Get ready guys, because this is a big one.
Everyone knows about The Shining.
The iconic 1980 horror classic directed by Stanley Kubrick about a deranged writer and his family stuck in an evil, isolated hotel in the mountains.
The film has been a favorite of horror lovers for ages, even if writer, Stephen King, despised the cinematic adaptation of his thriller novel.
But, this theory does not involve the novel at all, and focuses solely on 1980 The Shining film as its own separate entity. I will not be using the novel to prove or disprove this theory, so with that established, here we go.
What if the Overlook Hotel is specifically targeting people who possess the “Shining” ability, and Jack Torrance himself unknowingly actually has the ability himself, along with every other person the hotel has caused to kill?
Let’s dive right into this madness, shall we?
First off, let’s look at the characters we already KNOW have the “Shining”, Danny Torrance and Dick Halloran.
Before the family even arrives at the Overlook Hotel, Danny and by extension “Tony” already don’t like the idea of going to the Hotel, despite not having a clear reasoning.
When Danny asks “Tony” why he doesn’t like the Hotel, Tony initially refuses to tell him until Danny is sent into a vision of horror.
Let’s address Tony for a second here. According to Danny, Tony is a “little boy that lives in [Danny’s] mouth” and hides in his stomach. And when Danny is talking to Tony, he moves his finger up and down as if Tony is talking through it. Somehow, Tony seems to know things that Danny does not, and Danny must ask Tony questions when it comes to using his Shining, as if Tony is a sort of gate way Danny must pass through to use it.
Tony also apparently tells Danny to do things, but Danny is not allowed to talk about it or tell anyone what Tony says.
When asked by the Doctor after his initial vision “Does Tony ever tell you to do things?” Danny pauses and says “I don’t want to talk about Tony anymore.”
Later when Dick Halloran presses Danny about Tony, and asks why he’s not supposed to tell anyone, Danny doesn’t answer the question and instead asks Dick if he’s scared of the Overlook Hotel. Dick says he is not, however he does say that “some places are like people, some shine and some don’t” and he believes that the Overlook Hotel is a place that shines.
Speaking of Dick Halloran, the oldest person we are aware of that has the Shining and uses it at will. He states that he and his grandmother would mentally communicate with each other at will since he was a child, until she, presumably, died. Dick is also shown to be able to mentally communicate with Danny over great distances, and possibly even read Wendy’s thoughts when it came to Danny’s nickname “Doc”.
However, Dick seems confused when Danny mentions Tony, then seems concerned when Danny says that Tony talks to him. If this “imaginary friend” was usual with people with “Shining”, then why would Dick seem so confused by it? But let’s get into that in a minute.
Now let’s jump to Jack. Good old, mentally unstable Jack.
Jack has been noted saying that he has “never been more happy or comfortable in his life” when staying at the hotel, it was as if he had “been here before” and “knew what would be around every corner”.
Now why would an average man like Jack Torrance feel so violently pulled towards the Overlook Hotel so quickly? Unless he wasn’t an average man, unless he actually had seen the hotel before, at least mentally.
Perhaps in visions?
Visions much like Danny has in which he sees blood flooding from the Overlook elevators.
Blood from elevators? That doesn’t sound like a vision that would draw Jack to the Hotel.
Well that’s the vision Tony shows Danny, because Tony does not like the Overlook hotel because he thinks it’s “bad”.
But if the Hotel is searching for someone with the shining, maybe it would be able to send them visions of a place to subconsciously draw them to the Hotel.
Jack Torrance, a writer, a recovering alcoholic, looking for an isolated place to write alone.
The Overlook Hotel, isolated, empty, and prone to snow storms that knocks out the telephone lines.
How perfect.
Too perfect?
After all, doesn’t Mr. Grady say, “You have always been the care taker. I should know, sir, I’ve always been here”.
But no matter how convenient it may seem, it does not answer the question. Does Jack Torrance have the Shining, and did the previous groundskeeper, Mr. Grady, have it as well?
Well, let’s look at the shining itself through the lens of genetics.
We know that at least two people in Mr. Halloran’s family have The Shining, Dick Halloran, and his unnamed grandmother with whom he could “hold full conversations without ever opening…” their mouths. There is a blood link right there.
