So I got into a debate with myself, and nobody won.
It’s the last week of October. I have a blanket, a bowl of popcorn, and a watchlist full of horror classics. Then The Shining appears, and a voice in my head says, “Is this even a Halloween movie?” Now I’m arguing with myself in my own living room, and I’m losing to both sides.
Exhibit A: Obviously Halloween
It’s a horror movie. A great horror movie. It’s got twins in matching dresses, a man in a tuxedo with a blood-soaked past, and a bathtub lady who is having the worst day of her afterlife. You can build a Shining costume for twelve dollars and a trip to a thrift store. Half the adults at every Halloween party are just “guy with an axe and a mean look,” and they know exactly who they’re channeling.
Exhibit B: Obviously Winter
Right. The plot. The plot is that a family gets snowed into a hotel and loses their minds. The snow isn’t scenery; it’s the villain’s landlord. The snowcat dies, the roads disappear, and suddenly Jack Nicholson has four months indoors with a typewriter. Nothing says “winter” like a man who has been inside too long and has started treating the furniture like a coworker.
Halloween is jump scares and a guy popping out of a closet. The Shining is a family eating canned food in a gorgeous hallway while Dad slowly turns into a raccoon. That’s not October. That’s the second week of a Minnesota January, and honestly, relatable.
But the movie starts in autumn! For about nine minutes. Then it leaves autumn like a guest at a party who says, “I’m just going to grab my coat,” and is never seen again.
Exhibit C: The Movie Is Messing With Us
Here’s where it gets worse. The film came out in May. Not October. Not December. May, when people are wearing shorts and thinking about barbecue. Let’s scare them now.
And the last shot of the entire movie is a photo from a Fourth of July party in 1921. So the film opens in fall, lives in winter, premiered in spring, and ends with a summer photo. This movie has hit every season except the one where it would be most convenient for me, and it did it on purpose. Stanley Kubrick didn’t make a Halloween movie or a winter movie. He created a calendar that blurs the distinction between the film’s Halloween and winter themes.