Menu
DEREK AUSTIN JOHNSON
  • Home
  • About
  • Bibliography
  • Contact
  • Maple Street Dispatches
  • Home
  • About
  • Bibliography
  • Contact
  • Maple Street Dispatches

On "The Shining"

5/24/2020

0 Comments

 
When I was twelve years old, my friends and I went to see a comedy called The Nude Bomb (which turned out to be an apt title; it was obvious to everyone in the full auditorium that the movie was a dud) at the Westwood Theater in Houston. For some reason the projectionist decided to run a trailer for Stanley Kubrick’s (somebody I’d never heard of) new movie, and for the next ninety seconds I sat frozen in terror, completely bewildered at what I was seeing.

Keep in mind that this was 1980. I didn’t do horror, or at least I claimed I didn’t. I did like the pathos and tragedy one found in monsters, however. I loved Universal’s pantheon of classic horror movies, as well as the stylized pictures proffered by Hammer, and read the holy trinity of Shelley, Stevenson, and Stoker. That said, outside of episodes of The Twilight Zone, or the occasional movie that ran on one of Houston’s two UHF channels, horror often was the last of my entertainment preferences, for the simple reason that horror during this period meant “slasher.” This was the summer when Friday the 13th would make money bloody hand over gore-spattered fist, when Halloween-style imitators overcrowded theaters. I was a hypersensitive kid who felt horrible for the people being murdered onscreen.

So when this trailer ran, my attitude was no, I was not seeing this. Not now, not ever. I reasoned that I may read the book, because there was no way it could be as scary as the ninety seconds I just saw. (Yeah, I was wrong on that one, too.)

This year, The Shining turns forty. It remains terrifying. It’s also one of my favorite movies in any genre.
​
Yes, I get why people don’t like it. I understand why some genuinely hate it. While I agree that there are better haunted house movies (Robert Wise’s The Haunting, based on Shirley Jackson’s masterful The Haunting of Hill House, remains unequaled), and while I agree that it jettisons much of its incredible source material (King loathed the movie to the point that he praised the very faithful adaptation on ABC television, a work that is as competent as it is forgettable), I still get lost in Kubrick’s picture, and feel with every viewing that I’ve only begun to wade into its monstrous depths.
0 Comments
    Picture
    Derek Austin Johnson has lived most of his life in the Lone Star State. His work has appeared in The Horror Zine, Rayguns Over Texas!, Horror U.S.A.: Texas, Campfire Macabre, The Dread Machine, and Generation X-ed.

    He lives in Central Texas. 

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    May 2022
    June 2021
    January 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    January 2019
    August 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    July 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    November 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    August 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed