As a noun it means a commanding position or view. In The Shining, many things are overlooked: past murders at the hotel, leaving the hotel in the possession of an abusive alcoholic, and checking the boilers, among many other things. Because of this, the Overlook Hotel is an extremely haunted and evil place.
Due to its influence, it has been responsible for multiple suicides and gangland hits since it was built in 1909. It psychologically tortured Delbert Grady and eventually possessed him in order to brutally kill his wife and daughters. Delbert committed suicide immediately after this.
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.
The boiler explodes, killing Jack and destroying the Overlook. Fighting off a last attempt by the hotel to possess him, Hallorann guides Danny and Wendy to safety. The book's epilogue is set during the next summer.
He was put in charge of the Overlook Hotel, and during the time there, was driven into madness by a demon that possessed the entire Hotel and attempted to kill his own wife, Wendy, and his own son, Danny.
The Shining and the Hidden Evil of the Overlook hotel
Was Jack crazy before the hotel?
Once you realize that Jack has been absolutely bonkers long before taking the job as the caretaker for an isolated hotel, everything the man does in the film starts to make more sense, and his end becomes an inevitability instead of a tragedy10. Jack's subtly crazy presence also serves to “other” him.
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.
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 supernatural elements in The Shining are inspired by a real haunting in Colorado, adding a sense of authenticity to the story. The Overlook Hotel in The Shining was inspired by the Stanley Hotel in Colorado, which has a haunted history and provided Stephen King with inspiration for the novel.
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.
Danny Torrance is introduced in The Shining as the five-year-old son of Jack and Wendy Torrance. He has psychic powers that fellow psychic Dick Halloran calls “shining” – he can read people's thoughts, communicate telepathically with others who “shine”, and has frequent, frightening prophetic visions.
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.
Jack becomes obsessed enough with the hotel's sordid past that he wants to write a book about it. He makes a long-distance call to the hotel's manager, Stuart Ullmann, and antagonizes him with this knowledge. Eventually, he goes mad thanks to the influence of the hotel's ghosts and attempts to kill Wendy and Danny.
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...
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.
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.
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.
After a corpse tries to strangle Danny in the infamous room 217 and Wendy and Jack see the resulting bruise on their son's neck, Wendy accuses Jack of abusing Danny.
The Shining was meant to portray The Overlook Hotel's sinister effects on its inhabitants so that Jack descends into madness. He spirals out of control, loses touch with reality, and decides to kill his wife and child. The only issue in the movie is that the descent into madness is not too pronounced.
In the book, the man dressed in a suit is actually Horace Derwent, the mysterious owner of the Overlook Hotel, and the man in the costume (which is a dog in the book) is Roger, a one-time lover of his. The novel provides Roger and Horace's story as an example of atrocities that have happened in the hotel.
