In this article, I will have to analyze the mise-en-scene in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, supported with relevant examples. And also discuss how the filmmaker's style enhance the psychological horror genre.

The Shining is once a famous novel in 1977 written by Stephen King and turned into a movie directed by Stanley Kubrick a few years later in 1980. Although the movie is one of the 80's masterpiece also a horror masterpiece of all time, there are some parts that confused me and leave me thinking. In this review, I am going to talk about how Stanley Kubrick implements mise-en-scene in his movie The Shining.

I have never read the book before watching this movie, and I have already predicted what will happen at the end of the movie. The mise-en-scene in this movie will be explained by in three ways, the lighting, setting, and composition.

First and foremost the lighting, it plays a huge role in The Shining because scary movies tend to have dark and dimmed lighting to show evil which indirectly relates to the darkness. Poor lighting is one of the best ways to blind the courage of the viewers because it is hard to see anything and it could enhance the effects of horror in this movie. There are a lot of lighting techniques in this film that different from ordinary horror films, the well-lit Overlook hotel could make the audience more afraid because it could relate them to real life situations. In the bar scene where he is in this dim ball room with only a few lights coming from the wall and the bar table suggested Jack's paranoid and messy mind, the dark wooden design compliments the scene adding more fear to the audience, where anything bad could happen later.

German Expressionism is also found in this movie, the lighting used in the scene where little Danny got chased by this father in the maze. With three point lighting, the maze looks super dimmed and the only strong light points at his father Jack, which making him looks like a monster chasing down his food. The horrible colored hotel rooms do not have bright lighting like the public areas, but a romantic yellow tone light at all of the places which make the scene unsettling.

The settings used in the movie shows how small the characters can be, and how vulnerable they are, danger can come in any direction. The movie starts off with a scene showing mountain beside a huge lake, the music used in this scene is horrifying and strange. These scenes want to show how isolated is the characters are to the human society, this place is where anyone doesn't want to be when there are in a horror movie. Most of the scenes were shot inside Overlook hotel, on the inside, it is a huge hotel with spacious hallways leading to nowhere, and on the outside, the hotel looks like a beast pointing out how magnificent it is. Right beside the hotel, there is a messy shaped maze with tall hedges, it could easily be a nightmare for a knife chase for the victim.

The part that scares me the most is where little Danny rides his tricycle through the hallways, the carpet is colored with dark and unsettling colors with weird geometrical patterns. With him sitting on his tricycle making the scene look more creepy and him easy to chase down by something from behind. Back to the presidential suites, there are not many obstacles for the victims to hide in but the toilet, from the bedroom to the toilet, the victims are cornered with nowhere else to go but outside in the snowy night. The movie shows how a luxurious hotel could easily be turned into a hell hole when it is empty because the large spaces make it easier for the killer to look for the target.