Five Things You Probably Didn't Notice in The Shining

Here's an excerpt from Five Things You Probably Didn't Notice in The Shining:

Take the scene where Wendy Torrence (Shelley Duvall) is crouching in the corner of the bathroom as an ax comes crashing through the door. Any filmmaker on earth could have guaranteed a scream from the audience with that scene by using the old Ultimate Scare Tactic: Build the suspense until Wendy finds sanctuary in the bathroom; have her relax a moment till both she and the audience feel safe; then suddenly, without warning, have an ax come crashing through the door. Surprise! Everybody jumps. Big deal.

But Kubrick is not after any cheap rush of adrenaline. In his version, we see Jack Torrence outside with the ax. He takes a mighty swing. Cut to the inside of the bathroom where the ax comes crashing through the door. Wendy screams, but the audience doesn’t because they knew it was coming.

In this same way, Kubrick deliberately undermines all the most frightening moments in the book. He’s still trying to scare you, but not the way it’s usually done. Jack Torrence is trying to kill his wife with an ax. Isn’t that frightening enough? Isn’t violence terrifying all by itself? Kubrick feels no need to cheat you by not showing what’s on the other side of the door.

Make that six things, because the observation from that excerpt is not one of the five.