Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is packed with small details that hint at the horrors that take place at the Overlook Hotel, but there’s a very subtle one before the madness begins that shows the type of crimes that happened there. Various Stephen King novels and short stories have been adapted to other media for years, but one of the most popular but also infamous ones is Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining. Although it’s considered one of the best horror movies ever made, Kubrick made major changes to King’s story, which understandably angered King, but it can’t be denied that it’s one of Kubrick’s finest works.
The Shining tells the story of a struggling writer and recovering alcoholic named Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), who takes a position as the off-season caretaker of the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies. Jack hopes to find the inspiration he needs to work on a play while at the hotel, but he also looks to reconnect with his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and their son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), so he takes them with him. However, when a snowstorm leaves them cut off from the outside world, and along with Danny’s mysterious psychic abilities, the supernatural forces inhabiting the Overlook Hotel begin to awaken and start messing with Jack’s sanity, leaving Wendy and Danny fighting for their lives. These dangerous forces and the crimes committed at the hotel are hinted at throughout the movie, but there’s one very subtle detail that might be the best hint at the horrors of the Overlook, and it’s found in the ballroom scene, on the dress of one of the guests.
The Shining: How One Overlook Guest Subtly Hinted At The Hotel’s Horrors
The Overlook Hotel kept a bunch of dark and dangerous secrets, and the Torrances were warned about Room 237. Still, the supernatural forces of the hotel drove Danny into the room, leaving him physically bruised and in shock, with Jack later taking a look inside himself. There, Jack encountered a female ghost, but these events further break his relationship with Wendy and Danny, leading him back to drinking. While walking around the Overlook Hotel, Jack enters the Gold Room and finds it full of people dressed in 1920s-style clothes, and he goes straight to the bar. After chatting with the bartender, Lloyd, Jack stands up and walks around the room, and right before bumping into Delbert Grady, a woman walks past him, and her dress seems to have a bloody handprint. The next scene is the one with Jack and Grady in the bathroom, after which Jack fully starts losing his mind.
Although it looks like a bloody handprint, when the image’s brightness and colors are enhanced, it can be seen that it’s part of the dress’ design, but still, nothing is a coincidence in Kubrick’s movies. This woman’s handprint-like pattern is a subtle hint at the many horrors that happened at the Overlook Hotel, and as for what happened to her, it has been theorized that she was a killer, so the pattern could be reminiscent of the handprint of her victims.
The Shining: Why Was Jack Torrance In The Photo At The End?
The Overlook Hotel is a character on its own, thus being the main antagonist of The Shining in both the book and Kubrick’s movie, and in the latter, it was the hotel that possessed Delbert Grady and later Jack, leading them to kill or try to kill their families. The Overlook Hotel, then, would have been responsible for whatever happened to that woman or whatever she did that led to her sporting a bloody handprint-like pattern on her dress. This also connects to the mystery of the photo at the end of The Shining, which shows Jack at a party in 1921. Kubrick himself said the photo suggested Jack was a reincarnation of an earlier official at the hotel, so he was doomed to have the same tragic fate as he, Lloyd, the woman in Room 237, and the woman at the party in the Gold Room.
