- Hi, everyone!
I'm Andrew and I've always been the caretaker here.
Stephen King's 'The Shining'
and Stanley Kubrick's controversial adaptation
are among the most influential pieces
of media in horror history.
(blood splattering)
- Hmm, what's that?
Usually, the blood gets off at the second floor.
- So needless to say,
expectations are high for the sequel, 'Doctor Sleep.'
But before we check back in on a grownup Danny Torrance,
we wanted to look back at the origins of the Overlook,
and its impact on the genre.
Where was the story originally set?
Why did Kubrick throw away King's script?
And what made King return to the story
after nearly four whole decades?
Gimme the bat, take your medicine,
and follow the bouncing ball,
because this is 'The True Story of the Shining.'
(suspenseful music)
Before the sequel, before Stanley Kubrick,
and yes, even before 'Ready Player One,'
'The Shining' was simply an intriguing new novel
by an up-and-coming writer.
So let's begin with the book.
By 1974, the career of Stephen King
had really started to take off.
The long-struggling writer had finally hit it big
with his first novel, 'Carrie,'
going from starving artist to superstar nearly overnight.
King followed it up with his influential
suburban vampire story ''Salem's Lot.'
But for his next work,
he wanted to expand his horizons beyond his backyard.
Hard to believe, but back then,
King didn't wanna be typecast
as the dude who set all his stories in small-town Maine,
so he opened up an atlas,
ask your parents what those are,
(bell rings)
and flipped through randomly
until he landed on Boulder, Colorado.
King and his family packed their things,
schlepped across the country,
and checked into Room 217 of the famous Stanley Hotel
on October 30th, 1974,
just as it was closing down for winter.
- [Wendy] My god!
This place has been casted!
Ain't it, hun?
- [Jack] Sure is!
- The Kings were the only guests.
And as they sat alone
in the vast ballroom of the fading landmark,
eating dinner as the staff cleaned up around them,
with canned orchestra music echoing down the empty hallways,
Steve knew he'd found the perfect setting
for a story he'd been kicking around called 'Darkshine.'
His original idea centered around a psychic kid
trapped in a haunted amusement park,
inspired by the famous John Lennon lyric, "We all shine on."
♪ We all shine on ♪
♪ Everyone ♪
♪ Come on ♪
- He transplanted 'Darkshine' to an old hotel in Colorado,
and infused his own struggles
with alcoholism, his absent father,
and his gnawing, deep-seated fear
of giving into anger and hurting his kids.
(Jack painting)
- I dreamed that I killed you and Danny.
But I didn't just kill you, (cries)
I cut you up into little pieces!
- King finished the book in a mere four months,
and when it was published in 1977,
'The Shining' cemented his reputation
as America's premiere horror author.
Today, it's a given that pretty much anything he writes
will be turned into a film or TV show.
But back then, it was a big deal
when one of cinema's most accomplished auteurs
took on the task of making the movie.
(orchestral music)
Stanley Kubrick was far more established than King
when he first stumbled across 'The Shining.'
The director already had '2001,' 'A Clockwork Orange,'
and 'Dr. Strangelove' under his belt,
but he was coming off one of the biggest bombs
of his career, 1975's 'Barry Lyndon.'
It's a snooze fest.
(orchestral music)
(man screeches)
(bomb explodes)
So for his next film,
Kubrick decided to do something a little more commercial.
He had always dreamed
of creating the world's scariest movie
that would play upon the nightmare fears of the audience.
And after turning down both 'The Exorcist' and its sequel,
he locked himself in his office
with a stack of popular horror novels.
According to legend, Kubrick's secretary
could hear him constantly chucking rejected books
at the wall, until one day, the thunks stopped.
And when she went in to check on him,
she found Kubrick deeply engrossed in 'The Shining.'
The director still wasn't the biggest King fan.
He considered his writing weak
and didn't even look at the screenplay
the author submit himself.
Instead, he teamed up with writer Diane Johnson
to transform the story from the tale of a good man
succumbing to inner and outer demons,
to a clearly crazy person driven past the brink
by isolation and angry spirits.
We did a video all about
Kubrick and King's different visions
that you should go check out.
But no matter what the two artists thought about each other,
the 1980 film stands on its own
as a bonafide masterpiece of modern horror,
and we're not just saying that.
That's my favorite (bleeps) movie of all time.
Watch 'The Shining.'
It's not my favorite of all time.
That was kind of an oversell.
But it's definitely my favorite horror film of all time.
(bleeps)
Robert De Niro, fresh off 'Taxi Driver,'
was considered for the role of Jack Torrance,
but Kubrick didn't think he was psychotic enough.
Robin Williams auditioned, but he was a little too extra
in his Robin Williams way.
Eventually, he landed on Jack Nicholson,
a rising star who had already proven he could play crazy.
- Oh, goody, goody.
Here it comes!
(device whirring)
(Jack screams)
(Jack laughs)
Oh my god, don't stop now!
- Creating the Overlook itself
was even more crucial than the cast.
Kubrick chose not to use the real-life inspiration
because the Stanley was actually
a fairly pleasant-looking place on camera.
- It is a great hotel.
- Instead, Kubrick created
his own immortal interpretation of the Overlook.
