The Shining (1980) KILL COUNT

[Music] welcome to the kill cow where we tally up the victims in all our favorite horror movies I'm James Agee nice and today we're looking at the shining released in 1980 I don't know how else to begin this episode than by admitting that I'm a little intimidated to be doing it The Shining is easily one of the biggest horror movies of all time although it had a mixed response when it first came out even earning a couple of Razzie nominations for worst actress and worst director The Shining was quickly reevaluated by critics and is frequently found at or near the top of lists of the greatest horror movies of all time shit it's even preserved by the Library of Congress based on Stephen King's third novel which was published in 1977 the Shining's big-screen adaptation was co-written produced and directed by one of the most influential filmmakers who ever lived Stanley Kubrick or Kubrick I've heard of both ways Kubrick's filmography is basically a parade of classics with recognizable masterpieces nearly as acclaimed as they are diverse in genre to say he was a great craftsman as to seriously understate something his influence is everywhere in cinema and popular culture at large so it's no surprise that his one and only horror movie is consistently considered one of the bests especially since it was based on a story by Stephen King someone just a singular and acclaimed in his own art field King famously disliked Kubrick's treatment of his story and although his criticism has tempered in recent years to be honest I think the guy just likes everything nowadays last I heard he still preferred the 1997 ABC miniseries version which he wrote the teleplay for McGarrett's to direct I only mention that version to let you know I can't cover it at least not anytime soon things four and a half hours long give me a break but King is in the minority when it comes to his appraisal of this film The Shining is one of the most frequent answers I hear when I ask people what their favorite horror movie is and although some may find that answer cliche I'm not surprised that so many people were affected by this beautiful haunting epic film I'm gonna try to do my best to do the movie justice in this episode but keep in mind that this is probably the most dissected and analyzed film to ever be on the kill count I mean there's a whole damn documentary called room 237 that covers people's interpretations and theories about the movie some of which link it to Native American genocide others to the Holocaust and one to a conspiracy theory that claims Stanley Kubrick helped fake the moon landing I'll tell you what I can about the shining but will barely be scratching the surface at the very least I can tell you how many people died in it so let's get to the kills the movie begins with gliding shots filmed in Montana's Glacier National Park while the Shining's main title theme plays this foreboding hymn of synth sounds was composed by Wendy Carlos and Rachel alkyne and the tune grows in creepiness as a single yellow car makes its way to the isolated Overlook Hotel in the Rocky Mountains now while King was inspired to write the shining during an offseason stay at the Stanley Hotel in Colorado these wide exterior shots to pick the Timberline Lodge in Oregon's however close-ups of the hotel's exterior show later were all done on a set built in the UK so in real life there isn't just one hotel that you can call The Shining hotel especially since the insides were all custom-built sets based on various hotel interiors from around the world Jack Torrance played by Jack Nicholson and possibly his most famous role despite having a career chock full of them meets with hotel manager Stuart old man ahead of his new job to be the overlooks winter caretaker during the offseason this weirdo bill Watson is there too but he doesn't really say or do anything maybe he dreamed of meeting Jack and found him to have that look you very rarely find the haunting haunted kind Jack a teacher and aspiring writer Asher's omen he'll have no problem being isolated in the hotel over the coming winter mock well then just happens to be exactly what I'm looking for plenty of time to get some writing done really go crazy with it you know he's not even deterred when he finds out that the last dude who had the job a guy named Grady had a bit of a mental breakdown and took it out on his wife and two daughters they ran amok and killed his family with an axe that sorted history doesn't bode well for Jack's family who's gonna be staying at the hotel with him during the winter his wife Wendy played by Shelley Duvall tries to get their son Danny excited about it but he's pretty trepidatious because Tony doesn't want to go Oh who's Tony he's Danny's little friend who lives in his mouth well how come you don't want to go he just doesn't want to when he's gone Tony shows Danny why he doesn't want to go in a series of psychic images that include a river of blood coming out of the hotel's elevator and some creepy-ass little girls spook gasps after Danny's little scare in the bathroom he's seen by an unnamed doctor who's given a heaping dose of backstory courtesy of Wendy Wendy mentions that some time ago her husband Jack came home drunk and accidentally dislocated Danny's shoulder by pulling him away from a mess too hard it's just a sort of