The Overlook Hotel

Dream of a white summer with our top 10 frozen films

Summer has traditionally been the season for heading out to the multiplex to enjoy big-ticket blockbusters in air-conditioned comfort. But what if it's too hot to even leave the house? Why not stay home, crank up the air conditioning, pour a frosty beverage and curl up with one of our 10 cold-weather features, specially selected to chill you out no matter how hot it gets outside.

-"The Shining" (1980, 142 min.)

Stanley Kubrick had a reputation as one of our chilliest filmmakers long before he checked into the Overlook Hotel. But with this adaptation of Stephen King's quintessential haunted house novel, he took his icy reputation to a literal extreme. Jack Nicholson gives his most ferocious performance as a recovering alcoholic who takes a job as winter caretaker of the remote Overlook, with deadly consequences. When Nicholson meets his frozen fate, you may find yourself thinking 100-degree weather isn't so bad after all.

-"The Thing" (1982, 109 min.)

Don't wait for this fall's remake of John Carpenter's frigid thriller, which is itself a remake of the 1951 creature feature "The Thing From Another World." It can't possibly chill you to the bone as effectively as this version set at an Antarctic research base. Kurt Russell and company must contend with an alien shape-shifter capable of looking exactly like any of them. Rob Bottin's visceral special effects may be too gruesome for the faint of heart, but it's the paranoia at the heart of the story that makes it a modern horror classic.

-"Fargo" (1996, 98 min.)

From its ominous opening shot of a car slowly making its way through a snowbound wasteland to its climactic demonstration of the household wood-chipper's lethal capabilities, the Coen brothers' twisted tale of a kidnapping gone awry proves that film noir can survive in Minnesota's frozen tundra as well as it did in "Blood Simple's" sweltering Texas heat.

-"Nanook of the North" (1922, 79 min.)

Robert J. Flaherty's film is considered the first feature-length documentary, although some contend it's actually the first mockumentary. Flaherty admittedly staged much of the action after accidentally destroying his original footage, but "Nanook" is still a valuable ethnographic document of the harsh living conditions and ingenious survival methods of the Inuit people of nearly a century ago. By the time it's over, you'll even know how to make your own igloo (if not how to keep it from melting in the August heat).

The Impossible Layout of THE SHINING's Overlook Hotel – Kubrick ...

 - which, it turns out, is spatially impossible. At first I was thinking that this video was simply nitpicking at some design choices made on sets that weren’t intended to be fully functional (they didn’t build a full hotel, after all), but as it goes on it becomes more and more obvious that Kubrick was establishing impossible spaces. This becomes really apparent when exploring the halls around Room 237 and the kitchen storage spaces. It was purposeful design, created to make no sense, to be illusory and dreamlike. It’s amazing!

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It a perfect reminder that when you think about production design, consider the fact that the production designer is A) an artist and B) that this is THEIR JOB. When people say “there’s no way they put that much thought into it.” The answer is usually of course they did. It was their job and, better yet, their passion.

Of course, even things that are well-intentioned can ultimately come off as stupid. I was once at lunch and listened to a production meeting going on for the original transformers. You would be astounded how much thought they put into the logistics/look of cybertron and then ultimately michael bay made all that thought look pretty trite and lame. Not that I innately blame Michael Bay for everything that is bad about his movies, but, well, a good deal of it. 

There are very many ways Kubrick goofs around in “The Shining” to mess with the audience’s sense of well-being. Obvious time inconsistencies, for one. And then spatial fuckery. And the whole mirror thing. It’d be one thing if this were Uwe Boll or William “One Shot” Beaudine. But this was Kubrick, who spent YEARS on every last conceivable detail. The assumption is that the film itself is losing its mind. “The Shining” deserves every bit of praise it’s gotten in the thirty years since it was largely misunderstood (most notably by Stephen King himself, who was all like “Why does Kubrick cut away to Nicholson sneaking up on Duvall?” Duh, because Nicholson popping out of nowhere in a cheap seat-jump gag* is from every other horror movie ever made, Steve).

The Shining

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