What are we talking about tonight, guys?
Shining.That's what it is.
We're talking about the shimming!It's the first time I've seen it, so... Amazing.Oh, can't wait.
Oh, yeah.This is great.I want to make sure to ask that question once we're... Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.We usually do that, like, when was the last time you saw it?How many times?So, yeah.Wait.It's exciting.Hold on.Wait.
Yeah.Especially when we're talking about, like, classic movies and stuff like that.
Emily, apparently, is going to be incriminated by that answer.She has left.
Good evening, and welcome to Progressively Horrified.The show where we hold horror to standards it absolutely never
Good evening, and welcome to Progressively Horrified, the podcast where we hold horror to progressive standards it never agreed to.
Tonight, we're talking about what is already one of the most over-talked-about movies of all time, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.
We have, I'm sure, great, valuable things to add to this conversation, but it's one of the biggest horror movies that we hadn't actually talked about. Since it's October, we wanted to go ahead and hit that one.
I am your host, Jeremy Whitley, and with me tonight, I have a panel of cinephiles and Cenobites.First, they're here to challenge the sexy world of Sexy Vampire Binary, my co-host, Ben Conn.Ben, how are you tonight?
Finally, a movie that accurately depicts the writing process.
Not wrong, I feel.And the cinnamon roll of Cenobites, our co-host, Emily Martin.How are you tonight, Emily?
I don't know if it's over-talked about.There's a lot to talk about in this movie.We can add some variety to the discussion of how we talk about this movie.
When there are entire documentaries made about just one particular element of this movie, I'm going to say it might be a little disgust.It is disgust.
People were making two-hour video essays about this movie before people even had YouTube to upload two-hour video essays to.
Yeah.And speaking of people who will video essay this with us tonight, we have three guests who are friends of the podcast.First, welcome back to the amazing comics artists and my collaborator on the dog night, Bree Indigo.Welcome Bree.
Hi, it's nice to be back.I miss your faces.
And comics and movie reviewer, Greg Silver.Greg, welcome back.Hey, good to see you all.I didn't make the connection that Bree was the artist of the dog night.I love that book.
And finally, friend of the podcast and publicist Jory Roberts.Jory, welcome.
Thank you.It's great to be back.And I hope you guys are ready to talk with your fingers because we're going to be doing a lot of that.
I didn't know.This is arrangeable.I'll go find my little boy that lives in my mouth.
We all have one.Speaking of which, because this is such a big movie, a classic, a thing that people talk a lot about, I wanted to ask what everybody's experience was with The Shining before this.
I know, Bree, you said this was your first time watching it.
Yeah.I think my mom tried to get me to watch it when I was really young because she was that kind of mom, but I was just like not into it.
So, you know, it's just been one of those things where I'm like, well, it's not going anywhere and it's a classic, so I'll get around to it.And now I'm 31, finally watching it for this podcast.
So in other words, you're completely correct.It would remain around and you would eventually find time to see it.
Yeah. Yeah.Was this anybody else's first time with The Shining or no?I feel like some of us in this group have seen it a few times.Jory, how many times is this for you?Or do you know?
The first time I saw it was in high school.I mean, it was a great age.I was probably like 14-ish, 15-ish.And that's the age where you can be a little scared by horror movies.
And I first had it shown to me by one of my best friends who has shown me a lot of really classic movies.And she was all excited for it.She's like, Oh, let's do like a movie night in my basement.
You know how it would always be in their parents' basement.And so we watched it for the very first time there.That was the last time was like 15, over 15 years ago that I watched it end to end in one sitting.
But I feel like it's so memorable that it feels like I've seen it more times since then, just because it's like, it's so familiar.
but this most recent time watching it that was my first time in in over 15 years again re-watching it totally like sitting down watching end to end nice nice nice to revisit yeah and uh greg what about you i read the book first when uh i was about 13 but the movie i saw when i was
somewhere around 13, 14 years old.And it was a big deal because it was like the first really scary R-rated horror movie that my dad let me watch.And it was me and a couple of my other middle school friends
We did have a basement to watch it in, but I think it was a sleepover situation.
And my then 11-year-old brother was also allowed to watch it because of that whole thing where when you're the oldest sibling, when your parents decide that you're old enough to do something, then your younger siblings, they're allowed to do it too.
Ben, what's your experience with The Shining before this?
So actually, much like Greg, I read the book when I was around 13.I remember I read it at sleepaway camp because I was like the one kid at camp who would bring a big ass stack of books and actually finish it by the time summer was over.
Yep.I wish that was me.Yeah, no, I was that loser.I didn't.It's really, here's the key to doing a lot of summer reading as a kid.Don't have friends.You have no friends.If nobody likes you, you have a lot of extra time for reading.
So that was my secret in childhood.Sad Ben facts. But I then saw the movie for the first time in high school, when I first started going on real film kicks.This is one of my favorite movies of all time, period.
Not just horror movies, this is somewhere in my top five movies of all time.
yeah i can see why yeah this was probably my i want to say probably my fifth or sixth time watching it nice much like what jory thought about kind of only watching it once many years ago and kind of remembering all that i don't think i had seen it between the first time i saw it and when i just saw it a couple of weeks ago
I mean, for all my misgivings, and I'm sure we all have plenty, it is legitimately a really well-crafted film and pretty unforgettable at that.
So much of this movie sticks in your mind, like carves itself into your mind, is so unforgettable.
And yet, no matter how many times I see this movie, I always repress the scene of Jack Nicholson and the other character just repeating the N-word to each other for way too long.
That's one I didn't remember, I have to say.I remember that one.
Every time I watch the movie, I realize that I had successfully repressed the memory of that scene from the last time.
You cringe into this depression.You're just like, no, not me, no.
Emily remembered that one, and I do want to ask, we haven't gotten to Emily yet.Emily, what is your history with The Shining?
Well, I have to echo Ben, and that is one of my favorite movies.And that is not to say that it is perfect.Right.But I remember that particular exchange, which has given me some pause in recommending it to people.
But I saw it first in high school, and then I've seen it on network television a bunch of times, which was a version that did not have that particular bit of that exchange.
I mean, they cut that for network TV. That's a part of his character.He's racist.I mean, yeah, you're not supposed to be likable.
No, no, I by the time he's saying the N word, he's already gone full villain.
And in no part is the story like trying to like lift like, Oh, but he's like, well, no, they're like, very susceptible to peer pressure.
he's not even here just to guess something and it's like yeah i shouldn't kill my family ghosts man oh yeah this movie is very formative for me my greatest memory of it was watching it on halloween with a bunch of my buddies who included my friend avi
for whom the character Avi in the Adventure Zone is named.So Avi Warder, this shouts out, this is a shout out to you, a good friend of mine.
An equally popular podcast, as far as I'm sure.
Yeah.If you've heard of that one, I know it's kind of esoteric.Yeah.
Hot Rec, the McAvoy brothers.
Look, it's nice of us to give a shout out to the little guys.Right?
I think I've seen this film four, maybe five times.I saw it once as, you know, a high schooler who was just like, I want to know about scary movies.And I watched this movie and I was like, I'm not particularly scared by this movie.
But, you know, it's also, it's one of those things that as a high schooler, you're sort of half watching it, waiting for something to jump out.And it's not a particularly.No, it's not a jump out movie.
Also, what I discovered watching it the second time in a film crit class, where they have like an actual movie theater setup, is so much of what is scary about this movie is the sound design.
Shout out to Wendy Carlos.
Wendy Carlos is the goat. If you've never watched it in a theater, you've never found a black screen that says Wednesday, so scary as you will when you watch this movie.
There's several portions where there'll be a tense scene and it'll be like, and then it'll go, Wednesday, and you're like, shit, Wednesday.
Oh, geez.And then, you know, I think I took a dip on this around the third time I saw it because I found out a lot more about Stanley Kubrick and the way he kind of acted like a real shit making this movie.
All of this stuff he put very old Scatman Brothers through in particular, the way that he sort of has allowed himself to be given sort of the sole praise for the greatness of this movie, despite Jack Nicholson being like, hey, fucking Shelley Duvall putting the best performance in fucking anything in a really hard role.
Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall are fucking titans in this movie.
Yeah, they're the pillars that hold it up.
This movie, does not work with actors that are not bringing fucking 11 out of 10s the way they are.
And how do we know that?We've watched Dr. Sleep.Oh, no.I like Dr. Sleep.
I do like Dr. Sleep, but when you have- Rebecca Ferguson is wonderful.
But Paul Tweety's mom in a top hat, I'm sorry, like least scary villain of all time.
That is a very different sell for me.
Just saying.But Jeremy, finish your story.
I was going to say, I think watching it this time, you got sort of enough distance from it, especially watching it right after Jaws, there's several moments in this movie where you're like, oh, here's a shot that changed film forever.Yeah.
Like there's like three or four of those in this movie, easily.It's like, oh yeah, this is something that you will see.
I mean, my kids were sort of wandering in and out while we were watching this, trying actively not to let them get into some of the more horrible stuff.But also they were like,
oh yeah i i remember this from the simpsons or i remember this from this other show that i watched yeah that was all i knew before it too like when i was a kid like family guy references and stuff and i was like oh these you'll understand these if you're my age and i was just like yeah i watched this with my partner it was kathleen's first time seeing it oh nice and i could definitely see in her eyes the realization you know as she was like
four dozen different things she's seen and watched over her lifetime as she suddenly realized like oh these were all shining references.Yeah it's like watching Casablanca for the first time.
Here's Johnny, red rum, the bicycle, the creepy little girls, the elevator full of blood, things she has seen referenced countless times.
I watched this movie for the podcast with a friend of mine that had never seen the movie at all.They're a big horror fan, and they hadn't seen The Shining, but my friend Quinn... Some judgment.That's fair.
Look, I watched it with my 40-year-old wife who had never seen this film before, so... Right.
But for everything. Sometimes it's like, I don't want to watch it because everyone keeps saying to watch it.I'll watch it when I want to watch it.
Yeah, that was that was the moment like I knew that Gwen was not going to be receptive to it because I tried to show them Fight Club the week before and they were like, uh-uh.What?
I had a really great week of like showing my Transmask friends Fight Club.It was just a coincidence that we watched it multiple times.
That should be a whole fucking podcast thing.
Yeah, was it the Transmaskers who didn't like Fight Club?Because Fight Club might be the most Transmask movie.
Well, I have three Transmask buddies that all have different takes on Fight Club and they're fascinating, but we'll talk about that when slash if we talk about Fight Club.
Had two things to say.One was they referred to Stanley Kubrick's default expression as the lead paint stare, and that is so fucking accurate.
Two, at the part where we first see Jack working at the typewriter, Quinn turns to me and they say like, wouldn't it be funny if it was just the word penis over and over again?And I'm like, I thought you hadn't seen this movie.I mean, mental health.
