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.
King was inspired to write The Shining after staying a night at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, a resort town nestled in the Rocky Mountains. In late September 1974, King and his wife, Tabitha, checked into what King described as a “grand old hotel.” Notably, the Kings stayed in room 217.
It was built by Freelan Oscar Stanley, co-founder of the Stanley Motor Carriage Company, and opened on July 4, 1909, as a resort for upper-class Easterners and a health retreat for sufferers of pulmonary tuberculosis. The hotel and its surrounding structures are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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.
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.
In the 1920s, a gas leak led to an explosion in Room 217 that destroyed the second floor above the main dining hall and nearly killed a chambermaid, Elizabeth Wilson. She ultimately recovered and returned to her job, which she held until her death, at age 90, at her home in Estes Park.
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.
This scene has been interpreted in many ways, and one of the most popular explanations is that it represents the hotel “absorbing” Jack's soul. Although this makes sense, Kubrick himself has said the photo actually suggests Jack being a reincarnation of an earlier official at the hotel.
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.
Amazingly, no one was killed, not even Mrs. Wilson, who sustained little more than two broken ankles and a story she would tell until her dying day. Still, the damage was done, and the legend was starting to unfold.
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.
The exterior shots of the Overlook Hotel were filmed at the Timberline Lodge in Oregon, while the interiors were filmed at Elstree Studios in England. The opening sequence of the film, following Jack's car to the resort, was filmed in Glacier National Park, Montana, with additional footage later used in Blade Runner.
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.
Stephen King's The Shining focuses on families and the way various forms of dysfunction—such as jealousy, insanity, abuse, and addiction—can rip them apart. At the center of the novel is the Torrance family—Jack, Wendy, and Danny—and they are fighting considerable odds.
Unlike in the 1980 film adaptation, within the original novel, it was made quite clear that Jack slowly fell under the influence of the unspeakable evil force that appeared to be the Overlook Hotel itself, or the demonic entity that took complete control of it and commanded its ghostly population.
It's made very clear from the beginning that he was a drunk and a violent husband and father. He seems to go to the closed down hotel in hopes to get sober, since there's no booze at the hotel when it's closed. However.. We also see how cold he treats his family during the ride up to the hotel.
The story presented Jack Torrance as a man who dislikes authority. He moved to an isolated hotel with his wife and his son in Colorado over the winter, hoping to improve and cure his poor writing. As the days passed, he began showing the symptoms of schizophrenia and attempted to kill his family.
As such, Grady has always been the butler, just as Jack has always been the caretaker insofar as they were both imprisoned in the future by the hotel, and their spirits became anachronistically part of history.
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...
In the film, Jack Torrance vividly interacts with a bartender named Lloyd, who appears to serve him drinks, even though the hotel is otherwise empty. This hallucinatory experience is a clear indicator of his disturbed mental state.
Did Jim Carrey refuse to stay at the Stanley Hotel?
During filming, Carrey stayed at The Stanley Hotel in Room 217. However, it's been reported that he only stayed for a few hours and left, totally spooked by the events that happened inside.
“However, Jim Carrey didn't last long," Andy added. "In the middle of his first night, he came down to the front desk and demanded to be moved to another room, saying something had happened and he did not feel safe in the room. When we told him the hotel was fully booked, he fled, presumably to another hotel in town.
When production began, the hotel expressed concerns that people wouldn't want to stay in its Room 217 if they associated it with a horror story. Kubrick changed the number to 237, since the Timberline doesn't have a Room 237.
