Snapshot: "Room 237" (2012)

Rodney Ascher's documentary "Room 237" has been generating quite the buzz lately. With IFC Midnight recently announcing that they are acquiring the rights to the film, hopes are high that it will soon make its way to theaters and VOD. While the documentary explores some of the possible hidden meanings behind the film, it mainly focuses on the fans and their theories on the movie. The interviewed fans include professors, historians and movie nerds alike as they discuss the movies possible ties with the Holocaust, the plight of Native Americans, a confession of a fake moon landing, as well as the many liberties Kubrick took with the original novel. The documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this past winter. Here's the official synopsis:

In 1980 Stanley Kubrick released his classic horror film, THE SHINING. Over 30 years later, viewers are still struggling to understand its hidden meanings. Loved and hated by equal numbers, the film is considered a genre standard by many loyalists, while other viewers dismiss it as the lazy result of a legendary director working far below his talent level. In between these two poles, however, live the theories of ardent fans who are convinced they have decoded THE SHINING’s secret messages regarding genocide, government conspiracy, and the nightmare that we call history. Ascher’s ROOM 237 fuses fact and fiction through interviews with the fans and scholars who espouse these theories. Ideas of five devotees of the film with wildly different ideas about its true meaning are braided together in a kaleidoscopic deconstruction of the horror classic.

Check out the Room 237 Official SIte for more info.

Carly

Contributor

I like horror movies. That is all.