If only you could visit the Overlook Hotel and feel the bone-chilling energy of the movie for yourself . . . oh wait, you can. While the Overlook Hotel from the movie doesn't actually exist, it is based on The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO: a 142-room colonial revival hotel nestled in the Rocky Mountains.
The Stanley Hotel is a 140-room Colonial Revival hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, United States, about five miles from the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.
Unfortunately for them, Room 237 doesn't exist at their property, and the Stanley says 217 has become its most requested accommodation, with reservations currently on the books for the next several Halloweens. We sought out the room, but it was disappointingly normal, at least from the outside.
The Overlook Hotel Stephen King created for The Shining may have been fictional, but his interpretations of horror's most haunted hotel room was not. Room 217, as well as the Stanley Hotel's reputation as a whole, continues to frighten, not just in the land of television, movies, and literature, but in the real world.
The Shining Tour, is one of our newest tours. Indoor/Outdoor walking tour through the west side of The Stanley Hotel Campus. A lot of Stephen King, a bit of History, and a whole lot of stories of the spirited variety! This tour includes a visit to The Shining Suite, in our beautifully restored 1909 Caretaker's Cottage.
Inside The Spooky Hotel That Inspired ‘The Shining’ | TODAY
How much does it cost to stay in Room 237?
Think of it as the hotel's classy version of a haunted house experience. The promotion includes “special accommodations” in Room 237, for $237 a night. If you'll recall, Room 237 is where all manner of terror occurs at the story's Overlook Hotel.
After dinner, his wife decided to turn in, but King took a walk around the empty hotel. He ended up in the bar and was served drinks by a bartender named Grady. In King's words: "That night I dreamed of my three-year-old son running through the corridors, looking back over his shoulder, eyes wide, screaming.
Room 428 has reports of the sound of footsteps and furniture moving about, but the real haunt is a friendly cowboy who appears at the corner of the bed. Obviously, many friendly cowboys have spent a night or two at the Stanley Hotel over the years, but there is no indication of one dying in the building.
The family has to care for the hotel for the winter, but they cannot leave the mountainous area. In this isolation every day becomes the same for Jack as his writer's block becomes quotidian. The combination of isolation, monotony, creative frustration, and supernatural forces extract Jack's insanity.
King, it turned out, wasn't the only famous guest to stay in the room. The hotel, Andy explained, was used as a setting for Dumb and Dumber, and during filming, Jim Carrey stayed in 217.
The hotel wanted young Danny to die inside its grounds so that it could feed on him, and after he unleashes the ghosts from their boxes, they start to feed on him as well.
The woman in King's novel is Lorraine Massey, who used to seduce bellboys and engage in sexual acts with them. Lorraine was the wife of a prominent New York lawyer, but during her stay at the Overlook, she was with a younger man.
The (real) hotel featured in the movie (the Timberline Lodge in Oregon) has no maze at all, and all of the interiors, and the maze in the movie were actually created in three separate locations in England. The section of the maze used for the summer sequences (hedges at Radlett aerodrome) and its plan.
The Shining is partially based on a true story, as the supernatural elements of Jack Torrance's stay at the Overlook Hotel are inspired by a real haunting in Colorado and the Stanley Hotel where King stayed.
Jack tells Danny to run and remember how much he loves him, before the hotel's power takes over again and forces Jack to bash in his own face with the mallet. Jack had forgotten to dump the boiler, which grows too hot and causes the hotel to explode. Jack is killed, but Danny, Wendy and Hallorann get out just in time.
Moments later, he would improvise the “Here's Johnny!” line, which was a reference to the intro of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Interestingly, Kubrick originally shot the scene with a fake door, but Nicholson – who once trained as a fire marshal – chopped it down too quickly.
Did they film The Shining inside The Stanley Hotel?
The Stanley Hotel at Estes Park, CO is the inspiration for the book. However, the 1980 movie was not filmed here. Instead, Stanley Kubrick built the interior sets at EMI Elstree Studios in the UK. The exterior shots are of Timberline Lodge in Oregon, USA.
In the novel, Danny is the Overlook's primary victim, and Jack Torrance is simply used as a conduit to get to Danny. The hotel wants Danny dead so that it can absorb his “shining” ability to add to the Overlook's plethora of dark energies, so it possesses Jack in his vulnerable state to try to kill Danny.
Despite its widespread praise, King famously despised Kubrick's adaptation of his book, so much so that he called it “a maddening, perverse, and disappointing film,” likening it to “a great big beautiful Cadillac with no motor inside,” eventually remaking the adaptation himself into a teleplay to finally “correct” ...
The ending of The Shining, particularly the photo of Jack in the 1921 ballroom, suggests that Jack is a reincarnation of a former hotel employee, although this explanation is not explicitly stated in the film. The Shining explores themes of cyclical violence and abuse, and Kubrick's film is full...
