Since its cinematic release on May 23, 1980, Stanley Kubrick ’s horror masterpiece The Shining has terrified and perplexed audiences in equal measure. While the Stephen King novel it is based on is a classic example of what George Orwell called a “good bad book” — in other words, a superbly executed potboiler that has no higher ambition than to frighten its readers — Kubrick was one of the best-known and most respected filmmakers of his generation when he took on the considerable responsibility of adapting King.

His task was simple: to create a film that promised to be, in his own audacious words, “the world’s scariest movie.” Few believed that he succeeded. When the picture was initially released, after a prolonged production that lasted for years, it was a box office success, whic

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