The Domestic Terrorist - The Symmetry of The Shining

THE ANIMAL AND THE MAN

Firstly, Wendy heads to the upstairs bedrooms, where she is presented with an unusual tryst between Brent Derwent and an unnamed male suitor dressed as a dog. This is never made clear in the film, being just one of a slew of bizarre images from an unexplained history : however, in the novelisation it is shown that the person in the animal suit was besotted with a rich benefactor of the hotel, (Horace Derwent), who then suggested the only way that a relationship may be consumated would be by indulging a fetish and dressing as an animal. It is possible the first part of this scene - in King�s novel - where Jack encounters Horace and his young admirer in the hotel ballroom was filmed but deleted in the final cut. In isolation, the shot is confusing, jarring, and contributes to the overall feel of the film, whereby an attempt to make sense of all the available information on screen still leaves a great many things unexplained. However the cumulative effect of the continuity errors in a text such as this is to create a feeling, however slight, of dislocation and an unnatural arrangement of ordinary objects : similar then, in many respects to the hotel room at the end of 2001, where events are also ordered and manipulated by an unseen force in order to observe human behaviour in unprecedented circumstances.

This image is one of the most confusing that there is in the film - but in its confusion, it makes a point : that sometimes there are things that you may be ignorant of, you may not understand, and that may shock you. Presumably, the Overlook chose this image to assault Wendy�s seemingly conservative ideology. On another level, it reveals the gulf between appearance and reality : those who present the most conservative appearance and the most repressed, civilised public manner are often those who are debauched and decadent behind closed doors. A man in a tuxedo receiving fellatio from a male dressed in an allover dog suit is certainly an image that can only be seen as debauched and morally quite extreme.

This then, is the Overlook. Respectable in appearance, beautiful to look at, but repugnant, morally reversed, and without mercy. This theme is later revisited by Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut, where almost all of the characters are extremely well-dressed and spoken, yet indulge in depravity and immoral behaviour of an altogether threatening kind.

In a scene excised from the European Cut of the film, Wendy ventures into the Main Writing Room, only to find it covered in cobwebs and skeletons. The appearance of a motley selection of skeletons is by no means as cliched as people may think. Kubrick had surely watched many horror films up to the point of proceeding with The Shining (and listed The Exorcist and Rosemary�s Baby as his particular favourites of that genre), and the use of the skeletons taps into Wendy�s knowledge, shown earlier, of horror films and ghost stories. It also echoes Wendy�s comments of the hotel being a �ghost ship� : this is the skeleton crew. The Overlook has entered her psyche, found what she fears, and presented it.

However, with Halloran murdered - making this a horror film with probably the lowest body count ever - Wendy has a way out. The previously sabotaged Sno-Cat (still in use at the actual hotel even now), has been replaced by Halloran�s rental model. Now all Wendy needs to do is find Danny, and leave the murderous Jack to looking after the hotel.

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