Hotels are recurring locations for films and TV shows, where characters get up to all sorts of shenanigans. They can be everything from ram-shackled to opulent and everything in-between.

Very rarely do they almost take on being a character all of their very own, but that’s exactly what happens in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 classic The Shining, which is being re-released here to celebrate its 45th anniversary.

Attending an interview at a hotel in Colorado is Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson). It’s for the position of caretaker at the Overlook Hotel, which is very picturesque, set within the Rocky Mountains.

It’s a peculiar position however, as it’s only for the period from October to May, when the hotel is shut, due to the incredible amount of snow that falls around the area, making it inaccessible.

It means that Jack, his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and young son Danny (Danny Lloyd), with be the only people staying in the vast hotel that whole time. Jack is looking forward to the isolation however, as he wants to pursue a career of writer whilst he’s there.

But when the snow falls, and darkness swallows the Overlook, Jack and his family are confronted with something far from being a five star experience in the remote hotel.

The Shining is always considered a Kubrick classic – quite rightly – but it also highlights the impressive talent of Stephen King, as this was the second adaptation of his work, after Carrie splattered onto our screens in 1976.

It’s easy to forget that although deemed a Kubrick classic, he only managed to direct two more films after it – 1980’s Full Metal Jacket and 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut, appearing at the tail end of his career.

It’s a film that is served by some impressive performances, which is some doing as there are only three of them. Nicholson reveals a gloriously demented character, who becomes the cinematic definition of menacing. And then there’s the young Lloyd, who was only six during filming, and managed a deeply chilling performance, and in doing so, set the bar high for all child actors following him.

Little kudos is ever given to Duvall, which is unfortunate, because she has to channel the sense of horror through her entire being, to support the entire film, and she does so remarkably.

And then there is the hotel itself, which was created in Elstree studios in the UK; it is an iconic locale, extremely cinematic, as a camera follows Danny riding his go-kart around the corridors. The set design is impeccable, making it highly memorable; so much so that you can find the geometric carpet pattern featured in the hotel underfoot in boutique cinema chains both here (Everyman) and in the States (Alamo Drafthouse).

Kubrick reveals various elements of himself through the film, such as his status as an auteur, but also as self-indulgent director. The film has a two and a half hour running time, which Kubrick spends a lot of time shooting his three characters rattling around in the vast hotel; its running time makes its presence felt quite often, especially when you consider that it has a startlingly low body count.

There’s also a vagueness to the story; the nucleus of the evil is never really addressed, as if it were a anonymous, faceless guest in the hotel, that manifests itself through Jack.

The story did receive a sequel which King wrote in 2013, and was then adapted for the screen in 2019 with the absorbing Doctor Sleep, which gave the story some much-needed definition.

Although not perfect – although many are convinced it is – Kubrick’s The Shining is undeniably atmospheric, with a few iconic scenes that are now meme fodder, with Nicholson and the rest of the casts’ hard work making your stay at the Overlook a truly unforgettable one.