FromHereditarytoPossession, there are plenty of other great horror movies that fans of Stanley Kubrick’sThe Shiningneed to check out. Although it received mixed reviews and became a box office bomb on its initial release,The Shininghas since become a beloved classic. Nearly half a century after it first hit theaters,The Shiningstill holds upas one of the most terrifying viewing experiences in the entire horror genre. It continues to influence horror filmmakers to this day, but those imitators rarely live up to the Kubrickian masterpiece that inspired them.
The Shiningis a singular vision of horror cinema; there’s no other movie quite like it.But there are horror movies with a similarly unique vision, or a similarly cerebral tone, or even some shared plot elements, that fans ofThe Shiningshould watch.It Comes at Nightis another example of a horror movie that uses its psychological thrills to emphasize the divisions between its characters.The Lighthouseis another story about characters quietly losing their minds in isolation. AndDoctor Sleepis a straight-up sequel toThe Shiningthat picks up where it left off.
Doctor Sleep
Cast
Doctor Sleep, set decades after The Shining, follows Dan Torrance as he confronts his traumatic past at the Overlook Hotel. He encounters Abra, a teenage girl with powerful extrasensory abilities called the “shine,” who enlists his help in battling sinister forces.
The best movie to watch afterThe Shiningis its own sequel,Doctor Sleep.Mike Flanagan adapted the movie from Stephen King’s sequel to the original novel, but he tweaked the story in a way that it could act as a sequel to both the book and Kubrick’s vastly different film adaptation.
Ewan McGregor stars as a grown-up Danny Torrance using his “shining” ability to save a little girl from a sadistic cult.In the third act, he goes back to the Overlook Hotel and Flanagan evokes plenty of familiar Kubrickian imagery.
The Dead Zone
The Dead Zone is a 1983 horror sci-fi film from David Cronenberg. The film is based on the novel by Stephen King and stars Christopher Walken, Brooke Adams, and Tom Skerritt. The film centers on Walken’s character Johnny, who awakens from a coma only to find out he has a new psychic power.
FromIttoMisery,there are plenty of otherclassic Stephen King adaptationsthat would make an interesting double feature withThe Shining.Arguably the best King-based movie to pair withThe ShiningisThe Dead Zone. It’s another distinctive take on King’s work by a visionary filmmaker (in this case, David Cronenberg) about another intriguing supernatural ability.
When he awakens from a coma, Christopher Walken finds that, every time he touches someone, he sees how they’re going to die. LikeThe Shining, ifThe Dead Zonestripped away its horror elements, it would still work as a straightforward drama.
The Lighthouse
The Lighthouse is a psychological thriller directed by Robert Eggers. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson star as Thomas Wake and Ephraim Winslow, two lighthouse keepers who begin to experience strange and supernatural phenomena after they get stranded on a remote island in the 1890s.
At its core,The Shiningis a story about a small group of people who gradually lose their minds together while they’re stuck in isolation.Robert Eggers told a very similar story in his similarly bizarre, similarly confounding horror hitThe Lighthouse.
Rather than a snowbound hotel, this one takes place at — you guessed it — a lighthouse, surrounded by crashing waves.
Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe star as two lighthouse keepers who quickly grow to resent each other as they’re cut off from all other human contact.The Lighthousealso sharesThe Shining’s horrifying imagery and pitch-black humor.
7Don’t Look Now
Released In 1973
The Shining’s story of a traumatized family taking a trip for a change of scenery and finding that their trauma has followed them there is similar to Nicolas Roeg’sDon’t Look Now.After losing their daughter in a tragic accident, a couple moves to Venice to restore a church and process their grief.
The current horror trend of monsters representing trauma can be traced back toDon’t Look Now— and it’s still one of the best examples of that conceit.Don’t Look Nowmasterfully builds to one of the most deeply unsettling endingsin horror movie history.
It Comes at Night
Written and directed by Trey Edward Shults, It Comes At Night is a Psychological Horror film starring Joel Edgerton and Christopher Abbott. The 2017 release chronicles the fate of a family that attempts to hide in the woods away from society when the world is overtaken by a deadly virus.
What setsThe Shiningapart from other horror movies is its somber tone and patient pacing.It’s more interested in digging into the conflicts tearing the characters apart than the ghosts haunting them. Trey Edward Shults’It Comes at Nightshares this quality.
Distrust becomes a virus of its own within their quarantine.
