Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) accepts a job to be caretaker at the Overlook Hotel which is isolated in the mountains and cut off on the main roads for the winter months. Jack is recovering alcoholic and struggling writer. He hopes the peace and quiet will help him write. The previous caretaker snapped and murdered his family. The hotel management assume it was from the isolation.
Jack brings his family along to stay at the hotel. Jack’s wife Wendy (Shelly Duvall) and their young son Danny (Danny Lloyd) are happy to come along although Danny has a psychic power/imaginary friend that he calls Tony who warns him that bad things are going to happen.
During a tour of the hotel Danny meets Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), the hotel’s cook. Dick tells Danny he knows about his abilities and that if he ever needs help just to use his powers to call him. Danny asks Dick about room 237. Dick tells him to stay away from that room.
The hotel is haunted. And while there aren’t ghosts out and about after awhile the family start to feel the effects of the hotel. Danny sees two little girls who “want to play with him”. Jack in particular is targeted by the ghosts. They want him to kill his family. Danny goes into room 237 and is traumatized. Jack starts to slowly unravel.
Stanley Kubrick decided to adapt Stephen King’s novel of the same name. Kubrick turned the story into a masterpiece but King has never been happy with the film. In 2013 King wrote a sequel to The Shining follow Danny as a grown up. Director Mike Flanagan has adapted the novel which will be released in theatres in shortly.