Now looking at Delbert Grady, I believe that without a doubt both he and his dead daughters possessed the shining. The daughters, because Grady states that his girls “didn’t like the hotel” and that they went so far as to try and burn the place down with a pack of matches, which led Mr. Grady to kill them and their mother with an axe.
Why didn’t they like the hotel? Because their father was acting weird? Or because something told them the hotel was bad? An imaginary friend perhaps?
Delbert Grady’s shining is hinted at in passing, but I was blown away when I rewatched the scene between him and Jack in the men’s washroom. Grady tells Jack that Danny had been interfering with their “plans” by being in contact with Halloran via their shared link with the Shining.
Now, how would he know that, unless he was able to do the exact same thing? Without some knowledge of the abilities that come with The Shining.
He wouldn’t.
Now we have a grandmother to grandson connection, a father to daughters connection, where would Danny get his Shining from?
Wendy? Who never experienced any side effects of the Overlook’s evil.
Or Jack? Who, was practically driven mad by it.
But wait! I hear you cry!
How could Jack go his whole life without knowing he had the Shining?
Simple.
What if I told you The Shining wasn’t so uncommon afterall.
Remember the conversation Wendy had with the doctor after Danny’s fit?
“These sorts of episodes occur quite often in children without explanation, and rarely ever occur again. It’s almost like a sort of auto hypnosis, a sort of self-induced trance.”
Holy. Hell.
For those of you unfamiliar with auto hypnosis, it’s really very common. In fact you’ve probably done it yourself more than once.
Have you ever been doing repetitive motions over and over until your mind goes sort of blank, like stacking something, or counting, or playing a familiar video game? And when you snap out of it, you may have found you’ve gotten more work done than you actually realized?
That is a sort of self-induced trance brought on by repetition.
What was Danny doing when he fell into his first vision?
First he said he was brushing his teeth, a repetitive task if there ever was one. Then, he was moving his finger up and down as if Tony was talking, watching the finger as he did so. And when he saw the girls? He was riding his trike, pumping his legs over and over again, watching the same walls and carpets go by that he had been seeing for weeks.
And Jack? That one is the most obvious.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.
Pages and Pages, until he’s completely immersed. Immersed enough to communicate with a dead groundskeeper, a phantom bartender, and enough for the Hotel to finally be able to control him.
But that may not be the only way someone can trigger their powers. Does anyone remember Jack and the family sleeping very late into the day during the beginning of their stay? And remember how Jack was able to hear Mr. Grady on the other side of the door when he got knocked out by Wendy and woke up in the locked food closet?
And when after being attacked by the woman in room 237, Danny goes to sleep and has visions of horror before waking up as Tony?
And what happens when Tony takes over?
He writes the notorious REDRUM on the door and stands over his mother with a knife until Wendy wakes up to his chanting and takes the knife away from him. From then on, it appears Danny has regained control.
It would make sense for the Overlook to want Danny to, after all even Mr. Grady notes how strong Danny’s power is.
But how was Wendy able to see the ghosts and skeletons and weird ass dog suit dude if she does not possess the Shining?
The answer to that ties in to why the Hotel is doing this in the first place.
The Overlook Hotel, a place that Shines, is luring in people who possess the shining to get stronger.
Like Dick said “when something bad happens, it tends to leave its mark on a place”
And the Overlook Hotel certainly has a bloody past, from Indian raids during construction, to grizzly murder-suicides.
The Hotel is killing people who possess the shining to absorb their power and become stronger.
Wendy starts to see the ghosts of the hotel after Jack kills Dick Halloran, a man who has seemingly mastered and strengthened his shining ability.
A man who was able to be in the hotel for most of the year, and still wasn’t overtaken.
Perhaps Halloran’s Shine was so strong that when the hotel absorbed it, even someone without the shining, like Wendy, would see strange things.
And that brings this theory to an end. Crazy, right?
Now is this theory 100% true? I seriously doubt it. There are probably things I’m forgetting that disprove this all, but damn it was fun to dig into this movie and type this up.
And plus, this film is directed by Stanley-freaking-Kubrick. A man so notoriously detail oriented and neurotic that he tightropes the line between cinematic genius and certified madman.
Even if this isn’t what he had in mind, I wouldn’t be at all surprise if he planted something in the film that turns everything upside down.
Any ideas of your own? Throw them out there, and have fun with it!
Thanks for reading, and stay cool guys!
Let's be real... 