It's definitely an important aspect of this film.And taking care of your mental health is really important.
But given that to pretty much every single one of Jack Nicholson's crazed, insane facial expressions, my first thought was, man, I know that feel. I'm probably not doing good.
I have to say, there was a point in this movie, it's in the scene where she comes in and starts talking to him while he's writing, and he is obviously pissed off and ends up telling her to fuck off.
But there's this point where she starts talking to him, and he turns and gives her this expression like, I guess you're not gonna fucking leave, so I'm just gonna smile at you.And Alicia turned to me and said, You make the exact same face.Oh, my God.
Oh, I think for me, it's the scene where he's just staring out the window and like his brains are just visibly leaking out as he metaphorically visibly leaking out his ears.And I'm just like, yup, that's me.At least two mornings out of the week.Yeah.
Why do you look like that?I was like, no.
So Jeremy, you mentioning that scene, I was actually going to ask, unless I have, I mean, I know I just rewatched it, but unless I have things out of order, I believe, is that the first scene where we really start to see like the cracks in their relationship when Wendy actually starts realizing that things are not right with him, I feel like, right?
I mean, if you count the like,
obvious foreshadowing and the discussions of him dislocating his son's shoulder previously and all of her smoking like her chain smoking it was 19 i know but no but it was the tension i would argue even when they're even when they're driving up to the hotel it kind of feels like he wants to kill that kid
Yeah, no, on the drive, they have a conversation where he's like, well, he saw it.He knows about cannibalism.He saw it on the television.
But I'm a husband and wife where it's like, where she, it just feels like something in her face changes when she sees that it's like, oh, we might actually be like, like this might be the final event.
where Audrey finally comes to a head and goes to shit, and we're in not regular danger, but mortal danger, like a hundred times, you know?Yeah, yeah.Yeah, because like- Something changed.
There's definitely like, because you watch my part, it was very funny where you were like, yeah, he's writing.It's the writing time.He's in the zone.Why would he be in the zone?And it's like, okay, this is starting to cross the line now.
This is getting assholey.
Well, yeah, I mean, you can just be like, hey, listen, I'm obviously writing.But part of me was just like, then go to your room.Why are you in the biggest room in the house?Why are you taking up so much space?
That was Alicia's point.She was like, why are you going to be in the great room with the giant fireplace and all of this furniture?That's going to be your office.Fuck the rest of the house.
I know you have to probably go through that room. to go to other rooms if you want to go to the kitchen.I was just like she I was just like let me go in there punch her in the face and take her and have a nice day out because she deserves it.
Yeah I will say uh rest in peace Shelly.Yeah that's I think it's important to note Shelly died very recently.Yeah and she I don't think she ever really got the flowers for her career generally, but especially for this movie.It is worth talking about.
I mean, at this point, we've already talked about Stanley Kubrick some.He is the director.
The accredited writers on this movie include Stephen King, obviously, Stanley Kubrick, and Diane Johnson, which, boy, that must have been a hell of a third seat.
be competing with those two egos apparently during production stanley kubrick would just like call stephen king up at like 2 a.m and just be like stephen do you believe in god sounds legit yeah that man was insane and horrible
Yeah, and so it does also star Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman brothers in a great, those small sort of performance in this movie.And Danny Lloyd is the son in this, who's also, character's also named Danny.
Shelley Duvall, unfortunately, she's like the only one of the main three that didn't just, wasn't just named the same thing as her name.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I kinda- Neither was Scatman, which is probably for the best.That's true, that's true.
Well, his name is Dick. uh which they only mention very late in the movie he calls her the phone is like hey it's dick hollering i was like his name is dick hollering Also, hell of a house, that guy.
Okay, so his place in Florida, what a fucking pad.Yeah.
Streamlined, streamlined design.
He must really, really care about this child a lot because he left Miami to go up this fucking mountain in a snowcat.
I'm sorry, but like, he was the magical Negro.He was like, I'm coming.
I mean, he's not one of the.
Fucking my partner looked at me, I was like, oh, he's that trope.Yeah.He's the OG.
I think we should note here that this is one of the many differences from the book.I don't know if we want to get into spoiler territory.
I'll talk about it when we get there, because I'm about to do the recap.So I'm going to try and do this pretty quick.
There's a lot of quite meaty weighty themes to really discuss for this one.
Yeah a lot of juice Yeah, so there's a lot of meat First few minutes of this movie.I've been getting a lot of fucking workout in this helicopter They run it as they go over this like long.
They're really Reinforcing just how far fucking out this overlook hotel is it's really far out there
They're going over, you see it twice, both as Jack drives out there, you see them following it because he's doing an interview to see if he can get the job.
And then shortly after that, when everybody has to go out there, they do the same series of helicopter flyovers again.
sick synthesizer drones, the droning synths are like, I feel it in your in your clavicle.
At no point is the is the audio like soundtrack, sound effects, sound design at no point is it not at a fucking den.Yeah.Like this movie ramps up the dread through audio like better than almost anything.
When I first saw it, a bunch of my friends and my brother, they weren't covering their eyes, they were covering their ears for a lot of it.
I think that speaks to how effective sound design is because there's some really scary visuals, but the accents that the music gives it really puts it over the top.
Well, even the most mundane scenes are super dreadful.You just have a constant feeling.It's like, what's going to happen?What's going to happen?Which probably is how Shelly's character feels.Yeah, absolutely.Windy.
It's the same soundtrack I heard all the time during 2020.Right.
That was every scene of your life in 2020.
2020 the year where the entire kind of fucking country was forced into our own little mini shining our little overlook We have a fucking studio apartment instead of a goddamn hotel Can I really say real quick?
I do recommend this base is good for if you have gallstones and you want to get them out or any sort of like Just go lay down on the speaker.
Just really get that going through you and
If you sit on the speaker, that's a different thing.
No, don't sit on the speaker.I mean, anyway.
Oh my god.Do you speak?Sit on it.Sorry.Sit on the speaker.
Sorry.So we start off being introduced to Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson.His Twitter bio says aspiring novelist.He wants to have a job maintaining a hotel deep in the mountains where he and his family can be isolated for months.
And he can really just finally write that novel that he's been telling everybody about.He's got a great idea. if only he just had the time to write it.
We will get into the parallels with Stephen King, the man, later.There is a lot to dive into Jack Torrance as a Stephen King stand-in.
Yeah, so Jack Torrance is going through this interview process to be the keeper for this hotel over the winter. They are very clear with him that, uh, no, it wouldn't be a great sea ledge.It's way the fuck out there.Nobody can get to it in the snow.
We also meet his, uh, wife, Wendy played by Shelley Duvall and his son, Danny played by Danny Lloyd.
Uh, Danny has a terrible case of spooky child and talks to his imaginary friend, Tony, a little boy who lives in his mouth and passes out while brushing his teeth and sees flashes of horrible things from this hotel he's never been to.
Uh, the fact that Danny doesn't run screaming from this hotel immediately when he gets there, having seen all these things in his brain already. It's wild.We learned through Wendy's conversation with the doctor that she has come up with Danny.
Danny started talking to Tony about the same time that her husband accidentally dislocated Danny's shoulder because he was doing a little bit of drinking and being aggravated.
Sounds of quotation marks happening.
His papers were on the floor.Couldn't happen to anyone.Just a few extra inches, energy per inches per second.Fucking hell, that scene.
I'm going to preface this by saying, by no means am I excusing Jack's behavior.But in the book, it's not just random papers that Danny had kind of messed up.He spilled beer or something over the in-progress play that Jack had been writing.
Now, obviously, that's no excuse for child abuse.
But it does speak to how I'm sure it was about a married English teacher unsatisfied with his life who has an affair with a student.
Well, I'm actually in the process of rereading the book.I have not finished it in time for this podcast because it is over 600 pages long.
I'm like, it's a it's a fucking book.Yeah, you're OK.
But it is a play about a teacher who has a contentious relationship with one of his students, which is echoed in the book by, and this is not in the movie, there was an incident before the events of the book in which Jack
kicked this one guy out of the school's debate team, and the kid who was cut from the team poked holes in Jack's tires, so Jack beat him to nearly an inch of his life.
Oh, wait, one of his own students?
Oh, very casual and, and like no punishment, nothing.
Oh, that's why he's fired.Yeah.
Oh my God.I was like, wait, hold up.
No, no.That's why he's good.That's why. So that does inform his character.
Yeah, it very much informs the character in the sense that he is in disgrace, that this is kind of his last shot, that he feels emasculated within his family, within his chosen profession, and part of his
seduction in the book is that he starts working on a book about the hotel and researching it and it becomes this thing where the more he researches the hotel and starts seeing it as his source of professional and reputational salvation, it makes him fall further under the hotel's thrall while also giving Stephen King lots of opportunities to just kind of give a bunch of exposition about the history of the hotel.
yes which is sort of barely brushed upon i mean we have enough of it in the movie but we don't need it we don't need it we don't need all of it yeah but continue jeremy sorry yeah so uh he goes and picks up the the wife and kids and drives back again along this winding thing they uh get to the hotel just as they're going through the last day of everybody getting everything done and moving out of there
They have to go through a series of briefings with different people.They eventually also meet Mr. Halloran, played by Scatman Carruthers, who's showing them around the hotel.And he has this strange connection with Danny.
He knows Danny's nickname is Doc.He starts telling him that without ever being told about it.He also speaks to Danny mentally without ever saying stuff out loud.He's able to communicate with him.
And he will then, we didn't learn from Halloran that Danny and he both share something called The Shining.It's what the movie's called.And, uh, so he used to do this with his grandmother who could also do it.
They could communicate without ever saying a word.They can see things, sometimes things in the future, sometimes things in the past.They have connections with various places, objects, people.
only a handful of people can do it the hotel also has something of a shine and there are things around it however it doesn't seem to believe that the hotel is bad other than uh danny asks about room 237 he's like don't fucking go in there it's a pokemon rule there's no bad pokemon only bad trainers
Yeah, you don't go in the YouTube room, though.
So there's something really funny from the book about I'm sorry to interrupt, but there is something really funny about Dick Halloran from the books, and there's no better opportunity.And that's in the books because he's a point of view character.
You get like seeing like chapters specifically like in his head.I learned that.
people's like who have the shining it manifests in different ways and through different senses and in his his sense like his premonitions are always accompanied by the smell of oranges.
But since he's a professional chef who's always around oranges in the kitchen, there's like a running thing he talks about where he's never sure if he's having a real premonition or if he's just fucking smelling oranges because he's a cop.
He fucking lives in Florida.
