Genre and Themes

This chapter explores the themes of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980). The Shining, in its themes of family trauma and domestic violence, racial and class tension, all connected through the film's approach to the horror of history, has been criticised for seemingly reducing the supernatural focus of Stephen King's book and replacing it with a more human evil. Like these varied themes and any one of the potential alternative readings, however, the emphasis is ultimately left to the viewer's subjective interpretation. The result, as ever, is the uncertain tone which emphasises the film's horror. The Shining might not quite 'fit' with the independent, low-budget cycle of 1970s American horror cinema which saw the emergence of a new wave of genre auteurs, but it can nonetheless be aligned with a number of that cycle's social allusions, and it be would be remiss to remove the film from this context. Ultimately, Kubrick made The Shining with the intention of achieving commercial success, and looked to the horror genre to achieve this.