It has the setup of a horror movie, with two families forced to hole up together during the outbreak of a highly contagious disease,but it focuses more on the divisions between these characters than the deadly illness that threatens to wipe them out. Distrust becomes a virus of its own within their quarantine.
Eraserhead
David Lynch’s Eraserhead is a surrealist horror movie where Henry Spencer, played by Jack Nance, deals with the terrifying challenges of fatherhood, including caring for his deformed child. Released in 1977, the black-and-white film has sparked many discussions about its meaning and themes.
Before production began onThe Shining,Kubrick screened David Lynch’s debut featureEraserheadfor the cast and crew to give them an idea of the mood he was trying to create.It’s easy to see where the influence came from; they have very different stories, but very similar stylistic approaches.
Much likeThe Shining,Eraserheaduses simple but fiercely effective tricks to create terror,like putting an unnerving twist on mundane everyday situations and layering ambient noise over every scene.And, much likeThe Shining,Eraserheadis both an unforgettably terrifying experience and a work of pure cinema.
There are so manyfan theories aboutThe Shiningthat Rodney Ascher managed to fill a whole feature-length documentary with them.Room 237chronicles every reading ofThe Shining, whether it’s the interpretation that it’s about the horrors of the Holocaust and the slaughter of Native Americans or the assertion that it’s Kubrick’s grand cinematic confession that he helped the U.S. government fake the Moon landing. It’s a perfect companion piece toThe Shining. If you’re struggling to wrap your head around the deeper meanings hidden inThe Shining,Room 237is required viewing.
Suspiria
Suspiria is a remake of the 1977 supernatural horror classic by Dario Argento. The film centers on Susie Bannion, a young woman who begins attending a dance academy. However, darkness begins to build at the center of this world-renowned dance company, and its artistic director, Susie, and a grieving psychotherapist become entangled in a nightmare in the middle of a coven of witches.
One ofThe Shining’s closest competitors for the title of greatest horror movie ever made is Dario Argento’s supernatural opusSuspiria.Suspiriarevolves around an American ballet student who comes to a prestigious dance academy in West Germany and slowly arrives at the haunting realization that it’s a front for a sinister coven of witches.
Argento shares Kubrick’s eye for deeply unsettling imagery, and much like Kubrick, he’s not afraid to leave things ambiguous, so the audience can draw their own conclusions.Suspiriais just as cerebral and mesmerizing a piece of cinema asThe Shining.
Hereditary
The feature film debut of writer-director Ari Aster, Hereditary tells the story of the unwittingly cursed Graham family. Annie Graham (Toni Collette) lives with her husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) and their children Peter (Alex Wolff) and Charlie (Milly Shapiro). After the death of Annie’s mother, the family is beset by disaster and stalked by a supernatural entity that dredges up a past that Annie had spent her life trying to overlook.
The genius ofThe Shiningis that it uses its disturbing horror imagery to reflect the deep dysfunctions of a broken family unit.Kubrick’s approach had a huge influence on the horror genre, and one of the best recent examples isAri Aster’sHereditary, in which the supernatural forces terrorizing a family are a metaphor for their collective grief.
Hereditaryis as terrifying as any horror film, but it’s also as moving as any family drama.Toni Collette gives an Oscar-worthy performance in the lead role and Aster perfectly balances terror and tragedy.
Possession
Possession, released in 2009, is a thriller that follows a woman’s ordeal when a car accident leaves her husband and brother-in-law comatose. The plot intensifies when the brother-in-law regains consciousness, believing himself to be his brother, thereby entangling her life in unexpected turmoil.
Just as Kubrick uses horror tropes to capture the stress and anxiety of marital tensions inThe Shining, Andrzej Żuławski ratchets up the psychological thrills after a couple starts preparing for a divorce inPossession.Being trapped in a toxic relationship can feel similar to being possessed by a demonic spirit, andPossessionleans into that parallel spectacularly.Isabelle Adjani’s breathtaking performancein the notorious subway tunnel sequence is both a masterclass in physical acting and a perfect visualization of the anguish of being stuck in a terrible relationship like Wendy Torrance’s marriage to Jack.
There are plenty of great movies likeThe Shining. There are plenty of similarly visionary horror films that tell traditional ghost stories with a subversively surreal sensibility. But no other movie captures the raw terror, haunting cinematography, and fiercely effective psychological torment ofThe Shiningquite likePossessiondoes.Possessionis so terrifying, it was bannedand labeled a “video nasty.”