Like, I won't cook with oranges.Yeah, he's a Florida chef.So he's like, ah, could be where I'll make it.I could be predicting my brother's death or I could just be making orange juice.
I mean, how much orange is he doing?Like, how much orange?I mean, it's Florida.This was the 80s.
It was a different time.We were doing a lot of orange back then.
I guess.Yeah, we stave off the scurvy, man.
Yeah, so we get a time jump here as soon as sort of this scene ends, where we jump to one month later.Things are already sort of deteriorating by this point, but we get the first of our several big wheel scenes, which, like, if you've seen
cinema you've seen this scene and you've seen iconic yeah you seem to put on a bunch of other things where they just have a steadicam going at ground level behind this tricycle going down the hallways it's uh this great like fisheye view yeah rumble makes that scene is just how aggressively 70s the carpets are
When the sound, like Emily was saying, of him going from hardwood to carpet and the way that that like, you get that rumble and then it's quiet and then it's a rumble and it's quiet and it's like the sound, the sound in this is so great.
The editing for that is amazing.
Um, this might be like up there as one of the great horror sports of all time, if not the greatest.
Yeah.Uh, there's a, a scene where, where Wendy asks if Jack had any good ideas for his writing.And he says he's got lots of ideas.None of them good, which I feel like we've all been there.Too real.And, uh, Jack proceeds, my ideas are fucking amazing.
mope and look out a window and then look at the map of the great hedge maze outside as Wendy and Danny go to run around the hedge maze.I'm sure that won't be at all important.I just have a note here that says, damn writers, man.
But that's, I think, the scene we were talking about where she goes to talk to him in the room where he's doing his writing and he proceeds to tell her that his wife is bothering him and to fuck off.
And what I really love about that scene is when he's like, if you hear me typing on the key on the type on like, The keyboard I'm writing and then he has the thing he's like, also, if I'm not writing, I'm not actually typing that's still writing.
I'm like, there it is.There it is.He's screaming.At least it was cool.Yeah.I'm like that.I'm like, yeah, that factors in.That's the modern version of my writing process that is 40% YouTube time.
I don't know about y'all, but my writing process is kind of like, what?All right.I knocked out a paragraph.Time to watch a nine minute YouTube video about the strongest ice types of every generation in Pokemon.Yeah.
For me, it's Wikipedia rabbit holes.I write a couple of paragraphs and I'm like, I need to know every single thing about this one book or person or whatever that I referenced. Because otherwise people will know.
I'm gonna say it's probably good to do research on your stuff.So I think that's a good skill to have.
Yeah, yeah.I will say two things that these are questions I would like to revisit later.I'm just putting a pin in these.One, what if he was what if Jack was an artist?Two, what if he had marijuana?Oh my god.
Oh my god.We could have saved Jack.
yeah or made it worse depending on the strength said it was a lot weed was a mental state starting yeah i i feel like that that's not a man who's killing his family look i'm not saying it's gonna make him a successful writer i'm just saying like we jack ain't like bothering with the acts
He would just freeze to death for no reason.He'd just wander outside without a jacket and end up frozen.So yeah, at the end of this scene, Danny rolls in to the two of them arguing and he's got like bruises all over his throat.
Wendy is sure, probably with good reason at this point, that Jack is the one who put these bruises there that he strangled the boy and runs off with the face in this scene. Yeah, runs off with the boy into the house.
And Jack goes to talk to his bartender friend about how this woman is just fucking with him and she never touched the boy.And the impractical from Blade Runner.
yeah jack never seems to be bothered by the fact that there is not a person there he knows there's nobody no bartender in this uh this place that they took all the liquor specifically and they do a really great cut in this scene where when he walks in there is no liquor on the shelves at all
And then he's talking to the bartender and they turn around and suddenly there's a bartender and liquor behind him.And we're in a whole party atmosphere again.
But of course, Wendy comes back at this point because apparently Jack didn't choke his son.It was some scary woman that he saw in room 237. Jack's like, well, I guess I'll go fucking look and figure out what this is about then.
And there he finds a sexy lady in the bath and proceeds to make out with this naked lady.And then he's real grossed out when she turns out to be a real uggo.
And dead and falling apart.
She's at first, she's like a Swedish, like Valkyrie woman.And then she turns into a rotting corpse.Yeah.The rotting corpse aspect.
Yeah.Well, I said, I said, I'm going to defend Jeremy on this one.Yeah.I'm going to defend Jeremy on this one.Look, there's not a lot of rotting corpses I'd call hotties.
a snack obviously one of us hasn't played a lot of fallout i mean stephen king's stephen king's worst nightmare since we mentioned stephen king we should note that in the book
For me personally, I have never been more scared than the scene in which daddy goes into room 237 in the book because it plays out a whole lot differently and as much as
that scene where she turns out to be a robbing corpse is maybe the scariest scene in the whole movie.It's even scarier in the book because you're seeing it from Danny's perspectives.
It is scary.And it's been a while since I read the book, but I believe Stephen King also uses the word ago.No, no.
Can you add me in the first half?
So meanwhile, while all this is going on, Danny is using his phone a friend to call Halloran to tell him about all this shit that's going on.Halloran's getting visions.It's not real clear.
Danny's not graded to telepathic communication across the states yet.And their phones are all down at this point.
They're only really able to get in contact with the, they've only been able to get in contact with the forest rangers through their radio.
Halloran calls up to the forest rangers to try and get them to call the hotel and see if they can figure out what's going on there.And yeah, the forest rangers agree to do that.Of course, Jack meanwhile has been having a chat with the old caretaker.
Yes, that's right, the one who killed his family and then murdered himself.They're having a long, nice long conversation in the bathroom.Worst place to have a long conversation, honestly.
well yeah i don't remember that hasn't jack always been the caretaker right that is that is what the old caretaker informs him that he has always been the caretaker there's a lot of there's a lot of like ghosts sort of suggesting things to jack and jack being like yeah that's right
This is also the scene that, uh, where they, uh, he informs, uh, Jack that Danny has been talking to Halloran mentally by using the N word repeatedly.
This is also the same scene where the caretaker is like, hey, if your wife and child are listening to you, maybe you should fucking make them listen.
And if they don't, they're not going to listen.You should maybe fucking. Go on.
I don't know.This is not a suggestion Jack resists.This is not a, break out of it Jack, this isn't you.Jack is pretty quickly learning to like, maybe I should make him listen.
Jack is like, only one question, which side of the axe am I supposed to hit them with?
I'm a writer, listen.I was never an athlete.Yeah, I didn't chop wood.
Speaking of that, I love how easily he's deterred when like, he's like, you know, he's all big and bad and stuff, but like, the slightest hits that she gets on him, he's like, oh, look, ouchie.
I can't believe you actually shot me.Yeah.Wow.Not even a stab.Right.He's like, oh, I'm going after the child.
My son wouldn't slap me when I was trying to kill him.So yeah, Jack decides to then go take apart the radio so that he can keep his wife and child under control.Halloran. takes a fucking plane to Denver in the middle of a snowstorm.
He is really determined to help this boy.He is gonna like, he takes a plane to Denver and then calls up a guy in, I guess, Boulder and is like, hey, can I borrow a snowcat guy that I know?
And then like drives up to Boulder and borrows the snowcat and goes through the fucking snow all these miles down this switchback path to like go help.
I'm so glad in this two and a half hour movie, it was decided that no, we, we need this vital scene of Dick renting a snowcat.Yeah.
I didn't write with all the other shit that was going on in the movie that like also was in the book and all this kind of stuff.
We just had to pad the runtime of this two and a half hour horror movie.
I mean, it does illustrate how far Dick was willing to go to try to save Danny. But we probably didn't need to see every detail of his journey.
What's kind of wild is that Dick calls this guy and is like, hey, I need to get this snow cap from you.And the guy's like, I don't have one.I guess maybe it's really important.He's like, oh man, let me tell you why I need to get it.
And the guy's like, good, I will figure something out for you, Dick.I will work something out.We will find a way.And then we don't ever actually see what that way is.That guy does not appear again in the film.
There's a whole planes, trains, and automobiles that's just getting to the overlook.
And you know, like, I feel like that one moment, it just shows that Dick is like solid.Like he does.He is a solid dick.But seriously, though, he is he's like a solid guy.
Danny, meanwhile, he came with a weapon in his creepy imaginary friend voice with his finger and yelling red rum and telling mom that Danny's not here right now.And one of the one of the classic creepy child delivery lives ever.
Wendy decides that the only thing to do about this is to go to the writing room and see how You know, things are going with Jack and sounds like a dying goat.
Yeah, his red rum.Is that his actual voice?It's it's not it's not like process anyway.It's his actual voice, right?I'm sorry, but I mean, it's Tony's voice, Tony, but it's the kid.Yeah.
Danny, if I were her, I would be throwing my whole last kid out the window. Like if he was also like standing over me with a knife in bed, goodbye forever.She did throw him out the window though.
She's teaming up with Nicholson at that point.She's like, you know what, fuck it.Let's just get the fuck rid of this.This kid's too much.This hotel's on to something.
I wonder, there are times where I wonder if in the time that this movie was actually in theaters, 1980, whether the audiences were like, yeah, it's murder, I saw it, yeah, I get it. Oh, yeah, no, I know.It's murder.Like, I get it.
So, this is the thing I was going to bring up, that re-watching it, I don't know if it's just because knowing the movie so well or all the cultural references, but as I was re-watching, I'm like, I wonder, it's exactly like you were saying, like, was this really always this obvious?
Or is it like the... Yeah....Seinfeld isn't funny effect, where because this movie was one of the first to do it,
every other movie copied it and it's so obvious if a word is something backwards or an anagram or something like do we can we figure that out if this was one of the first to do it or at least one of the first to really popularize it because it's like so much stuff with red rum with all the ghosts like it's like for some reason re-watching it again i'm like everything about this movie seems so obvious if you're trying to figure it out from the very
there are like no like you can figure it out very easily but is that yeah is that just a matter because it did it first or do we think it is really the big twist of the movie is that jack nicholson is mentally unstable
Oh, what a guess.Yeah.I mean, I think, well, the one thing about this movie that is that I think is overlooked, no pun intended.Uh-huh.Sorry.I got that.Thanks.The slightest pained smile on Jeremy's face.
I was thinking that if you made this movie now, that the real breaking point would be like Jack was trying to do something while his son just kept ranting about Pokemon.
I mean, shut up about Pokemon for two seconds.
Where's our Redrum Pokemon?There's got to be a Redrum Pokemon, like Redrumon or something.That's a Digimon.
But anyway, I can just hear Jack Torrance say, couldn't you just fucking shut up about Pokemon for two seconds?Oh, yeah, absolutely.He just wants to tell me about Pokemon.
