by MangaMoon

The Shining

Remember… when Danny and Wendy escape the Overlook, but the film returns to the hotel instead of leaving with them? Danny has retraced his footprints through the snow, misleading his father. He escapes with Wendy in the snowcat. Jack remains in the maze. By morning, his face is frozen, his final grimace fixed in place. The danger seems over. Then the camera moves slowly through the hotel. Nobody runs. No axe strikes a door. An old ballroom song accompanies our approach toward the photographs on the wall. One shows a crowd dressed for a celebration. At the front, a man smiles directly at us. Jack. He looks perfectly at home among the guests, as though he belongs beside them. The inscription reads: July 4th Ball, 1921. Suddenly, his death offers less reassurance. How can someone we watched arrive at the hotel appear in its distant past? Perhaps the Overlook has absorbed him. Perhaps he has returned to repeat something older. The image leaves those possibilities unresolved. Danny found his way out of the maze. Jack remains motionless inside a photograph. The contrast leaves a disturbing thought: people may escape the hotel, while its history of violence continues waiting inside.

Material: wooden