If you’re reading this Stephen King, I apologize but it’s true. I’m gonna talk about the elephant in the room immediately, the 1980 film is way better than the book.
Bad ambiguity is watching a film wondering why the fuck am I watching this mess? Good ambiguity isn’t knowing if Childs has been Thing’ed or not at the end of The Thing (1982), and if the bottle he drinks from is full of gasoline or booze. There is good ambiguity and there is bad ambiguity. When I’m talking about ambiguity in horror, I mean the idea that some things left unexplained and up the audience’s imagination.
But I want to look at The Shining as a great (and maybe even the best) example of ambiguity and building atmosphere in horror. Today we are going back to 1980 with Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, a classic film that has recently spawned countless memes and reactions gifs. Hello and welcome back to Everything but Bone.