But then, yeah, the one thing that I think is... Oh, we need Jack Nicholson to describe Pokemon like when they got Brian Cox to recap the entire Tekken series.
Okay, but the thing that this movie does, it just takes like kind of ridiculous things and does make them scary just from being in context of like the movie, the cinematography, the... I feel like that's also sort of Stephen King's thing.
That's, well, Stephen King, it's harder for me to be like Stephen King, because I'm like, all right, this is already ridiculous.And I'm not really scared.
Stephen King really went out of his way to ruin birthday clowns forever.
Um, I think John Wayne Gacy did a little bit of that too.Give it up for the real OG.
Stephen King really ruined sewer balloons is what he did.
Sewer balloons were so beloved until it came along.
There used to be innocent days where you would just see a balloon coming out of the sewer and you would just grab it and it'd be a free balloon from who knows where underground.
And then, and then came it. Not cursed at all.No cursing.Actually, there's a lot of cursing.There's a lot of things that IT ruined.
There's several parts of IT that are just flat out cursed.
Also, the end of IT kind of ruined IT.
Okay, so we are at probably my favorite point in the movie where she goes to check on his manuscript, pulls up what he's been writing on the typewriter, and it just says, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
And then she starts flipping through all the pages sitting next to it in the inbox that he has written the same thing on, but the formatting.
that's what really gets me yeah oh yeah some of it is formatted as fucking block quotes some of it is poetry he's in canva he's like designing it yeah and this is this is 1980 this is not here this was a props department sitting at a key sitting at a typewriter and typing out each individual one of these of which we like we legitimately see at least 30 on camera and you notice
You know Stanley Kubrick was just like, probably made them do it a bunch of times until they got the formatting just fucking right, too.
I hope that multiple people were working on that.But I mean, who knows?It is Stanley Kubrick, so who knows?
Yeah, right?Probably a bunch of monkeys. It might have been Kubrick himself just being like, fuck it, I'll do it myself.
It was the monkeys that he hired for 2001 Space Odyssey.And then he decided to keep them on.Definitely.
Yeah.Well, that was the plan.But then they unionized.So out they go.
Yeah.Well, I mean, it took them a while, but.
Yeah, Noah, that sounds right to the 2001 chimpanzees unionized before comic creators did.That sounds right.
So he discovers her and looking through his stuff and is like, do you like it?Which there's never a good answer to that.If a writer asks you that about it, there is no right way to answer that question.Because if you say you don't, it's all over.
But if you say you do, they're going to tell you it's shit. So yeah, it's her holding a bat and him pursuing her up the stairs while she slowly swings the bat by the middle of the bat repeatedly.
The way the camera's constantly retreating from him while he keeps stepping forward.And this is what I think in rhythm with it.
The one line, like, I'm not going to hurt you.I'm just going to bash your fucking brains in, like, ooh, ooh.
My favorite line he has is, ah. He just does like a jump scare at her.
And he's being like playful about it almost, which is so much more.It's so much more menacing than if he was being dead serious the whole time.Like the fact that he finds it scary, that he finds it funny, is terrifying.
Yeah.Yeah.Condescension that you see throughout this whole movie towards his wife is basically an alternate title for this movie is gaslighting the movie.
Yeah.Yeah.Yeah.You know, my wife, please.Yeah, so Jack Torrance is someone who listens to the no respect Johnny Dangerfield bid and is like me unironically.
He would listen.He'd be in his.He'd be in that room listening to the Joe Rogan podcast right now.I just got to say.So she finally lands a swing with the bat, knocks him flipping ass over tea kettle down the stairs.
goes completely unconscious and then she drags his unconscious ass to the larder and locks him in which should solve this problem unfortunately she has not figured out just how fucking haunted this place is yet so she tries to leave and discovers uh well he he has one of the best lion deliveries his like he's figuring out that she's gonna lock him in here and try and leave and uh
He's like, Oh, you're in for a big surprise and discovers that he has disabled the radio and the snow cat.She can't call for help or get the fuck out of there.But, uh, he, meanwhile has a nice chat with his friend, Grady, the former, uh,
former caretaker, who straight up tells him that the only way to really salvage this is to just go ahead and kill that wife and kid.And if he's gonna let him out of the larder, he's gonna have to go ahead and do that.
So Greedy does unlock the larder.That's how haunted this hotel is.They can just unlock rooms.And Jack comes out.He's ready to go kill some people, but lucky them, Halloran is here.He's in a snowcat.He's coming to save the day.
Finally, we see in the relaxing upstairs, Danny's taking over a little arts and crafts and his carved red rum into the door.Wendy finally sees it in a mirror and is like, oh shit, it's St.Leonard's.
He writes it in lipstick.I never could have predicted this.
I gotta say, when I first read the book, I just didn't have the cultural osmosis that, you know, I would later on.But I was legitimately surprised at the time to find out that Red Rum meant murder.
And I was seeing it through text, not just, you know, the little wacky finger.
No, that makes sense because like the alcoholism is such a prevalent theme, especially in the book, that to have rum, the word rum printed out so many times with the alcoholism being present.
It's an effective misdirect that it's this murder backwards and not tied to like this specific brand of like red rum, you know, Red's rum that Jack drank.And then when he broke in Danny's arm or something.
Or it's like red is just an aggressive color.
Yeah.Yeah.But also, like at this point in the movie for Shelley Duvall, how is this new information?Jack Nicholson has already told you to her face.I'm going to murder you.Right.
Yeah, I think that there's a level of like, denial.I mean, consider being in a position like you're literally isolated in the middle of nowhere with your child, you really don't, you can't really afford extreme movements.
Like granted, you shouldn't be there anyway.But like, that happens all the time with people.And especially it seems like she really cares about him. because she seems like a genuinely good person.
And so you can see that being crushed when he's like, he just, the whole movie, he just stares at her with so much hatred.He hates her.He hates her.He's killing her with every moment she speaks.
And so seeing that slowly, that slow realization, even with her, she's just like, but once she realizes it, she's so brave, dude.
yeah you're fine through all of her tears she's still like i'm not gonna let you touch me oh yeah she's a beast yeah yeah for being a final girl and for being like falling apart as visibly as she is yeah she is really like effective she's fucking awesome yeah she's not just like running upstairs and all this kind of shit and i mean maybe it helped
to see like the weird furry business going on.
I'm listening to sloppy toppy from a furry.Oh yeah!You call it furry?What the fuck do they even call it back then?They didn't have the word furry.Unless they want to wear something.
Look, just a good old-fashioned golden age blowjob bear. Yeah.
Like you do.I was watching with my sister.It was her first time.She also knew a bunch about it because of cultural asthma.But when we got to that part, she asked me like, What is that image supposed to mean?And I didn't really have an answer.
Film scholars have been arguing for 40 years over the meaning of Blowjob Bear.
It's from the book because one of the characters in the book, because it's not just what Grady, who fucked around and found out with the hotel and it's weird history.There was all sorts of shit that went down, including these fucking parties.
Oh yeah, this hotel is just straight up murder magnet.
And one of the visions that Danny sees is this guy who's like in a dog collar basically doing like, you know, sub stuff.
And, you know, sorry, blowjob dog.
yeah well i mean they don't say he's in a dog outfit they say he's a dog he's in a dog collar well i i that was the funniest thing that happened so i think i should i'll stop and let jeremy yeah i mean it's time at this point because uh jackster's trying to cave in the uh the bedroom door of an axe and they all
They run to the bathroom, he gets right through that door and unlocks it and starts going for the bathroom door.
My favorite behind-the-scenes fact about this movie is that they made an easy-to-chop prop door, but the fact is that Jack Nicholson is a volunteer firefighter and would do that fucking thing like Swiss cheese.
So they were like, oh, we should make a better fake door.
Yeah, he was completely demolishing it in like two to three swings.
Wow.That's very on point for him.
Yeah.The fact that like he's just like sticking his face in the door and giving an at that time, very modern and relevant reference to Johnny Carson, like.
what would the modern version of that be like he sticks his head in is like and now it's time for a closer look he mentioned joe rogan here here's joe yeah i mean there's certainly even colbert does jimmy fallon have a catchphrase god he just he just looked at the camera several times and here's your moment of zen
Welcome to carpool karaoke.Okay, that would be that would be truly terrifying.So yeah, reference reference.Wendy opens up the small bathroom window about halfway and can manage to get Danny out of it.So she does finally throw her son out the window.
However, despite her namesake, Wendy can't fly out a window.
She doesn't have a happy thought, Jeremy.
No happy thoughts.So few happy thoughts at this point.I'm sorry.So Jack is coming through the door and it's just a matter of time.She buys herself some time by fucking slicing his hand when he goes to reach through.She doesn't really look like it.
She puts a lot of mustard into it, but it does stop him.
I mean, it is a blade.Yeah, it is a big-ass knife. You know, but she is, she's saved.
In fact, everybody is saved now.Everything is going to be all right.Cause fucking hollering is here.He pulls up in his snow cat.He runs out.
He is here to save the day all the way from Florida with his psychic powers and his snow cat and his can-do attitude.And he makes it halfway through the door before fucking Jack puts a, puts a whole ax in his stomach.This entire plot goes. nowhere.
It dies literally within seconds of him arriving in the hotel.
This is my least favorite part of the story.
Yeah, it's really unfortunate.
Haloran does survive the book as well.So, you know, he may be magical, but he does survive.
I mean, in general, he has more of a personality in the book.He's not just a
Now I will say in the book the book ends with Wendy and Danny going to like chill with him in Florida for a while.
I will say this I do not like the way Holleran is generally treated.
Scatman Crothers fucking brings it like he in his that first scene with Danny he makes you feel so much more comfortable like with everything else that's going on in the rest of this movie you're like No, this dude's cool.
While we're with this guy, everything is okay.Everything is safe.Alicia was saying the same thing.She's like, I just want him to talk to me as we're watching it.But yeah, he goes through all this shit to get there.
It's a whole side plot line of the movie just for them to murder him in a way that doesn't even happen in the bar. Especially knowing that Scatman Crothers was in his 70s when they were filming this.
And particularly a thing that a lot of people know about Kubrick is that he films scenes over and over and over and over and does a lot of takes, which is real rough.
It was really rough on this old ass man who was not really an actor and all of that, which is something that he didn't really talk as much about as the other actors in this movie. I've talked about how messed up that whole situation was.
But yeah, for him to just then die.
I recall reading somewhere that Scott McRuthers was brought to tears at one point, just like begging Kubrick to be like, what do you want?
Yeah.Well, I know the next movie he did after this was a Clint Eastwood directed film.
And he did voice jazz.He was the original voice of jazz and Transformers.
I did not know that.With the facts, I love it.
Yeah, and apparently Finisher was notorious for only doing like one take, if anything.And apparently... I heard that he got two takes, and that's that.
