Stanley Kubrick’s Stephen King’s novels and short stories have been adapted to the big screen for years, and one of the most popular ones is Kubrick’s take on The Shining. Published in 1977, The Shining was the novel that established King as a preeminent author in the horror genre, and its success was such that it got a film adaptation in 1980.
The Shining follows Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), a struggling writer and recovering alcoholic who takes a position as the off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies and takes his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), with him, in hopes to rebuild their relationship and reconnect. Jack also hopes to find the motivation he needs to work on a play, but when a snowstorm leaves them cut off from the outside world, and along with Danny’s psychic abilities, the supernatural forces inhabiting the hotel awaken and begin to mess with Jack’s sanity.
Although Kubrick made major changes to the novel, to the point where Stephen King has famously criticized his version of The Shining, the movie now has a place in film history, and over the years, critics have praised Nicholson’s performance, Kubrick’s direction, and the movie's visuals, but there are some details that don’t seem to fit with the quality of Kubrick’s work. Various continuity errors all over The Shining have been pointed out over the years, and as Kubrick is famously known for being a perfectionist and paying extra attention to every single detail, it seems odd that The Shining has so many errors – but these were actually done on purpose to enhance the surrealism of being inside the Overlook Hotel.
There are a number of continuity errors in The Shining, between moving furniture, patterns that change between cuts, and impossible rooms and turns all over the Overlook Hotel that make its architecture pretty much impossible. Some of the most notable examples of these “mistakes” are the scene where Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) is showing Wendy and Danny around the kitchen, as when he opens the freezer, he does it with one hand and the shot from inside the freezer shows him opening the door with the opposite hand, and when they get out, the background and surroundings of the kitchen have changed, and the famous scene where Danny is playing with his toys and a ball suddenly rolls towards him, with the pattern of the rug changing between cuts. All these “mistakes” were done on purpose in order to enhance the unsettling vibe of the Overlook Hotel, giving the audience a somewhat immersive experience.
Most of these “mistakes” are so subtle that they are very easy to miss, but they are ultimately serving their purpose of giving the audience a sense of uneasiness and being trapped inside the hotel, just like Jack, Wendy, and Danny. It’s also a subtle way of showing that nothing and no one can be trusted inside the Overlook Hotel and that the hotel is an entity of its own, with its ever-changing hallways, objects, mazes, and more. Even Stanley Kubrick’s continuity “errors” turned out to be part of a carefully elaborated plan to visually translate the vibe of the story and its main setting, and they definitely elevate the experience of watching The Shining.