thing you do 100 times with a child or in the streets this particular occasion has been just there's too much strengthening injured Danny's the doctor seems rightfully concerned about the potential abuse but Wendy says there was a silver lining it got Jack to stop drinking alcohol the Torrance family makes the long drive to the Overlook Hotel on its last day of the season where Stuart Oldman and bill Watson are there to give them a tour of the facilities as soon as Jack's done with that Playgirl anyway the tour takes the Torrance's and the viewer all over the hotel in long unbroken shop and a close examination of the layout reveals that some of it just doesn't make sense the best example I can show you is that this window and Stuart Oman's office shouldn't logically be there if you follow Jack as he walks towards him you can see there's actually a hallway back there but once Jack gets into the office there's a window on that wall looking outside the logical layout of the Overlook is the subject of countless theories and if you're interested you can watch a video about it made by Rob Eggar of callate of learning it's pretty interesting and the prevailing theory as to why the hotel's floor plan doesn't make sense is because it adds to the nightmarish and surreal quality of the setting you'll find that people are pretty reluctant to say that any apparent mistakes in a Kubrick movie are unintentional he was that particular of a filmmaker Jack and Wendy are shown their apartment within the hotel which has two rooms a kitchen area and a bathroom well it's very homey they're also shown the giant hedge maze outside as well as the snowcat that we'll have to use when the white stuff covers the grounds inside the overlooks game room Danny plays darts for a bit before meeting some potential new friends oh that's so nice for you Danny now you'll have other kids to play with nope never mind they're walking away Pam that's gonna kill this kid's self-esteem the tour continues in the ballroom where almond mentions that the bar is emptied of all alcohol for the offseason Jack says that's just fine though we don't drink the Torrance's are introduced to the hotel's head chef dick hallorann played by Scatman Crothers and he takes Wendy and Danny on a tour of their enormous kitchen after showing them the walk-in freezer full of meat and the pantry full of dry goods Halloran offers Danny a psychic icy treat hell yeah doc want some ice cream that's what's up over a couple of bowls of ice cream treats Halloran tells Danny how he was able to talk to him brain to brain something he and his grandma used to do all the time she combs and shiny dick says that the stories titular psychic power is shared by all sorts of people even though some don't acknowledge or recognize it Danny says his mouth mate Tony told them that the Overlook it's super scary and dick admits that it does have some bad juju thanks to its past which has left a sort of lingering presence here you know Duncan something happens if you leave the chase of this self-sealing now you may have heard of Stanley Kubrick's tendency to get a ridiculous number of tags from his actors I always said you know anyway for Stanley it removes the main problem for the actor which is pressure you know he's not going to stop until it's exactly the way he wants it right wrong or indifferent it is going to be right we're talking dozens and dozens of takes even if they did everything perfectly within the first few tries he's gonna do 60 somebody tries to see what happens even if take five is a terrific one the reason I bring this up now is because this ice-cream scene had one shot I'm not sure which one that Kubrick did either eighty eight or a hundred and forty eight tanks of accounts differ on the number Scatman Crothers who was more of a musician than a trained actor couldn't handle it although apparently six-year-old Danny Lloyd was just fine scatman said Stanley I can't do it anymore Danny was there so as a result we didn't feel like you were torturing him and therefore we could do it and not feel like we were abusing a minor before their conversation ends Danny asked Halloran what's in room 237 something Tony told them about after a quick little fright shark Halloran tells Danny there ain't nothing in that room but stay the fuck away from it anyway a month later the Overlook Hotel is a lonely place indeed but at least Danny's making good use of all the empty space riding his big wheel around an iconic close to the ground Steadicam shot The Shining was only the seventh movie to use the new Steadicam stabilizing tool which allows a camera operator to get smooth shots without the usual shakiness of a handheld camera for the shining the Steadicam was operated by Garrett Brown the dude who invented it and his long fluid tracking shots are part of this film's memorable iconography this scene also has some awesome sound design as Danny rides over rugs and hardwood floor unlike Danny Jack's not making the most of his time here his typewriter has been left unattended as he tosses a tennis ball around the hotel when he grows bored playing wall ball he takes a gander at a model of the hedge maze that Wendy and Danny are currently running around in the maze was an impressive feat for production to build and was so big that the cast and crew wound up getting lost for real in it we could