Yeah, apparently that situation also made Staten Island Brothers cry, because he was so fucking happy to be doing 70 fucking tapes on everything.
What happens if you disappoint Clint, if you only have like a take or two?He just looks at you very sternly. He just goes, eh, good enough.
I mean, he's like nearly a hundred years old.
He just pretends that you're in a chair and yells at you for half an hour.It wasn't a hundred years old.I think it was, I forget who it was.I think it was like Matt Damon was doing it.It was like, hey, surely I've got some ideas.
We're like, what if we didn't quite get it right?Like, should we do it again?And Clint's son was like, you want to hold all these people up so you can do it again?There.
Put it that way.I would be intimidated into just being like, yes, sir.
Yeah, apparently.Look, apparently that's the advantage of working with fucking Clint Eastwood is he wants to get to the Golden Corral as much as you do.
Listen, you know, if you piss Clint Eastwood off enough, he's going to pretend that you're in a chair and yell at that chair in front of people for half an hour.
So the strangest iconic moment of what was it?Was that like early 2010?
That was the 2012 election.
That's what I thought.Yeah.
Also, he had some solid seconds.It wasn't the worst bit, honestly.
Oh, I mean, we're really, we're really burying that for worst bet this year.Cause I mean, we're not a lot of bad bits.Um, anyway, so sensing Halloran's death is enough to make Danny scream out.And now Jack knows where he is.
So Danny has to climb out of the cupboard he's hiding in and run off, run out into the sew store.Jack follows him out.I don't know what the fuck Wendy's supposed to be doing in this series of scenes because she, She sees the furries.
She's just basically fighting the hotel while Jack is chasing Danny.She finally sees the elevator full of blood that Danny has been seeing over and over.
She gets to see all of the many haunted ass things that are going on in this hotel that she hasn't noticed because she's just been being abused by her husband all the time.So Danny
runs out into the maze, Jack follows him, Danny cleverly like backtracks in his own footsteps and hides off to the side and lets Jack continue to run off after him and then sneaks out.
Wendy and Danny get into the snowcat and get the fuck up out of there. And Jack freezes to death in the maze.And then now we see that he is in a party.He's in a picture from a party in the 1920s, whatever that means.
He's been playing with a hotel.Okay, I've almost been there.Last one.So what I do want to ask regarding the ending is, what have been the most iconic maze scenes since this movie?
The two that come to mind readily for me are Goblet of Fire and Soulburn.Because apparently you can't have a maze without someone dying in the maze.
Well, I mean, it's it has been ever with us.I mean, unless you have like salt or something.How do they do it with the Minotaur in Saltburn?Yeah.And so I don't know what's kind of like they're removing headphones.
No spoilers.I haven't seen it yet.I haven't seen.I have no idea.
All right.Oh, shut up.But iconic Macy.Let's just say that.
Is there a Minotaur in Saltburn?Oh, no, just just a just a minute.
Not I guess you'll just have to watch it.
I was already like pulled out the pants and it's like,
bull i'd be like holy shit well you you saw he's gonna play uh frankenstein's monster and oh yeah i forgot about that i don't know i i don't know man i'm i'm gonna keep my expectations low but you know could be a make or break we'll see well it's it's gear mandatory so my expectations are pretty high personally here's hoping
yeah i i would say i mean there's not one particular scene but i mean the movie labyrinth has a lot of great maze bits in it yeah uh so guys yeah it's the shining feminist no
But it shows the damage of a man abusing his wife.I think that we're supposed to be on her side, of course.Like, I think in a way, it's... I mean, really, it's Wendy's story, right?Yeah.It's not Jack's story, it's Wendy's story.Yeah.
I mean, I would say it's not misogynist as much as other horror movies of the time are.Even if Kubrick was.
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, it is so this is so I feel like now is the time to talk about some of the big differences between the movie and the book because they aren't so much.
There's not so much plot differences, as there are very heavy thematic differences, especially in the way it all stems from how Stephen King sees Jack Torrance and how Stanley Kubrick sees Jack Torrance.
Stephen King, I mean, Stephen King was writing this at the time.I mean, you know, we know Stephen King's own addiction problems coming out of, like, you know, during this era.
Presumably he was also dealing with probably, you know, some guilt about maybe, you know, nothing specific, I don't want to assume, but probably maybe not being the kind of father he wanted to be.And the Jack Torrance of the book,
is ultimately this redemptive figure.
He's kind of a way, again, that he chooses, that yes, he falls under the thrall, that he backslides into his addictions, but his is ultimately, he chooses to help destroy the hotel and go out in a heroic sacrifice.
I think it's also- That's right, yeah.
It's also really important to emphasize that in the book, we're constantly switching between the perspective of Danny, Wendy, and Jack.We're in Jack's head. as he is losing his grip on reality.
And besides the fact that it's so much scarier that way to kind of see it, this gradual descent, whereas in the movie, he pretty much immediately goes insane.
But also it's like, there's so much thematic stuff that we're just never going to be able to get through the medium of film, I think. If I could back up a little, I feel like.
Film as a medium does not have the capability to get you inside a character's head in the way prose can, and to a certain degree comics as well.
Totally, yeah.It's in the book we, again, you're totally right, because in the book we're in Jack's head, and we can see that his love for his family is legitimate, whereas in the movie we have Jack Nicholson saying, I love that kid, while
It seems like he's trying with every ounce of will not to go full Homer Simpson.Yeah.
So I think where so much of it comes from is that and especially I think this is really explains why Stephen King.
has such a big problem with this movie is Stephen King created Jack Torrance's this way of kind of almost possibly reassuring himself that he can move on from his addictions that he is not his worst moments and his weaknesses that there is redemption and humanity still within him worth fighting to bring out and then Stanley Kubrick saw that character and went
Nah, that's an irredeemable abusive addict.
So I think there's a sense that Stephen King kind of tried to create this character as a way to help him with his own recovery, and Kubrick took that character and went, actually no, I'm gonna use this to confirm every worst thing you could possibly believe about yourself.
But you think it was personal and that's why he didn't.
I don't think it was personal.I don't think it was personal.I think it was just, I think it was Kubrick saw the story, saw the material and was like, I disagree with this interpretation of the character.Here's how I play the character.
And either didn't know or didn't care about like the amount of emotional baggage that Stephen King was clearly bringing into it.
I feel like Kubrick either, the film misses the point of the book. But I'm not sure if Kubrick was, it kind of felt like he wasn't even trying to make those kinds of points in the movie.
No, he wasn't.He had no, he has no interest in portraying Jack as a redemptive or sympathetic figure.
Yeah, I feel like Stanley Kubrick is definitely one of those.And this is based on vague memory of what the research that I've done and then from what I know about him.But he he is definitely there to make a movie. Fuck the source material.
And he's, you know, he's doing what's best for the movie.So I feel like the book The Shining and the movie The Shining are completely, just completely different stories.
And especially just when it comes to theme of how it deals with exploring addiction.Yeah, could not be different stories.
Yeah.And in Stephen King's work is a lot more fantastical.You know, you have these.
entities that have, like, there are all these different, like, almost whimsical things going on that come from the imagination of a child trying to cope with a brutal reality of what, like, his dad is going through, his mom is going through, things like that.
like a scary fairy tale where well this movie feels genuinely supernatural like there's something about this movie that it feels like having a panic attack tinnitus and everything like that's another thing about the soundtrack of this movie is that it is very very uh tinnitus heavy where we have droning synths we'll have screeching tones
But I feel like that atmosphere is its own thing.And it's great for a movie.It's great for a movie about horror.I think it has to be seen as a completely separate thing.
Because, of course, the book has its own problematic elements, but there's certain things that the movie is just not concerned with.And I should say, by that, Stanley Kubrick and his whole production team is just not concerned with relating.
Yeah, I mean, part of it, I think, is Stanley Kubrick as a director, I feel like it's often just not interested in answers.He's not interested in giving answers to what's going on or how it's going on or why it's going on.It is going on.
Yeah, I think that has a tendency to make it unclear what exactly is going on with Jack, whether Jack comes in extremely damaged, or whether it just gets worse, or how much of it is the hotel.
I mean, there are a couple of circumstances in which things happen that are clearly haunting things. you know, where he is let out of the Lardaria, where, you know, we see, you know, that we see that Danny has been abused by a ghost.
There are a little, there are things like that, that it's like, okay, yes, there is something supernatural here for sure, but also it is unclear how much of Jack's descent into madness is inevitable descent into madness, which is, seems very much like something Kubrick is bringing to it, that this man is damaged and this man is going to go insane.
He's going to do these horrible things regardless. Whereas if we have a clear idea of exactly what exactly the hotel is and what it's doing, then, you know, you might have a better idea of just how much.
I mean, because it's the same story as the Amityville Horror.It's just a much better version of it because, you know, the Amityville Horror, it also possesses the, you know, the dad to do terrible shit.
It's also the same story as Night Swim, but with a pool.The pool possesses the dad to do horrible things and tries to kill the son.
Literally everything possessed is meant to be evil.
What happened?The same thing happening to the last caretaker, trying to kill the family.
While you do have the supernatural element and the idea that the hotel is influencing people, I do think it's an interesting exploration or showing of isolation and isolation's effect on mental health.
I also want to mention Wendy's discussion of Jack's abuse in the beginning of the movie and Shelley Duvall's incredible all the nuance about that scene.
Because this crosses into various sectors of representation of women, mental health, discussions, you know, communication about mental health, because it is so accurate as to the way that someone who is struggling with abuse would talk about that abuse.
And for the time, the fact that it is supposed to be So, obviously red flag.
Yeah, and you see her, she's smoking, she's talking like it's no big deal, but the way that the gravitas that is given, the scene is given, and the way that her micro-expressions and her hesitations and things like that are so powerful in the way that she is subtly expressing her concern
her need for help, her trying to cope with this reality that her husband could very well be dangerous to her and her child.And I think that is probably one of the times that we actually get a really solid focus on that discussion of abuse.
I mean, we talk about it as gaslighting the movie, right?But whenever I remember the movie, I don't remember the scene, her being so casual.
in the scene when you're the way that she is the way she's talking about it so casually because of the context but when i watched it again it really did all of the meaning there and this could also be the fact that i know about the the context of what it is i mean the phrase quiet desperation really comes to mind that yes yes really giving that in that scene and to some extent throughout
Yeah, I think, I mean, while we're talking a little bit about abuse and stuff in this movie, I mean, I do think it's important when talking about Stanley Kubrick to talk about, I mean, we mentioned briefly sort of the way that he is noted for mistreating actors and for mistreating various people and much in the same way that Alfred Hitchcock was known for mistreating actors.