For the exteriors,
Kubrick selected Oregon's Timberline Lodge,
while the interiors were built
as massive sets at Elstree studios,
the same soundstage where the 'Star Wars' trilogy was shot.
Kubrick created a vast, empty hotel
that was simultaneously a cramped, claustrophobic maze,
with impossible architecture and a layout
that doesn't make any sense in the real world.
If you watch that movie
and you see how the hotel's laid out,
it doesn't make any sense.
The blazing lights required to create the illusion
of a whited-out winter through the windows were so hot
that the set actually burned down near the end of filming,
which I'm sure came as a relief
to the stars of "The Shining".
After all, Kubrick was a notorious perfectionist,
and he subjected his cast to brutal conditions.
They'd spend six weeks rehearsing a single scene,
and over 13 hours shooting it,
going through take after take after take after take
until the director was satisfied.
- [Director] Just one more.
Let's one more, we'll work our way through that.
- Going through take after take after take after take
until the director was satisfied!
(bleeps)
The grind drove Nicholson nuts,
and brought Scatman Crothers to tears.
How dare you!
But poor Shelly Duvall, she got the worst of it.
Kubrick made the onset experience
as unpleasant as possible for her,
forcing dozens of retakes,
and stressing her to the point
where her hair started to fall out.
I guess it helped bring out the despair
and terror in her performance,
but that's no excuse for torturing the people,
especially the women who work for you.
- [Woman] Oh, she's 25 to one.
- Well, don't sympathize with Shelley.
- [Woman] I know, it's not gonna be for her.
- Kubrick's treatment used to be held up
as a romanticized example of a meticulous artist
driven to perfect his craft, but these days,
it's a stain on the film's otherwise impeccable legacy.
(ominous music)
'The Shining' premiered on May 23rd, 1980,
just weeks after the first 'Friday The 13th.'
Horror cinema was quickly becoming the domain
of sleaze and slashers,
but 'The Shining' proved that prestige and premium quality
could still make an impact.
(Wendy gasps)
- Great party, isn't it?
(Wendy screams)
- King himself clearly wasn't a fan, as we all knew,
and the critics were lukewarm,
and it was definitely a slow burn at the box office.
But as it slowly grew in success,
'The Shining' came to represent
a very different kind of horror.
The film is almost a pure exercise in aesthetic.
The terror doesn't come from characters you care about,
or even gruesome gore, it's all about unnerving visuals,
and meticulously composed imagery rife
with symbolism seen and unseen, and sometimes, even fault,
that, over the years, has sparked intense
and occasionally oddball analysis.
- [Man] Though this one's a little harder to find,
but there is definitely the photograph
of Stanley Kubrick in one frame,
airbrushed in to the clouds.
(pop music)
- From fake moon landings to Minotaurs,
fans of 'The Shining' have spent decades
dissecting every frame of the film
in desperate search of meaning,
as shown in the spectacular documentary 'Room 237,'
and about 15,000 thumbnails
consisting of red arrows and red circles.
And can you blame them?
It's not like there was a deluge of Shining sequels
and tie-ins to obsess over.
Sure, there was King's own made-for-TV remake,
but the less said about that, the better.
- [Dick Voiceover] Way to go, captain.
- [Boy Voiceover] I love you, guys.
- See?
It's okay.
You saw it on the television.
- Fans demanded to know more about what happened
to Danny, Wendy, and Dick Hallorann after the Overlook,
but direct sequels aren't really King's style.
Don't get me wrong, he's famous for sharing characters
and settings across his works,
but outside of well-defined series like 'The Dark Tower'
or the Bill Hodges trilogy,
he doesn't usually revisit his stories so directly.
But this may come as a shock to you
but 'The Rage: Carrie 2,' 'Pet Sematary 2,'
and 'Children of the Corn...'
I'm sorry, two through 10?
There are 10 'Children of the Corn' movies?
(dramatic music)
- Careful what you wish for.
- None of those were in fact based on King novels.
'Doctor Sleep' is.
And you can thank King's Constant Readers for the followup.
At a talk with David Croenenberg in 2009,
King told the audience he was kicking around the idea
for a 'Shining' sequel,
inspired by a news story about Oscar,
a cat who lived at a hospice
and could sense when people were about to pass on.
- It seems Oscar not only has nine lives,
but also a sixth sense about death.
- Later that year, he ran a poll on his website
to determine what he should write next.
Either a side-story in 'The Dark Tower' saga,
or 'Doctor Sleep.'
'Sleep' barely edged out 'The Wind Through the Keyhole'
which he ended up writing anyway because he's Stephen King.
And in 2013, we finally learned
what became of Danny Torrance!
'Doctor Sleep' is a divisive book,
and it's definitely not as good as 'The Shining'
but also, it's not really trying to be.
And either way, the movie by Mike Flanagan
is going to be very different.
When it comes to 'The Shining,'
the book and film are as inseparable as the Grady twins,
two drastically different visions
that have become forever entwined in our shared psyche.
And in attempting to reconcile both,
'Doctor Sleep' might finally be able to bury the hatchet.
- [Wendy] Stop it!
Stop!
- Here's Johnny.
(Wendy screaming)