never find out where we were we were always lost we always had to shout and have somebody worked their way in with a diagram and get us the hell out of there in fact Stanley challenged it was too easy and he actually got lost in it we challenged and we put him in there was a Saturday morning and he couldn't find his way out also impressive is this overhead shot of the maze model that shows Wendy and Danny walking around in the center this was the only shot that wasn't accomplished in camera to achieve it they built the center of the maze near a tall apartment building then shot down from the roof as Shelley Duvall and Danny Lloyd walked around in it they then matted that shot perfectly into an overhead shot of the model the end result shows just how big the overlooks hedge maze is he who definitely wouldn't want to get lost in there on a cold winter night toothache are not sure how many days or weeks have gone by but at least Jack seems to have finally found a bit of writing momentum good for him not so good for Wendy who stops by for some chit chat only to find an angry shit Jack who yells at her for distracting ham cheese this is what he's like sober she agrees to leave him alone but he doesn't let her go without one last verbal kick to the ass why don't you start right now get the fuck outta here okay that's all right Wendy you should probably go hang out with Danny anyway because he's getting so lonely riding his trike around and he's considering hitting up room 237 and making a play date with the Grady Ghost gal two days later a big ol snow storm has finally brought winters wrath to the Overlook and something tells me jack is not too excited to go shovel the sidewalks out there but damn can that dude wear a turtleneck as the days go by the storm gets so bad that the hotels phone lines go down leaving a radio as the only connection to the outside world but kind of fun because when you use it you get to say over a bunch of times over boy this storm is really something isn't it over over and out Danny striking through the hallway finally gets him in trouble when he rounds a corner to find the ghosts of Grady slaughter daughters waiting for him at the end of it come play with us Danny sure yeah play what I don't think my mom will let me play bloody axe lie around for that long sorry things are getting weird in a hurry at this hotel although Jack says he's a big fan of the place I wish we could stay here answer Danny finally breaks his promise to Halloran and walked into room 237 all while his dad takes us snooze at his writing desk haha he's dreaming about being a dog how cute do dinner kills you with Danny oh no it was about murdering his family Danny returns to his parents sporting a new bruise on his neck and Wendy immediately accuses Jack of being responsible for it why would she jump to a conclusion like that I killed you and Danny oh yeah he's too much strengthening in good and also the shoulder thing never mind she runs away from Jack and since he feels wrongly accused he takes his frustrations out by doing some freestyle dancing in the hallway hey man why don't you pull up a chair to this empty bar and take a load off those crazy feet goddamn shoes sell your soul for a beer you say well I've got good news for you jack this here is Lloyd and souls are legal tender for his tabs Jack gets a bourbon on the rocks and tosses away his five-month chip in one gone it gets him feeling real loosey-goosey to the point where he's calling Wendy a sperm bank and a bitch and complaining about how she won't forgive him for hurting Danny that one time that's when Wendy finds him sitting at the bar all alone and she tells him that Danny's neck booze came from a woman in a room upstairs with shroom wasn't dog you know what fuckin room it was although fun fact in the book the room number was 217 the same room King stayed in at the Stanley Hotel when he was inspired to write the shine the Timberline Lodge the Oregon hotel used for the wide exterior shots requested the room number be changed since they actually had a room 217 but not a 237 inside room 237 Jack finds a woman sitting in the tub and she naked I am Jax Mobley blooming excitement but don't get too cocky mr. Torrence cuz things aren't always as they appear to be for instance this young lucky woman is actually an old Nike woman which wouldn't necessarily be so bad if not for all that rotting skin back there oh when that laughs yeah don't come at me with that laughs meanwhile from his fly-ass home in Miami dick hallorann has a premonition that leaves him with a terrified look on his face this wordless zoom in on dick being scared was another one that Kubrick shot an unholy amount of time 60 is the number I've heard it resulted in scatman actually crying poor dude his end movie Terror doesn't come from an obsessive director though it's more the result of some kind of psychic connection with Danny thus piddling Boy Wonder there who that night lies in bed and sees images of Redrum written on a door well that's not so skin hope and the elevator full of blood again that'll spook ya Jack returns to their apartment and tells Wendy she didn't see anything in room 237 haha Jack don't be ashamed of your interest in guilts Wendy says it might be a good idea for them to leave the hotel and head back home but boy oh boy does Jack not like the sound of that