I think it's a tough thing to look at in the context of this film or any of his films and talk a lot about whether or not we separate the creator from the work, the artist from the art.
And it's a tough thing to say with something like this, with a movie, because as much as he is often credited as the creator of this film, there are a lot of other artists doing really incredible work in here. Yeah, I don't know.It's tough.
You certainly can't.I don't want to justify sort of the mistreatment of people, be they actors or otherwise, in the environment in which they're supposed to be working.
So it is, I think, a tough question that we have to grapple with when talking about Kubrick or
Hitchcock or, I mean, certainly one of the few movies that I've been asked about doing on here that we haven't done is Rosemary's Baby, because I think that is a director I just don't want to talk about.
Rowan Polanski is not somebody I want to give more air time to.But I think this hits sort of a hard middle point there.What do you guys think about that?
Well, I think that I'm glad that Kubrick's abuse is well known.I'm glad that we know that about him because I feel like at the time, especially that this movie was made, that was more of a standard.
Like that's, you know, the price you paid in Hollywood to make good movies.You have to suffer for your art as you know, it's such a cliche thing.
So, I mean, I can't imagine that a bunch of the movies from this time period that we have talked about don't have horror stories that are of the same intensity.
I mean, even as far forward as, like, Quentin Tarantino has had some horror stories come out about him.
Yeah.So, I mean, I think at this point we really do have to focus on what the movie is saying rather than
specifically what Stanley Kubrick is saying because I think we all know what Stanley Kubrick is saying is, you know, he said it a lot and it was like every frame of painting, you know, I got to make it perfect.
damn the consequences, damn the effect on people.
And that's- The irony of the character and the story- Right.Blinded by like perfection and create, like to be like, I have to put my creation before my human relationships.
I mean, it doesn't involve him of his sins, but I mean, there's no denying that he was a master craftsman. Yeah, especially when you look at his other, probably better films.
But yeah, it's hard to watch these amazing performances and not think about like, okay, like what did they have to go through to get to that perfect shot?
I think all you can do right now is just appreciate what they did create despite the circumstances.
And then in the future, you just literally try to with the, if something like that bothers you, which it should, but then you just make sure that when you are in those spaces in the future, you just prevent it from happening to creators as much as possible.
That's all you can do.But you can still enjoy the work of art that other people have worked.They all worked hard to make it happen.So you might as well enjoy it.Otherwise, you don't have to go through it.
I think it's also important to keep in mind, and I think about this kind of thing a lot, not to be crass, but Stanley Kubrick is dead.He's not around to hurt anyone anymore.
So if you are the kind of person who is like, I don't want to watch that movie because I hear the director is an asshole, Like, well, you're not giving him any.
Also for what it's worth, this is the thing I've thought of that back then it was like directors torturing the actors.
And then for some reason over the years, now it seems like it has transferred to like actors doing the like method acting thing and torturing their fellow cast members, which it's,
a problem in a different way where it's like, okay, a director torturing the actors, they're the head honcho, who's above them, the producers.It's like, what are you going to do?
No one on set is going to stand up to the director and tell them no, whereas when it's actors torturing fellow actors, where is everyone?Preventing this from happening.
I think as we explore this topic, whether it's actors, directors, producers, as we talk about creators leading, creating hostile environments, hostile film sets.I think the important thing for us to agree on is fuck David O. Russell.
Yeah, I mean, that was my other like modern David O. Russell.
How is that man still getting work?
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of propaganda movies that I've noticed certain actress or certain, I should say, not just actors, but certain individuals kind of gravitate towards.Yeah.
So, you know, you saw the thing.
Sorry, I don't think it's the death of auteur theory, I don't think is the worst thing.This idea that we should be giving
such deference to this idea of unique individuals possessed of such unique brilliance that we should overlook even their abusive tendencies.
Great to be a genius director of all his vision, but also better to have somebody to go like, hey, stop fucking torturing this old man.
So at the other end of the spectrum is auteurs that have like a muse, where they're just like, man, I love working with this one actor so much that they're gonna be in all of my movies.
And then that actor's like, fuck, yeah, I love working with you too.
That's like the healthiest, even if we get sick of those actors being in those movies, maybe, I guess, depending on- Oh, the 15 year period where Christopher Nolan was like, I don't care what I'm making, but Michael Caine will be in it.
Well, and also the obvious, like, Tim Burton with, like, Johnny Depp and, you know, Helena Bonham Carter.But, like, nowadays, I would say the closest is we have, like, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone who are pumping out banger after banger.Yeah.
So it's just, like, it's funny that that's, like, the healthiest end of this spectrum, you know, of, like, director to actor relationship.
Let's not forget Scorsese and DiCaprio.
I mean, Scorsese and Pacino, Scorsese and De Niro, Scorsese and DiCaprio.
I'm noticing some interesting patterns here with these last names.
Are you implying that Martin Scorsese makes movies exploring the Italian-American experience?
I do have to ask you guys, how do we feel like this movie deals with race?
Didn't we cover that in the first 30 seconds?
Even as much as we get any backstory on this hotel, and again, while we get more in the book, what the movie gives us in just a throwaway line is like, Oh yeah, this hotel totes built on a Native American burial ground.
Oh yeah, that's right.I always forget about that because no one, like, because it's not, there's no point.
I don't think that was in the book. the Native American burial ground part.
I don't remember that either.I could be wrong.
It's been too long since I read it for me to remember that, but in the movie that is, I guess, our original kind of like, well, this is the core, this is the original evil of the hotel that has spent the 60 years it has been built accumulating that evil.
i i yeah i'm about to say that's the only thing i can think of it just like this place is for bad people yeah and i do think it's important too i i i i mean there's no denying this movie is not like brave on race but i i do want to say that i i don't think
the scene with the N-word was meant to be like, yeah, this is totally normal, cool way to talk.I'm pretty confident that for all his faults, Kubrick knew that people are gonna see this and be like, that's a fucked up way to talk.
It's not a scene that's supposed to make Jack Torrance look good.Yes.
yeah you're supposed to hear it and go oh i already didn't like you but now i'm like it's like absolutely like it's like when i have a villain like everyone's always like oh yeah but they're they're fun villain like if you want a villain that's irredeemable make them a rapist they said yeah you're just like no yeah yeah qualities
That is not, no, I would not say, again, as what the fuck and uncomfortable as that scene is, yeah, no, it's definitely not the movie endorsing.
What I would say is more problematic is it going out of its way to kill off the one major black character.Especially given that that character lived in the source material.
You had to go out of your way to change it to give him a painful, meaningless death.
Also, I do have to say, there are no black women that appear as actresses in this movie, but there are two depictions of black women in this movie, and they are both in naked paintings in Fiat McGrath's house, which are
wholly unnecessary to anything about the movie.
I would like to believe that they filmed that in Scatman's actual house.That wasn't a set.They just went to his house, and that was his living room.
That was obviously a bedroom.
Yeah.It feels unfortunate.It's an unforced error.
I don't know.I'm just imagining Dick Halloran in the 70s.
Sure.Everyone was nude in the 70s, weren't they?Exactly.
Yeah. Full Bush out.Yeah.Yeah, exactly.For them, though, some good old 1980s Bush.Yeah, there was some good Bush.Good old Bush.Yeah.Yeah.
No, I've been like in the hotel.I would have been like, this is an interesting and like how it problematically uses the bike, exploits the bodies of those that exploits.But in Dick's house, I'm like, no, he's just like Dick Halloran Fox.
I mean, good for him.When I first saw the movie, honestly, when I first saw it when I was in high school, it kind of felt like they were just trying to make him creepy because he's not like just this innocent dude.
Now, looking at it now, I'm like, he's an adult.He's got some taste.Good for him.
But Jeremy's right.It's not great that that is the only existence of black women in the movie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.And it's also not necessary at all to be in.No, it's a wild set dressing.Yeah.Like, it's just extra tits.
for the movie that doesn't it doesn't need you know like the naked woman in the bath sure and she had some rockin bush just saying i just real bush right there european bush you know yeah yeah i mean it would it be a horror movie without unnecessary tits
Look, when it comes to Bush representation, this is one of the best films we've ever done.
I don't know how that vends.Actually, you know, I would say that it gives it like a slight, just maybe a half a point towards feminism. Because the Bush is out.
I'm not sure if that's feminism or just if this movie was made in the 70s.
Well, I was going to say, any film pre 1990, you can expect some solid Bush.Yeah.
But then again, this is an era where like Sigourney Weaver's Bush had to be like digitally edited out.That's true.It was true.
It was the first time when I was 13.It was my first time seeing let's say female anatomy in that way, which was awkward to do when you're watching with your dad and your little brother.Yeah, but it
It's awkward to see as an adult sometimes.I'm watching nude scenes on my big ass iMac with the door right there.
I remember when I still had roommates, I was watching Blue Velvet for the very first time. And my roommate was like asleep.It was really late at night.But I'm like, please, God, don't wake up and walk into the living room.
Well, it's Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini.Please, God, I can't explain that.
It's not like I'm like, I can deal with it, but I don't want to explain.
And no, yeah, like that's that is how whenever I recommend movies, especially when I have like buddies and classes that are like 18 and I'm like, OK, you can watch this movie. But this isn't, I am going to give you a content warning.
It's not just because I feel like obligated to do so, but also being an adult in like a space.Yeah.But also like, if you're going to watch this movie, you might not want to watch it with your parents.
Yes.Yes.Or if you're a parent.Your grandma.
if I were like recommend if I had kids and I were recommending certain movies to them I would just I'd like you toss them the DVD as if people still use DVDs and and it's like all right here you go watch it alone there's some titties in it you don't have to sit with me but I want you to see it let me know what you think after
It still makes me laugh though, like how sensitive like people are to nudity, but they're like, yeah, swinging the knife around, swinging the ax around.
Like, oh my God, a bush.Yeah.
What we're talking about with that era, you know, like again, with the bush, look at, you know, The Shining and then 20 years later, Eyes Wide Shut, both Kubrick movies, extremely controlled bush in Eyes Wide Shut to the point, I mean, it's like, what, like a landing strip?
peak 1999 the difference is insane yeah he was up to date with uh with the styles right right and he could have said something he could have made a difference he could have brought it back but he didn't and that's an advocate yeah
It's one of the things with the nudity and the shining, especially as I feel like it's a part of growing up and watching movies to have your first, like, I feel like a lot of people remember the first time that they saw a nude scene, even if it was like, didn't mean to kind of thing.
And the first time you see a nude scene that it's like, it just, it has a twist.Like you're like, Oh, this is definitely not like a thing that to be titillated about anymore.
Like, like the show, you're like, Oh, now I have to go to therapy.Now she's uggo.Now she's uggo.
