes were wide and unblinking, and my heart was beating out of my chest. I was hooked and horrified at the same time.
I watched this ad at my grandparent's creepy-ass house, just before my late-spring-to-early-summer bedtime. (If The Shining was set in The Overlook Hotel, call my grandparent's house The Underbite Motel.) I was spending the night, sleeping over in a living room surrounded by large windows framing obsidian snapshots of a moonless northern Michigan night. The Underbite was creepy in the daytime, with poorly lit creaky hallways leading to darkened rooms with strange smells, so when night fell, the eerie vibes were amplified. And if you had to go to the bathroom, you had to navigate this shambolic maze, fumbling for a light switch all the while.
So after staying up past my normal bedtime and intoxicated on a mixture of warm Canada Dry ginger ale and salty Pringles, my body was primed for relief. But when the trailer for The Shining came on, and the adrenaline surge hit, any urge for evacuation immediately vanished. Which was fine for a while, but as the surge faded, the urge to pee came flooding back. Now I was torn -- I had to pee so bad that my scleras were yellowing, but I was so afraid to move from the couch that I could imagine never getting up until the next day at high noon -- and as my grandparents headed off to bed, I knew that the moment of choice was fast approaching.
Many things were running through my mind in those moments after Earl and Sheba shuffled off to sleep:
* DON'T THINK ABOUT HOW MUCH I HAVE TO PEE I HAVE TO PEE I HAVE TO PEE
* DON'T LOOK AT THE TV 'CAUSE THE NEXT COMMERCIAL COULD BE FOR THE SHINING
* DON'T TURN OFF THE TV 'CAUSE THE TV COULD TURN ITSELF ON AND PLAY THE AD
* DON'T LOOK OUTSIDE 'CAUSE JACK NICHOLSON IS OUT THERE WITH HIS AX
* DON'T LOOK DOWN THE DARK HALLWAY 'CAUSE I'M GOING TO DIE
Faced with these mercurial and conflicting thoughts, there seemed to be only one rational solution. After all, I needed to pee, but I couldn't walk down the hall to the bathroom, because I would surely be killed and/or pee my pants at some point during the journey. So after seeing some large potted plants by the couch, I pulled down my pants -- never taking my eyes off the nearest picture window, because if I did I would surely be killed -- and pissed into the biggest and closest plant for what seemed like forever. And once I was done, I backed into my makeshift couch bed and pulled the blankets over my head. Sleep seemed miles away, but at least my bladder was good to go, and eventually I drifted off to safety, not knowing I would have the fodder for one of the best stories of my life. And for me, that's the lasting legacy of The Shining.
The plant died soon after, by the way.
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