'HEEEEEEERE'S JOHNNY!'
My descent into pop culture begins with this Kubrick classic because of the tremendous parody in The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror V (1994): 'The Shinning' - my favourite of all the Treehouse of Horror skits, and the whole episode is in my opinion only beaten to the punch of 'greatest Simpsons episode of all time' by 1996's 'You Only Live Twice,' a triumph of supervillainy in smart-casual. In itself 'The Shinning' is perhaps the best parody I have ever seen and first piqued my curiosity to really understand and explore the source material, and, suffice to say, when I finally saw The Shining in 2007 I was blown away by the exactitude of the Simpsons' tone, artistry, and mimicry of the plot.
Whether you've seen the film itself or not, the basic premise and denouement of The Shining is - much like Planet of the Apes (the subject of a future post) - ingrained in popular culture and needs little recounting here. Needless to say, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is hired as caretaker of the sinister Overlook Hotel while it is cut off from civilisation during the long winter, with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and young, disturbed, son Danny (Danny Lloyd) in tow. Based on the novel by Stephen King (though differing in major plot points and character motivations), Jack slowly devolves into madness while Danny's telepathic 'shining' abilities develop and Wendy screams. A lot. Throughout. The film culminates with a deranged Jack chasing Danny through a snow-caked maze only to succumb to the cold as his son and wife escape the hotel grounds to (presumed) safety.
The Simpsons' parody is executed almost flawlessly, from the quite frankly terrifying musical cues announcing the chapter changes and days of the week (for me, TUESDAY is The Shining's most heart-stopping moment) to the famously kitsch carpets of the hotel's corridors, everything receives due respect from the writers and artists despite gaining the classic Simpsons twist. Personal favourites include Homer/Jack's confrontation with Marge/Wendy on the staircase ('Gimme the bat Marge, gimme the bat, gimme the bat-bat-booooouuuu!') and Mr. Burns' apathy towards the haunted elevator ('That's odd: the blood usually gets off on the third floor'), although the sheer amount of quality parody in the episode boggles the mind and is an absolute riot from start to finish.
I've harped on about 'The Shinning,' and this is mainly due to the staggering way a mere six minutes of television can so perfectly encapsulate an entire film so iconic as The Shining as it does, as well as offering its own take on the source material. Of course, the film is referenced significantly less explicitly elsewhere: to name a few, in the first episode of Spaced (a criminally under-watched sitcom from the late '90s written by and starring a young Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes (nee Stevenson)), 'Beginnings' (1999), a pair of twins appear inside a closet much to Tim and Daisy's horror, evoking the image of the butchered twins in the hallway of the Overlook Hotel that Danny stumbles upon. Community's ' 'Biology 101' (2011) depicts Jeff's transformation into a plaid-shirted, extinguisher-frosted madman who attacks the study-group's table with a fireaxe in homage to Jack Torrance's final rampage; Community in many ways is a spiritual successor to Spaced in that so many of its episodes are structured around parody or homage to the point where a failure to recognise the source material can leave the audience flummoxed, unfortunately this aspect was rather lost during season 4 (2013) after the firing of Dan Harmon (here's hoping he can restore season 5 to glory!).
In the film itself, Jack Nicholson deservedly gained a place in pop culture from his subtle (later not-so-subtle) portrayal of Jack Torrance's mental instability, and the immortal line 'Here's Johnny!' while itself a reference to Johnny Carson on US television is a violent assault on the general eeriness and quiet of the film's atmosphere. Admittedly, Shelley Duvall's performance is less striking due to Wendy's role largely consisting of wailing and lacklustre attempts at wielding a kitchen knife, but complements Nicholson superbly in its hyperbole. Danny Torrance remains one of the most chilling children ever to inhabit the silver screen, and the iconic (a word that can be used of almost any moment in The Shining) revelation of 'redrum' and the nature of 'Tony,' the man who lives in Danny's finger, is more disturbing than it is scary, as was surely Kubrick's intention.
The Shining is rightfully a cinema classic, cementing Jack Nicholson as the go-to mentally unhinged character actor and adding to Stanley Kubrick's fantastic oeuvre -one can safely speculate that some of Duvall's tears are due to working with the notoriously exact director - and deserves its place in the public consciousness (truly, I knew even the minutiae of the plot from 'The Shinning'), but in order to fully appreciate the artistry of such references, I urge you to watch The Shining for yourself - you'll never see a hotel corridor the same way again.
[Edit 21/09/2013: Changed image as the previous one had gone haywire]