I particularly, I just remember watching, I think at Governor's School, I watched Wings of a Dove with a bunch of people.And there's just a point where, like, Elena Bonham Carter is naked and then, like, is having sex with them.
It's a very tragic, like, crying scene of her, like, having sex.It was, like, complicated feelings.
I don't like this anymore.
Complicated emotions around this one.
Yeah. I always love that, though.I always love it when they're like, are you turned on?Ha ha, psych.Psych.
You know.Or speaking of David Lynch, it's like Mulholland Drive.You're like, ha, sweet, Naomi Watts is jorking it.And then you're like, oh, she's crying.Yeah, yeah.
She's not as good.It's more like the body horror part, you know, like the body horror thing where you're like, oh, reality, sex isn't that simple.Right.That's always like something that I've appreciated in horror films.
That feels like a true ace perspective there, Emily.I love it when sex scenes are bad and complicated.
I mean, I don't know.I don't know if that is that represents the ace attitude, but it represents my attitude.
Well, with some ace, there's some some ace people are sexual.So, yeah, I imagine it being pretty accurate.
I mean, that's the part where you were like, aha, you got turned on and now we're going to fuck you up.
Yeah, I love that.But I mean, like any, like with anything, if there's a good twist to it, do it.Yeah.Ain't nothing to it.Right, right.
You could also say that about sex, honestly.Speaking of, guys, what are the queer themes in this film?A lot of, there's no queer characters, are there?
Well, I mean, well, well, well,
Depends who's in that dog mask.Has a Stanley Kubrick movie ever had a gay character?I mean, that's facetious.I'm sure there have been, but like, we could probably count on like one hand, right?I'm like, how?We're all silent.See?How?
stop he is very spicy with his line delivery he's very am i you're right oh no that checks out that one how is a fuck how is a fruity ass robot absolutely yeah he's i mean i don't know if he's like where on the alphabet he is but he's definitely queer
Like a good solid cue for hell.
Hell is like the meanest of gays.Yeah.
Yeah.And that like super passive aggressive delivery.Yeah.
Oh yeah.Yeah.And like who among us haven't really thought about the ideal presentation of being just a red eye that watches everybody all the time.Judging.Judging.And the fact that he even- This is why the eye of Sauron is such gender.
Yeah, Hal did it first.And Hal did it in like, a cool, minimalist way.Like, you know, he didn't need to be on fire.He was just there.
He just had the attitude from the light alone.And the fact that he straight up was like, I can read lips.I got all the tea.Yeah.Yeah.
So Ron's eye is just Mulgoth Hal.
That's the name of the episode.
Which has nothing to do with the shock.
I will say the thing that verges closest to queer content in this movie I guess is supposed to be horrifying because she stumbles on the man in the dog costume and the other man
Doing whatever on the bed.It's just like, ah.
But then it's like, does queer equal bad?
Like, is that kind of the- I think, grain of salt because I'm a straight guy, but I'm not sure if we're meant to be scared because it's a gay thing so much as scared because it's just a weird thing to walk in on a furry giving a blow job.
I think regardless of gender, if you're running away from your husband who's trying to kill you, and you turn a corner, and you're watching a man in a bear suit, or is it a dog suit?I don't remember.
what some kind of furry suit get you know doing some kind of sexual act it's going to be creepy no matter what the genders are maybe it was raspberries maybe they weren't doing nothing yeah well it's like it there were there wasn't really any nudity it was just positioning but i will say that like i think it's for me the horror there is more than that like that suit look like a vintage charles entertainment cheese
character and entertainment.
She's like modern furries.They have the weird Disney-fied DreamWorks features, but this is just like, oh my God, it's like, you can see the like bottom teeth and it has the beady eyes.It's just, oh my God.
It looks like a great grandpa's closet.
Yeah.It looks like it was handed down.Oh no.
I guess the real question is like is it supposed to be horrifying because it's clear or is it supposed to be horrifying because like I don't know as Debra Cox says ain't nobody supposed to be here.
I think in the movie it's supposed to be horrifying because ain't nobody supposed to be here. Especially the way that the man and the dog thing look at her where they're like, um, excuse you.Yeah.You know, like she's the rude one.Yeah.
Excuse me, lady.Like, do you mind not staring?It's a little rude.
It's a picture it'll last longer.Right.And in the book, the way that this sort of kink thing that was going on, it definitely felt like
If I recall correctly, we do get a chapter from the perspective of the Blowjobs hug.Thanks, we don't, sadly.You were thinking of the book written by Stephen King.
That one, you couldn't even hug me.You didn't even have me in the first half, I knew.
That might be the Chuck Stengel spinoff.
I think that's that describes a hefty portion of Chuck Tingle's body of work.Let's be real.
So, yeah, it's Chuck Tingle.Tingle fucking.No, we we stay on Chuck Tingle on this show.
But, you know, if you're good at something free, they say I saw him at Flamecon last year and he was delightful.I've never read the legend.Any of his work just seems to have great energy from that guy.
I do want to go back to this this dog suit guy in the movie that I think I agree all of you that mostly it's it's creepy because ain't nobody should be seeing this or be here or anything.
time, I mean, audiences back then, again, this is 1980, people were just not as open and probably not as used to seeing content.
I mean, if this movie was shocking for a horror movie, you know, like nowadays, like, I mean, I'm pretty convinced that The Shining is basically like, A24 was like, hey, remember the movie The Shining?
Do you want to make an entire company out of that?
so it's it's basically like you know back then people might have seen it and been like okay it's horrifying because you know it feels like we're seeing something we shouldn't see but also two dudes what whereas nowadays i i feel like it's just so like you don't even think about it like but i guess that could also depend on what kind of audience member you are how many
movies you watch especially how many arthouse films you watch or like queer themed movies you watch maybe if you're like lowest common denominator audience you might still be like ew if you're like a weirdo bigot but i just feel like nowadays it's just like as things become more and more liberal in film and in society
that it's, even if it's two guys, that wouldn't be a factor.It would only be the creep factor, whereas before it might be like, in the back of someone's head, oh, and it's two guys, that's weird.
Yeah, I mean, they didn't do a very clear job of making it look like two guys, because it was, for whatever reason, I remember when I first saw the movie, I was like, is it supposed to be an actual monster? Right.
It's going down on him, like because it's 1980.And who knows what kind of meta bullshit is going on?Right.At the time, I thought, like, that's weird.And I didn't really think about the gender or anything.
It was just like there's a guy in a suit or a person in a suit or a creature.
Also, just people hearing the commotion in this place and not doing anything about it, like it's just so many levels of like, oh, yeah.
Yeah, and they also that this sort of like all of these visions and how kind of high key funny they are as Wendy's running around and the only thing that really sells them is the music and like the sort of facsimile strings that we get.
yeah what is transgressive is i mean honestly seeing like murdered children you really don't see a lot about it can you guys remind me i believe this might be true but i'm not positive that like there might straight up be like a rule or a law that it's like you can't show children actually being murdered or if they're dead they have to be like concealed or like something like that because i swear well if there is such a law
Then a 24 has broken at several times.
Yeah.Hereditary would be in jail.
So I just look.Okay.So if it's not like some code, then it's at least a huge taboo. I think it's there's a rating.There's like a rating rating thing where it's like, like, automatic are like, no question.
You can't not not even like, oh, PG 13, you can use one fuck.It's like, no, if there's if there's children dying, automatic are right away.
yeah yeah right away i don't know if it's still the case though because a lot of those standards have definitely changed i feel like that might have been something once upon a time for sure but yeah i'm thinking it used to be or something you know but then people got sicker and they're like we want to see dead children dead kids yeah kids i mean on that note would we recommend this to people
We recommend not negotiating that.
Like that's like not even a question.Guys, there's so many dead kids in this movie.It's a pillar.It's a pillar of film.
Even if you don't like horror, it's one of those movies where it's like, you know, the whole like a thousand movies you need to see before you die.
It's just one of those where even if horror is not your thing, it's essential for film knowledge and cultural knowledge and artistic knowledge.
Yeah, if you're into films, you'd watch it.Yeah.But even if you're not, then like, it's still good.And you should still check it out.
It's still scary.Like, yeah, you know, a lot of things that scared me when I was 13.Don't scare me anymore.But like, yeah, when the elevator opens up and all the blood comes gushing out, like, and all the furniture.
That stuff doesn't scare me.What scared me so much was like the child staring at something he doesn't comprehend and the little mind breaking and I'm just like.It's the themes, yeah.
Yeah.I mean there's the immediate visceral kind of stuff but there's also the thematic scares that stick with you and. You know, it had been 20 years since I last saw this movie.I nothing.
There was nothing in there that I was like, oh, I forgot that happened.Like it just is seared into my brain permanently.
Right.Yeah.Well, there's the atmosphere of the movie is what is the most memorable thing about it, which is what frames all of these references.That is the thing about Kubrick is that.
he also it's not just the fact that he's like a perfectionist or whatever but he spends a lot of time making us look at shit and so you can't help but remember so and i think that that's something that that directors don't really do as much anymore and you know you don't need to be a perfectionist douchebag to like really like solidly make that point
Right?But, I mean, he did it, and whether that had anything to do with him being a perfectionist douchebag, you know, it may have been 50% of the time or 100% of the time.
But, yeah, like, that deliberateness and the time he spends on those things, I think, really helps create an atmosphere around that subject, which is memorable.Anyway, so, yeah, I'd recommend this movie.
Yeah, this is this movie is memes before memes.Yeah, I would say definitely recommend something people should watch.It's not necessarily going to be everybody's thing.
And I think it is important to learn about Kubrick and some of the stuff he he did and didn't do.And not
You know, I'm not a big fan of treating any artists or people in general as great men who shouldn't be questioned and shouldn't be considered in the context of all the bullshit that they've done.So that's something to keep in mind.
But I still think, you know, if nothing else for the performances by Jack and Shelly, like really stands the test of time. Yeah, definitely.On that note, got to come up with some recommendations here.
Greg, do you have anything you would like to recommend to people coming off The Shining?
So we've talked about this, but if you like the vibes of the movie, you probably would like Hereditary.It's my favorite horror movie of all time.And, you know, we talked enough about that on the episode that I appeared on. where we watch that movie.
But I'm also going to recommend, I know this is controversial, I am going to recommend Dr. Sleep. I haven't read the book yet.I own it.I'm waiting until I finish my reread of The Shining.
But the movie does, I think, a really great job of kind of marrying the book and the movie of The Shining and simultaneously being a sequel to both.You could tell Mike Flanagan is a big fan of The Shining, the book.
and tried to kind of work his way around that.It's also, I think, a much better representation of alcoholism and alcohol recovery, which we really don't get much of in The Shining, the movie at all.
