Monday, November 17, 2014
The Shining
A scene among those that we have so far watched in The Shining was the scene that depicted Danny riding his toy bicycle around the hallways, stopping only at the ominous room 237. The camera closely followed Danny as he pedaled through the various hallways, limiting the audience's view of what he was seeing until he had already rounded the corner. This setup, mixed with a variety of elements to make this a scary scene. The music was quiet, but eerie, it also enabled us to hear Danny's pedaling, reminding the audience that Danny is effectively alone in the hotel at this point. The more he pedals down the hall the more the suspense grows during this scene. When he reaches the room, the audience is reminded of the fact that he was told by the psychic Dick Halloran not to enter the room under any circumstances. The suspense of the scene reaches it's highest point as he reaches for the doorknob, and the flash of the two creepy twin girls doesn't alleviate the situation at all.
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I like your point that the sound of the pedaling signified that Danny was alone, and there was no other noises going on. Another scene that was suspenseful/frightening was when Danny was riding his bike down the halls, and runs right into the two sisters. Almost any scene where Danny was riding his bike was scary because the scene was silent and he was alone... and by simple "Horror Movie Arithmetic", something surprising will happen (Psycho shower scene, etc). What was so surprising is this scene specifically, was this was not the first time we see Danny riding his bike, but this time, on only his second turn he stumbles upon the sisters. The scare comes much sooner than expected, making the spontaneous meeting an effective scare for the audience.
ReplyDeleteAs in many horror or thriller movies, one of the biggest scares comes from the unknown, but expected. Jump scares and unknown and unexpected, but are pretty cheap in terms of fear. But in this film, every scene has audience members thinking "this is the time something is going to happen", but nothing ever does (at least at the beginning). Kubrick doesn't need to show tons of blood and jump scares to make the movie scary. What would normally be mundane, like riding the bike through the halls, manages to keep people on edge. When Danny visits room 237, we don't even see what is inside, but that time when he stops and thinks about going in, as well as slowly opening the door, are so tense and scary as we expect something to be there.
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