While Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining has always been a deeply creepy watch, one fan theory makes the horror movie even scarier by positing that even the audience themselves are unknowingly playing a creepy role in its story. Stanley Kubrick’s take on The Shining was infamously divisive when the movie was released in 1980. While author Stephen King’s book was an acclaimed best-seller, Kubrick’s typically austere adaptation was met with a frosty critical reception. Reviewers at the time complained that The Shining was un-scary and that Kubrick’s cold, detached filmmaking style was a poor fit for the horror genre. However, these unimpressed write-ups were far from the last word on the movie.
In the decades since The Shining has become more than another great horror movie that critics dismissed. Nowadays, The Shining is seen as one of the most influential horror movies ever made. While King maintains that he doesn’t like what Kubrick did to his story, even the author had to eventually admit that Kubrick’s movie was an impressive aesthetic achievement. Meanwhile, critics, academics, reviewers, and movie fans have spent the decades since The Shining was released reading into the movie’s labyrinthine symbology and analyzing its meanings. However, one fascinating interpretation posits that the audience themselves are part of the ghostly narrative, thanks to one storytelling technique.
Jack Torrance Secretly Breaks The 4th Wall In The Shining
While it might seem like there is nothing left for viewers to find in The Shining, author Filippo Ulivieri (Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side) has proven that theory wrong. In a Twitter thread and Youtube video, Ulivieri noted that Jack Nicholson seemingly subconsciously breaks the 4th wall and looks directly into the camera, often for a split second, throughout The Shining. Like all of Kubrick’s movies, The Shining is meticulous in its construction, and nothing this noticeable was left to chance. As such, the idea that Kubrick’s adaptation of King’s novel accidentally left dozens of moments where Nicholson acknowledges the viewers in the final cut is almost impossible.
However, Ulivieri offers another, much creepier explanation for this strange detail. First, Ulivieri notes that this choice could be designed to make the viewer feel more drawn into the story. When Jack runs after Danny and Wendy, he stares into the camera and threatens the viewer as much as he threatens the other characters. However, as Ulivieri notes, this doesn’t explain why Nicholson does the same thing throughout the rest of The Shining. After all, the weird motif happens even during domestic daytime scenes where there is no threat present. Furthermore, in the behind-the-scenes footage, viewers can see Kubrick directing Nicholson to look into the camera, thus proving it is not a mere mistake.
Jack Torrance Is Aware Of The Overlook’s Ghosts
Ulivieri’s creepiest interpretation of this suggests that, as Jack Torrance is aware of the Overlook’s ghosts, he is looking at the camera because the camera (and, by proxy, the audience) is actually a ghost. This adds a whole new dimension to The Shining since it means that viewers are not simply seeing Jack break down as he loses his mind. Instead, the viewer is part of the cause of Jack’s breakdown and what the camera sees is far from objective. In 1997’s The Shining miniseries, many more scenes follow Dick, Danny, and Wendy through the Overlook. In contrast, in Kubrick’s The Shining, the camera mostly focuses on Jack.
Jack Torrance’s 4th Wall Breaks Turn The Camera Into A Ghost
When Kubrick’s movie does follow other characters (in sequences like Danny’s infamous ride through the hallways), Ulivieri’s theory still adds up. The famous gliding Steadicam utilized in Kubrick’s movie gives the camera’s movement a strange, otherworldly quality, and there are many moments where the camera’s soundless approach is akin to a ghost following a lonely character through a seemingly abandoned hotel. Thus, Jack’s fourth wall breaks, and his constant acknowledgment of the camera, could be a tacit confirmation that the ghosts of the Overlook are not only real, but The Shining takes place from their point of view. Consequently, the viewer becomes one of the ghosts haunting Jack.
This theory is further reinforced by the fact that Kubrick’s original ending to The Shining explicitly confirmed that the events which took place in The Overlook were supernatural. While this ending was jettisoned, The Shining’s final shot still infamously proves this point, albeit in a more ambiguous fashion. The fact that Nicholson’s Jack Torrance is seen in a picture from before he was born proves that he always has been part of the Overlook. This, in turn, would explain why the hotel’s ghosts were present in early scenes that take place in the Torrance family home, before their fateful trip to the hotel. The ghosts, like the Overlook, have always been with Jack.
How The Audience Ghost Theory Changes The Shining
Ulivieri’s theory adds another layer to the story of The Shining as it makes Jack a more sympathetic figure than before. Famously, King’s main problem with The Shining’s adaptation was that Kubrick’s movie cut Jack’s redemption. In the novel and the miniseries, Jack makes up for his misdeeds by intentionally blowing up the boiler. Through this act of self-sacrifice Jack effectively saves his family from the Overlook’s ghosts where, in Kubrick’s version of events, he simply freezes to death while trying to hunt his young son. However, The Shining’s ending makes more sense if viewed through the lens of Ulivieri’s theory and this makes Jack’s character arc is less harsh.
Throughout the entire movie, Jack constantly checks on the camera. He is aware of the ghost following him around and, the more unhinged he becomes, the more angry and upset he seems to be by the camera’s presence. In early scenes, Jack smiles while glancing at the camera, but he becomes increasingly distraught by its presence in later screenshots. In a much subtler way, Kubrick’s movie shows that Jack is trying to resist the influence of the Overlook every time he looks at the camera and flinches feeling its watchful gaze. While he doesn’t end up redeemed in The Shining, Jack does end up feeling more human in this reading.
This story originally appeared on Screenrant
