Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in The Shining (1980)

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Vitals

Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance, stir-crazy writer

Silver Creek, Colorado, Winter 1979

Film: The Shining
Release Date: May 23, 1980
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Costume Designer: Milena Canonero

WARNING! Spoilers ahead!

Background

Happy Halloween, BAMF Style readers! What better way to observe the most haunted holiday than with a look at one of the scariest and most suspenseful psychological horror movies, The Shining.

Three years after Stephen King’s novel was published, Stanley Kubrick brought his own adaptation of the story to the big screen with a screenplay co-written by novelist Diane Johnson, significantly altering the characters and motivations of the source novel.

Perhaps most significantly—and certainly cited as one of King’s greatest dissatisfactions with the movie—was Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of the central character, Jack Torrance, the new caretaker who brings his family to the Overlook Hotel for the winter and hopes the seclusion will help him with his writing… and to continue overcoming his battle with alcoholism. “Instead of playing a normal man who becomes insane, Nicholson portrays a crazy man attempting to remain sane,” wrote Cinefantastique editor Frederick S. Clarke in 1996. Continue reading →