20 Things You Didn't Know About The Shining
Obscure facts about one of the most famous horror stories of all time.
There are horror stories, there are great horror stories, and then there is The Shining.
Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece of horror, at first misunderstood by critics when it originally came out, has - like all truly great movies of its era - garnered the respect it rightfully deserves in the decades since. The way the film uses clever cinematography to put the view in a constant feeling of unease and discomfort long before anything actually spooky happens is unmatched even to this day.
And like all great films, the story behind its creation is just as interesting as the movie itself. The backstory behind The Shining is legendary at this point for just how bizarre it is and how every time you hear about it, there's always some new anecdote or story that happened to the cast and crew while filming.
Many of these you've already heard before if you're in any way a fan of this or Kubrick's other work. But others you may never have heard before. These are the 15 most interesting facts about one of the most interesting films ever made.
20. The Overlook Hotel Makes No Sense
One of the first things you notice about this movie when you start combing through it with a critical eye is that the Overlook Hotel makes absolutely no god damn sense.
Let's start with Ullman's office. The office has windows looking outside, but their placement makes no sense because looking at the room from the outside clearly shows that there are rooms where those windows would be placed. In fact, multiple times throughout the movie there are windows that should not exist where they are. The ballroom could not fit inside a hotel like this, corridors go on too long and sometimes wind in circles.
According to Jan Harlan, the film's executive producer, this was all - of course - intentional. Nothing about the inside of this hotel is meant to make any kind of logical sense. The Torrence family left logic behind when they took this job to begin with. It's one of the first things you notice when you go looking for the deeper meaning behind this movie, which is why it's here at the bottom of the list, but noticing it really does add to the nightmarish quality of the setting.