and he berates her for even suggesting it fucking fuck this he leaves in a huff and feel sorry for himself in the kitchen before rounding the corner to find that the hotels throwing a full-on pity party for him it's a swanky soiree in the ballroom where Lloyd the bartender says the drinks are on the house your money's no good here well some of them are on the house and some of them are on Jack oh no better Ask Jeeves they're how to get the cooler out of corduroy the waiter takes Jack into the bathroom to clean them up nice and proper and is there that Jack learns this dude is Delbert Grady the former caretaker of the Overlook what was that guy's deal again you chopped your wife and daughter up in that's how that's right he was the axe guy but Grady denies the charge and tells Jack that he's the hotel's caretaker you always been the caretaker I should know sir I've always been here whoa that's some heavy shit there Delbert Grady tells Jack that Danny is trying to bring dick hallorann to the Overlook although he definitely does not refer to dick by his name and he says that Jack had better make sure Danny stops misbehaving he can't go running through the hotel with a pickle in his mouth you know great his daughters tried to pull that shit once and you know what Grady did about it I corrected them sir and when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty I corrected her oh damn mr. Torrance is breaking out his red pad cause it's correct in time first thing that needs correcting the hotel's radio I give you an F radio boom back in their apartment unit wendy is planning her and Danny's escape when she hears her son screaming from his room in a bizarre voice I've always found that little fucker immensely scary while he's screaming like that and while he's kicking his Tony thing into overdrive he's gonna wing this charge these people need the DA sap but with the overlooks phone and radio down Dick's got no choice than to take a plane to Denver and rent himself a snowcat to prowl on over to the hotel Wendy takes a baseball bat to go see if her husband is still acting all a fool well she's nowhere to be found but now you can finally read the masterpiece he's been typing away yeah let's see what it's about seems a little too existential for my liking oh man and can you say repetitive hire an editor dudes Jack vines Wendy peeping at his work but he's not exactly in the mood for any constructive criticism he is in the mood however to discuss the way they're raising their child I think you some very definite ideas about what should be done with Danny and I'd like to know what they are she tells them they need to take Danny to a doctor but Jack just mocks her and yells at her again for interfering with his very important caretaking job he grows more and more unhinged as these docs are up the stairs in another scene that was shot a ridiculous number of times I read that Kubrick did a hundred and twenty seven takes of it it was just one part of filming The Shining that left Shelley Duvall a total wreck Kubrick was a consummate filmmaker and from my research seemed like a super cool dude to six-year-old Danny Lloyd during production but his relationship with Shelley Duvall was borderline abusive in order to get a frantic hysterical performance out of her he pushed her to her emotional women by being mean to her on set and having crew members similarly give her the cold shoulder and the windowsill hunks of hair okay I don't sympathize with Shelley a lot of candid moments between them were captured on camera by Kubrick's daughter Vivian who filmed a short behind-the-scenes documentary onset of production oh come on what do you mean roll video when you do it you've got to look desperate Shelley you're just wasting everybody's find since production took the better part of a year the long months of stress ended up affecting Duval's house from May until October I was really in and out of ill health now I'm never in favor of abusing actors for the sake of a performance but obviously it's worth hearing Shelley Duvall's own words on the matter if it hadn't been for that inner volley of ideas and sometimes budding of heads together it wouldn't have come out as good as it did so I resented Stanley at times because he pushed me and her but why do you want to do this to me how can you do this to me we had the same end in mind it was just that sometimes we differed in our means and by the end the means met and I find I really respect him and really liked him both as a person and as a director I mean I'm I'm amazed also for the record I've been do balls performance is perfect it really sells how terrifying the hotel and her husband are Jack yells at Wendy to give him the bat and promises not to hurt her with it I'm not gonna hurt you I'm just gonna bash your brains oh he'll bash her brains and painlessly I guess a Grand Slam slugger wendy is not but she still manages to land a blow to Jack's head that knocks him down the stairs she drags his sorry ass through the kitchen and into the pantry which she locks him inside of before arming herself with a knife when she tells him she's gonna take Danny on the sno-cat back to civilization he tells her she's got another thing coming this turns out this crazy son of a bitch went ahead and corrected the snowcat - oh poor kitty later on that day Jack awakens from a sack map