Room 237
Netflix | Amazon | Google Play | iTunes | SEN | Xbox | YouTube
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Rodney Ascher
Starring Bill Blakemore, Geoffrey Cocks, Juli Kearns, Stanley Kubrick, Stephen King, Jack Nicholson, Shelly Duvall
IFC Films
Originally Released: January 23, 2012

If you haven’t checked it out yet, my fellow G.O.D. standing for the horror fans, FamousMonster, put together an awesome 31 Days of Horror list to get you all ready for Halloween this year. While running through his list, I came across one film that grabbed my consideration immediately, for I had not seen it before: Room 237.

That’s because it’s a documentary, and not a horror flick. Not that I do not watch documentaries (I like a doco thing), but I’d just never seen it before. Room 237‘s mission is simple – get in touch with as many Stanley Kubrick enthusiasts as possible and ask them to deliver their differed and in-depth interpretations of the filmmaker’s adaptation of Stephen King‘s The Shining.

Remember that adorable Exorcist Crochet Amigurumi Playset, complete with projectile-vomiting Regan MacNeil? Well, if you dug that, here’s something else along those lines: The Exorcist Happy Meal.

Pinterest user Newt Clements mocked up a series of horror-themed Happy Meals – the popular kid’s meal package from McDonald’s fast food eatery. The mock-ups come complete with the expected toy for each property: The Exorcist has the demon-possessed Regan bound to the bed; The Shining has an axe-wielding Jack Torrance; Godzilla has the famed kaiju; and Halloween has the masked killer Michael Myers brandishing his signature knife.

Other “Happy Meals” include those for Psycho, Kill Bill, Aliens, Resident Evil, and more (including some non-horror selections).

Stanley Kubrick, starkly original filmmaker, director of some of the all-time great, most loved and dissected and in a way polarizing cinema, would have been 85 today. Kubrick passed away back on March 7th, 1999.

The essence of Kubrick runs rampant through almost every film maker and film buff who followed his works. American born, but lived overseas in England for most of his life, Kubrick gave a classy sensibility to most of his films, films that were rich in texture, nature, narrative, cinematography, and acting, with a flair and keen sensibility for music placement, or set pieces that were dense and slim in look, almost with a frostbitten clinical approach, which became his calling card and instantly synonymous with the Kubrick name and the Kubrickian legend.

Room 237
Being An Inquiry Into The Shining In 9 Parts
Directed by Rodney Ascher
Release Date: March 29, 2013 (limited)
Available now On Demand

To reduce or repudiate any of Stanley Kubrick’s films would be indescribably mindless. To this day, each one harbors an enduring legacy, not only because of their content, but also for their impeccable craftsmanship. Some are lauded more than others. But the majority of his films have startling subtexts, as fictional as some may initially seem, that cause many avid cinephiles to ruminate for countless of hours, maybe even years.

For those of you who – and there must be many – mismanaged and minimized The Shining‘s potency, submit yourselves to Room 237: Being an Inquiry into The Shining in 9 Parts (or Room 237 for short). It seeks to unearth and unravel conspiracy theories and deeply concealed subtexts that Kubrick either deliberately or arbitrarily instilled in his horror epic The Shining. Kubrick’s version (premiered in 1980) is far removed from Stephen King’s bestselling novel, gutting the majority of the book’s themes in exchange for his own dark visions (Kubrick came up with the idea to have The Overlook Hotel be built on an Indian burial ground). That film opened up to mediocre reviews, not attracting the slightest scholarly knowledge, cult following, or accolades it would attain years later.

We’ve heard about the sequel to Stephen King’s horror masterpiece The Shining, which is titled Doctor Sleep and follows young Danny Torrance as an adult using his abilities to help the terminally ill pass on painlessly, and that the book is set to hit store shelves on September 24, 2013.

But what you might not be aware of is that there’s also a prequel in the works, this one being of the cinematic variety. The prequel is titled The Overlook Hotel, and is of course set before director Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of King’s book. Nothing else is known about what story the prequel will tell.

What is known, however, is who will pen the screenplay. It’s being reported that Glen Mazzara, the man who replaced Frank Darabont as showrunner of AMC’s The Walking Dead (only to later be fired himself) will write the movie’s script.