10 Genius Suspense Tricks That Made Movies Great
4. The Overlook Hotel's Layout Intentionally Makes No Sense - The Shining
Stanley Kubrick was the grandmaster of screwing with audiences, and he never did it any better than in his horror classic The Shining.
The film memorably employs non-linear editing techniques to create a surreal aesthetic, often defined by intentionally jarring and offputting cutaways.
However, Kubrick also put enormous energy into ensuring the Overlook Hotel remained a nebulous, mysterious setting.
This was largely achieved through staging and editing, with Kubrick deliberately presenting the hotel's layout as confusing and contradictory to keep audiences in a state of heightened bleariness, as though experiencing a fever dream.
For example, the office where Jack (Jack Nicholson) is initially interviewed has a window to the outside, yet the film makes it clear there are rooms surrounding the office, making this impossible.
There are many other "impossible" windows featured throughout the film, not to mention blatant moments where Jack doubles back on himself, and even a much-debated moment where the distinctive carpet pattern changes direction between shots while Danny (Danny Lloyd) is sitting on it.
If that's all not peculiar enough, an early scene where Jack and Wendy (Shelley Duvall) walk around the exterior of the Overlook suddenly sees their walking orientation change with no explanation whatsoever.
Given Kubrick's infamous penchant for perfectionism, it's far easier to accept that the Overlook's muddled geography was a pointed effort to enhance the film's already dread-sodden atmosphere rather than a director simply not caring enough.