Lia Beldam as Young Woman in Bath
Struggling author Jack Torrance, paying his way as winter caretaker for the deserted Overlook hotel, remotely situated in the Colorado mountains, is haunted by his frustrated creative ambitions and fears of failure both as a husband and an artist. Nurtured by the claustrophobia and isolation of his surroundings, his underlying insanity gradually evolves into rampant madness as he attempts to murder with an axe the only other human occupants of the hotel, his wife and son. In adapting Stephen King's novel, director Stanley Kubrick has ignored to a great extent its familiar theme that materialism provides the springboard for evil, to concentrate on the conflicts inside Jack's mind that lead to his destruction. Kubrick's central character is not haunted by ghosts of the past, but inspired by his opulent surroundings - the literal wealth of available space - until he comes to believe that his creative barrenness can be replaced by a kind of omnipotence as the immortal caretaker of the Overlook. This twinning of opposites, insignificance and omnipotence, is superbly visualized in Jack's conversations with two of the hotel's previous employees, bartender and caretaker, who actually did kill his family during winter isolation: a brilliant mixture of the blackest comedy and abstract reflections on power, responsibility, and duty to the hotel. Kubrick's mobile camera underlines the huge spaces of the building - down unending corridors as the boy explores by bicycle - and encompasses one great moment of horror: a shot across a deserted lobby to the elevator doors, and the doors open to show a torrent of red blood. Jack Nicholson's startling performance is perfectly realized.
Shining, The (1980) .... Young woman in bath
... aka Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining' (1980)