King, Kubrick, and the Stanley Hotel

The extent of my exposure to Stephen King includes:

1) Catching an accidental glimpse of the cover of Pet Cemetery when I was five and getting so freaked out by the screeching, skeletal cat that for years I took pains to stay several feet away from the book, which always seemed to pop up (mysteriously!) in different places around the house.

2) Watching It with my three best girlfriends at a sleepover in high-school and all of us growing increasingly befuddled as we tried to piece together, for an hour and a half, what we believed was some sophisticated, avant-garde abstraction until at last the credits rolled, and we realized that we’d just watched the latter half of a 2-part VHS rental and had missed the entire beginning of the film.

3) Appearing—along with nearly every other person in the county—as an extra in the movie version of Thinner (which happened to shoot an elaborate carnival scene in my hometown of Belfast, Maine for two consecutive November nights when I was sixteen), and using the ensuing chaos as an opportunity to illicitly snuggle with my boyfriend in his car between takes.

My fragmented experiences, coupled with the fact that I haven’t read a single one of his books, might suggest that I’m not the type to go out of my way for a King-sized scare. Oh how wrong you are!

Last weekend, my husband and I traveled to Vail, Colorado for a wedding and then spent a few days in a town called Estes Park checking out the hiking and the wildlife. Estes Park is home to Rocky Mountain National Park, as well as (who knew?) The Stanley Hotel—aka the inspiration behind The Shining.

Riding into Estes Park in our rented mini-van (they were out of every other type of vehicle at the Dollar Rent-A-Car), the behemoth white hotel loomed on a lone cliff, beckoning like death’s bright light. “Oh please, please, please can we go?” I begged. Considering the fact that the hotel also boasted the finest restaurant in town, my husband made dinner reservations for the following night.

Back in our un-haunted mountain chalet, we prepped accordingly. The proprietors of our inn kept a shelf of DVDs for their guests, among them (hooray!) Kubrick’s version of The Shining. I had seen The Shining before, but never from beginning to end, and never all in one sitting. It is really an extraordinary film (although I still fell asleep halfway through and had to watch the rest in the morning). As we hiked in quiet solitude, I pondered Kubrick’s camera direction, and could only think of three other films I’ve seen that seem to reach that level of frame-to-frame genius: Citizen Kane and Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Rope.

By the time we were done with that day’s activities, I was fired up to a new level. I wanted more than just dinner: “Please, please, please can we also go on the ghost tour?”

For $15 per person, you can get the historical paranormal tour of The Stanley, and my husband and I got the last two slots of the day. Let me digress for a minute about organized ghost tours: I took one in London when I was in college that was spectacular. The guide took us down the most fabulous little alleyways and cobblestone crevices and told long, detail-oriented stories about history and politics and architecture while seamlessly interweaving unexplained British phenomenon. Because the tour was so good, and not at all cheesy, I came to believe that all ghost tours would be held to that standard. I can’t stress enough that this is not the case, though I have not yet lost hope that I will one day find another that actually satisfies. The Stanley ghost tour, sadly, was not it.

I did, however, learn a little bit about Shining history. Apparently, Stephen King and his wife stayed at The Stanley for one night in the mid-70s in a supposedly-haunted room, during which King had a vision of two creepy twin girls standing in the hallway. (NOTE: This is what we learned on the tour. The story differs slightly on Wikipedia). This incident inspired the novel, which King set in a fictional version of The Stanley called The Overlook. When Kubrik got the rights to make the film, he felt that the Stanley was not remote enough to properly creep us out, and so he filmed his exteriors at Timberline Lodge in Mount Hood, Oregon. King was allegedly dissatisfied with Kubrick’s interpretation, and wrote a teleplay for a miniseries version that aired on ABC in 1997. The televised version was, in fact, filmed at The Stanley.

I never saw the miniseries, though I must say I am curious enough to check it out. I also wouldn’t mind taking a look at the Timberline Lodge if I were in the area. My real fascination with the entire topic though, can be boiled down to Kubrick’s insane manipulation of the camera, a rush that no tour—or hotel—can recreate.

The Stanley Hotel, Estes Park, Colorado

P.S. Unlike the tour, the food was out of this world. If you find yourself in Estes Park, be sure to stop by for a meal.