next to a snack stack to the voice of Delbert Grady on the other side of the door Grady tells jack he's got to get his ass into gear and correct his meddling family and when Jack promises he will he's rewarded with the sound of the door unlocking whereas Stephen King's novel is unquestioningly supernatural Cooper it's movie for the most part is a little more ambiguous a lot of the stuff that happens could be explained away as a result of Jack's psyche breaking down but a ghost unlocking the door is one of the strongest pieces of evidence towards this all happening for realsies as dick crosses way towards the hotel Danny grows more and more creepy grabbing a knife like a little Mikey Myers and writing Redrum on the door and lipstick and check out what Redrum actually means Wendy it's murder just kind of backwards and with a corn arm neat huh Jack begins acting his way into the apartment which causes Wendy and Danny to flee into the bathroom although Danny is able to get out of the small window and have a fun time sliding down the snowbank Wendy just can't squeeze her way out and so she's in the back for the movies most enduring an iconic scene which took three entire days to shoot that had to be Helle I'm Shelley Duvall since her character's a shrieking mess the whole time but there's no one watching this video who hasn't seen a parody of this scene in one form or another even if it's just a riff on Jack's Ed McMahon quote that was actually improvised by Nicholson on set here's Johnny Wendy slashes Jack's hand before their deadly game is paused due to them hearing dick snowcat arrive outside Oh Jack better get out there and do some more correcting dick hallorann who has travelled so far and so urgently wanders through the empty hotel calling out an offer of help in the body air son of a bitch the scatman is down folks I repeat the scatman is down which is a movie invention by the way dick hallorann survives in the boat he's also alive at the beginning of the doctor sleep book so I'm curious to see what they do with that in the doctor sleep movie Jack finds Danny hiding and chases him around as Wendy runs through the hotel finally seeing spooky stuff for herself including something she's not supposed to be seeing hey no chicks allowed lady only guys and bare guys go hang out with that dead dick over there or with this bleedy head ghost guy useless I guess if you're a big fan of cobwebs and skeletons then sure it's super cool Wendy's last experience of the ghost hotels Greatest Hits is another shot of the blood spilling elevators which is just fine by me no shots never get any less awesome Jeff chases Danny outside into the nasty winter weather then follows the young boy into the snowy hedge maze which as we all know by now is a huge scary labyrinth but Domane tour tour is a bright young whippersnapper and figures out that he might stand a chance of getting out of here alive if he can cover up his footprints in the snow when Jack reaches the end of the tracks he gets confused and stumbles away giving Danny the chance to double back and head towards the exit Danny's clever plan works and he escapes the maze as Jack gets more and more turned around Danny reaches his mom and she takes him to dick snowcat which thankfully has yet to be corrected by Jack no offense jack you're just not that great a mechanic dude he hears the vehicle as it starts up and drives away and screams futile II into the air as his family escapes the Overlook Hotel Jack collapses against the snow and has seen the next day dead in the maze having frozen into a scary little Jack sicko the movie ends with a photo from a party hanging up on the overlooks wall the dude at the front and center of the group is mr. Jack Torrance and South even though the photo was dated 1921 I guess Grady was right Jack's always been the caretaker here how many people can a haunted hotel kill using one relapsed alcoholic with an axe let's find out and get to the numbers Wendy I'm not gonna hurt ya I'm just gonna count the numbers only two people died in the shining at least in the events we bore witness to those two victims were both male meaning dick cooked us up a blueberry pie and with the runtime of 144 minutes that left us with a kill on average every 72 minutes I'll give the golden chainsaw for coolest kill - dick hallorann because it's got that great jump scare and it's a dude getting killed with an axe no doll machete for this one though cuz even though Jack's death face is a little bit silly it's still a nice finish to the movie and that's it The Shining came out in 1980 and its sequel dr. sleep hits theaters in just a few weeks on November 8 it's based on the 2013 novel by Stephen King and directed by Mike Flanagan the dude who brought us harsh and the haunting of Hill House I could not be more excited for it until next time I'm James age Indies there's been the kill gown thanks a lot for watching this extra kill guy I want to thank some patrons like Matthew Barr Adele Evan bore off John Doe operator foul ski Thomas hay DeLand Christopher Nichols it's still October which means you can still preorder the dead meat collector's edition of in search of darkness the 80s horror documentary infos in the description below how do you feel about the shining is that one of your favorites or do you think it's overrated thanks everyone be good people