Plus, it's a movie about fighting your trauma, and that's just going to get me every time.It's a good movie.It's a solid film.
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear.I was closing my bag of chips.I didn't hear you.Um, I had to jog my memory a little bit.I would say probably, I don't know if this would be considered a horror, but I think so.
But like maybe the lighthouse kind of has a similar vibe.Oh, yeah.
Oh, it's absolutely horror.
I love that movie.Very similar.My poor friend takes movies very seriously and I respect that, but I'm like, if you're watching movies with me, especially crazy ones, I'm going to laugh and I'm going to comment over it.
And so some of the comments that I made watching that the first time, I'm just like, this movie is bizarre.I love it. It's so cool.
The fact that neither Willem Dafoe nor Robert Pattinson even got like an Oscar nom.Insulting, bro.Yeah.The Academy hates horror.What else is new?
Yeah.Especially one where two sea men caress each other in a dark room. They scold each other.
Two ragged as hell looking semen.
Just putting this out there as a PSA, if you've ever wanted to see Robert Pattinson's junk, that's the movie where you find it.
It'll be a weird experience, but you'll see it.
I forgot.Yeah, that's how good the movie is, is I forgot that Robert Pattinson's junk was in it.Right?Because I'm like too busy.
I said that was not the most memorable part, right?
Yeah.Well, I know that if Willem Dafoe's junk was there, I would have remembered because how did- Damn you, Lars von Trier, give us Dafoe dick.
No, no, no director dares.
It's too powerful for Cinnabar.
Magnum of a dong.Apparently.Distracting.Distractingly large.Is that what he said?Yes.
I thought it was absurdly large.
Absurdly large.It might have been distractingly.
If you guys ever do an anti-credits episode, it's gonna be wild.
I feel like it's threatening.It's been threatening for years now.Jory, what have you got to threaten people with today?
I mean, recommend.I would go with a bit of a more obscure one.I would say, goodnight, mommy. Yes!Yeah!That because it's kind of the theme is these children grappling with the fact that they feel like their parent is not their parent anymore.
and it's a lot from the children's point of view and there's some like questioning reality stuff and it's a very like uncomfortable atmosphere so and there's it's just like you can feel this like evil aura kind of in that film so yeah a bit more obscure but like excellent movie I feel like if one likes The Shining then they might want to seek that one out.
Notable that that movie is made by a nephew and aunt duo, which I don't think exists anywhere else in horror, or maybe film in general.
But they also did a great movie called The Lodge, which has Sarieth's The Shining vibes, and is really, is, in my opinion, as good as Good Night Mommy.
Oh, cool.I'm checking both of those out.
Do not watch the American remake of Good Night, Mommy.Watch the original.
Yeah.Yeah.We did.We we talked about that in the podcast.Right.
I feel like we did like we never watched Good Night, Mommy.
OK, I'm there for that one.
Very possible.Emily, what are you going to recommend?
What were you going to say, Bri?I didn't want to go on too much of a tangent, but I heard that people were saying that, like, long legs was reminiscent of The Shining, but I don't know if that... It's got some of the vibes.
It's a really great movie, just period.
It's uncomfortable, but that's, I mean, it's, I personally think it's going for more Silence of the Lambs.Definitely.Great sound design, like The Shining. Otherwise, much more Silence of the Lambs, but... Okay.
Yeah, yeah.Definitely worth seeing.It's fun.
It's fun.Okay, good to know, because I've been sort of... Just for Nick Cage, obviously.Yeah.
Alone.So, my recommendation, I'm actually going to go somewhere way away from horror.If you love Shelley Duvall, as you should, there, if you can find the original Fairytale Theater series that she hosts, for PBS way back in the 80s.
That's when I first really recognized her.That's when I first like got to sort of know her face when I was very, very young.And so she had had an effect on me sort of as this familiar face.
And which is funny because it was her and then Vincent Price, who was hosting Mystery.So you can kind of see what kind of stuff that was going on in my household.
But yeah, I would find those because not only is she great and it's great to see her and she's doing the good work with that series, but also that series has a lot of incredible performances by famous actors doing some banger work and breakout directorial debuts.
Like Tim Burton does the fairy tale theater Aladdin starring James Earl Jones, Leonard Nimoy, and more.
TM but yeah I would definitely see if you could find those because yeah Shelley Duvall's Delight and that's a it's a very delightful very dated in terms of like effects and presentation but it's so charming oh nice yeah so it'll be refreshing to see her not mortally terrified yeah and also she has she is in the role that she was born for olive oil
and the Popeye movie with Robin Williams as Popeye.
Yeah, it looks like Fairytale Theater is on internet archives.
Love it.That's why I had to watch Shining because I was like, I don't really want to rent anything.And I was just like, I will get it for free.Yeah, you can.You should.
Absolutely.Ben, did you have something to recommend?
Yeah, I'm gonna keep us in the realm of snow-based horror and recommend a film we've already covered on this podcast, and that is IT.I mean, The Thing, not IT.We haven't talked about IT.The Thing.
Similar, similar non-definitive noun.Exactly.
I've almost- As easy a mistake as breaking your toddler's arm.
Yeah.Who among us hasn't broken a toddler's arm?Come on.
Few more pounds of force per second, per second.Per second.Per second. Okay, my recommendation.I remember one of the first times I really became familiar with Stanley Kubrick, we were talking about awkward and unfortunate nudity in movies.
I was hanging out with a friend of mine who I had a crush on, who was also into weird movies.And she was like, hey, I got this great movie by Stanley Kubrick.It's called A Clockwork Orange.
Rough thing to watch. on a, not a date, but you know, incredibly, much to me, far scarier movie than The Shining.Like, much more bothered by, way more bothered by A Clockwork Orange than it ever was by The Shining.Another great book too.
Oh yeah.That book changed my life.I read it when I was 13 and nothing was the same.What about it changed your life? The writing, hello, the language.I have a writing, that's what that means.
It literally taught me that writing actually doesn't have any rules, that you can just do whatever the fuck you want.
That's a great way of putting it.
Yeah, yeah.You do whatever you want, and I'm like, this is sick.Nice.Come on, make my own language, fuck it.Right.
That's a qualified wreck.I mean, Clockwork Orange is a rough watch. Uh, but if you're, if you're up for it, if you're wanting to see more Stanley Kubrick stuff, you watch the shining and we're like, ah, not scary enough.
There's something good to traumatize you.I also saw one other movie this past week that I really enjoyed.
It's not at all related, but it was something I wanted to see a long time ago and never got around to until just now, which is edge of tomorrow, also known as live, die, repeat, which is a.
a really well-made movie that even knowing a bit about it going in still pulled some surprises on me.Tom Cruise doing what he does best, which is being a guy that you're like, man, fuck this guy.
But eventually you're like, all right, well, I guess I got a root for him.Because those are always the Tom Cruise characters that I love the most, that you're like, fuck him.
He's the ops.He's always the ops.
Yeah.Yeah.So definitely, both of those are worth checking out.They're from pretty far different ends of the spectrum. Totally worth watching both of them.That does it for us today.
I wanted to let everybody get a chance to let our listeners know where they can find them online and find out more about what they're doing right now.Jory, you want to go first?Let people know where you're at.
Yeah, you can find me on Instagram, and my handle is joriroberts, J-O-R-R-I, R-O-B-E-R-T-S.And you can also find me on Letterboxd to see my obsessive film watching, if you are curious.
And my handle there is horribleroberts, H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E, R-O-B-E-R-T-S.
Fantastic.And Bree, what about yourself?
I'm pretty much only active on Instagram right now since I'm just like head down working on books, but my handle is B-R-E-I-N-D-I-G-O, Brie Indigo, which is the same as my pin name.
Fantastic.And Greg, what about you?
So I am Greg Silber on Blue Sky, Instagram, and Threads.That's S as in Sam, I, L, B as in boy, E, R. Not Silver, Silber, as I always have to tell my students.I'm working on a couple of things right now.
Check out my column at the beat, Silber Linings. I recently started doing that again, and I'm working on some longer stuff that hopefully will eventually be finished and see the light of day.
But for now, there is no shortage of things you can read from me.
So check it out.Wonderful.And Emily, what about you?
megamoth.net for all your megamoth needs, megamoth on patreon, and let's go on tumblr!Megamoth on tumblr.I think I'm a little bit more active on tumblr and there's, you know, you don't have to sign up and then of course I'm...
Maybe by the time that this is out, my project MurphyQuest will be underway where I review Killian Murphy performances by specific criteria, including punchability, baby girl, creature, and conserved.That is Murphy-Quest on Tumblr.
And I feel like I can't ever tell whether this is a joke or whether it's a thing that you're actually doing it or whether it's both.
It's it exists.The Tumblr exists.I haven't finished my first review, which is would be of 28 days later, but I do have some sick fan art on there specifically of Oppenheimer doing the Etoble head, the anime head meme.
Cause he, oops, he did a war crime.
So, uh, we're in October right now, correct?
Yes.All right, then, uh, I believe this will have been announced and solicited.If it hasn't, publisher, please don't get mad at me, but there should be news.I am writing the Holiday Haunt One-Shot Issue of Monster High for IDW.
Yes, there's a monster.This is part of the new Monster High new skirmester comic book ongoing series.And this is one of the holiday one shots focused on Frankie Stein finding new love at the winter dance. That'll be out in December from IDW.
Can you share the characters that you've brought to this universe yet or now?
No, I did get to make a new character that should be a fun design and familiar to fans of the show.
Sounds wonderful.Looking forward to that.As for me, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at jrong5a.You can find me at Blue Sky and Tumblr at Jeremy Whitley.
Right now, since it is October, I am probably piling through a very large list of horror movies that I'll be posting about on there, because I always do that to myself during October.
Also, timing-wise, I'm not 100% sure, but I either am about to see everybody or have just seen everybody at New York Comic Con.So that was exciting or will be exciting.It's great to see you or will have seen you.
Um, be sure to also check out, uh, navigating with you, uh, is already out at this point.Uh, thank you. And also I have a new My Little Pony miniseries coming out right now called The Storm in Zephyr Heights.And it's a My Little Pony disaster movie.
So have fun with that.I think that's it for us.Thank you so much to all of our guests for joining us, guys.It was real fun to talk about this little indie horror film.
And I don't know if anybody will be interested in hearing more or talking about this movie.
But, you know, it didn't have much of an impact, like on the greater scheme of things.But, you know, it's nice to uncover some of these hidden, underappreciated gems.
Yeah, hidden gems indeed.It was nice to get a chance to finally watch it.Yeah.Yeah.So thanks for that opportunity.
Well, glad we got to bring this into your life.Glad that we had all of you here. shining with us.Thank you as always to Ben and Emily, and until next time everybody, stay horrified.
Sign in
