10 Horror Movies That Punish You For Getting Wasted

3. Jack Torrance - The Shining

Shrooms 2007
Warner Bros

To some, The Shining itself is a story designed as a metaphor for alcoholism, with Stephen King famously battling his own alcohol addiction problems at the time he wrote this tale back in 1977.

Regardless of the symbolism associated with The Shining, Jack Torrance is clearly a character whose abuse of alcohol is something that plays a major part in his spiral into insanity, his own death, and the intense abusing by Jack of his own family.

Stanley Kubrick's The Shining didn't throw quite as much a spotlight on Jack's alcoholism as the source material - which is one of the reasons King himself was unhappy with the film - but these themes were still constantly bubbling under the surface in Kubrick's picture.

For Jack, there are several different ways in which his boozing ways punish him. Firstly, despite his descent into madness, there are clear moments where there's a sense of self-loathing amongst Jack as he loses his battle to stay sober. Then, there's the impact this has on Jack's wife and son, with Wendy and Danny living in fear of the Torrance family patriarch's habits.

Combine this pre-existing issue with the evil intentions of the Overlook Hotel, and it's a recipe for disaster for Jack and his nearest and dearest in The Shining.

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