Channel: undefined

Views: 6,283,733

Rating: 4.9454985 out of 5

Keywords: horror, dead meat, movies, scary, films, kills, kill count, body count, james a. janisse, jaj, pine commander boogie, shining, stanley kubrick, jack nicholson, jack torrance, danny, wendy, tony, here's johnny, hotel, overlook, haunting, ghost, hedge maze, stephen king, novel, adaptation, doctor sleep, dr sleep, steven king, classic, scariest, maze, behind the scenes, making of, shelley duvall, scatman, crothers, DMKC

Id: U0aglVxde1M

Length: 28min 1sec (1681 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 20 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/JakeZoso311]

I was not expecting this, but boy am I happy!

[u/wedgestatkiller]

This was definitely unexpected but I like that James has a done Kill Counts that coincide with a film release like with this coinciding with Doctor Sleep or the VVitch coinciding with the Lighthouse

[u/TheSeaDevil]

Great Kill Count, isn't it?

[u/HowDelightfullyDroll]

Keep up the musical theatre references! “That look you very rarely find/that haunting, hunted kind”

[u/kirant]

I have to admit, The Shining has some of my favourite pieces of trivia:

• Danny Lloyd apparently never knew he was in a horror movie until high school. Kubrick was able to hide the horror parts from him and Lloyd thought they were just filming a drama. I've heard different reasons for why they did it, though the most common claim is that Kubrick was protective of the kid (fearing the horror aspects would traumatize Lloyd), something James alluded to.
  
• Robin Williams (his biggest role to date was in Mork and Mindy) was considered for the role of Jack Torrance, but Kubrick thought he was "too psychotic". Part of me wonders how that performance would have varied (and if it would have changed Williams' career along more of a Tom Hanks direction).
• During the same scene, Nicholson actually destroyed the first (fake) door they built too easily. He was a volunteer firefighter at one point, so I imagine chopping through a door was something he has tried at least once.

Kubrick films are a joy to watch. Part of it is just how amazing the shots are, something I've always chalked them up to his photography background. While I can't say I could imagine working for him (the number of actors who worked with him more than once is extremely short), I can say I generally love the finished product. His credits are a collection of some of my favourite movies.

...I guess that's the long way of saying "I'm glad The Shining got a video".

[u/[deleted]]

Really nice surprise!

[u/JakeZoso311]

Is this the first kill count to not have the usual thumbnail background?

[u/ChernSH]

Not sure what the general consensus is, but I've always felt Nicholson looks a bit crazy early in which makes the descent into insanity not quite as impactful. Compare this to someone like Bob Saget playing the role of Jack.

[u/Mrallmight]

Do y’all think he’s gonna do terminator franchise on November because of the upcoming movie