With the arrival of October comes the rejuvenation of horror. The movie channels will begin to break out the old classics, such as Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, and Friday the 13th. Bats, skeletons, and ghouls will appear to decorate your neighborhood, and people will begin to painstakingly plan out their Halloween costumes. October is a month of jump scares and prickly paranoia. Stephen King’s bestseller The Shining just so happens to have both.
Though it was written in 1977, The Shining has remained both timeless and bone-rattling to this day. Those of you who’ve seen the movie may scoff and mutter about how it wasn’t that bad, thoughts no doubt going to its special effects, which are from the 1980s and look like it. But to base your opinion of The Shining on the movie (and, personally, I like the movie) would be little more than a mistake. Because while the movie has everything and more in jump scares, it lacks the slow creep of ice up your back the book gives you. It fails to convey the proper level of psychological horror, which is one of the things that makes The Shining so legendary.
The Shining follows the tale of the Torrance family, who become caretakers of the Overlook Hotel one winter. It’s supposed to be an easy, profitable job; Jack Torrance will be given time to finish his book, Wendy Torrance will have the freedom to look after her son and relax, and little Danny Torrance will get an entire hotel to explore. But the Overlook is a maze of buried secrets and ghost stories, some of which aren’t as dead as they should be. And through it all runs a thread of some sort of otherworldly power.
Stephen King weaves together the storyline with the expertise and talent of an author who knows horror. While his sudden plot twists and jump scares will have you flinching in surprise and fear, the slow accumulation of tension twisting underneath it all will make it impossible to put the book down. From the first chapter to the last, King has you holding on by the skin of your teeth, frantically awaiting what’s next.
So, as October prowls in, one of the best ways to get into the spirit of the season is to read The Shining. Immerse yourself in a world of haunted hotels and disturbed characters so terrifying you’ll have to reconsider your definition of the horror genre.