I Heard You Like Houses
- Paulie
- Jun 13, 2023
- 6 min read
The House That Paulie Built
In honour of Rat Depot's first ever screening, House (1977), we're looking at some of the coolest houses to ever house!
The Overlook
Spoilers for The Shining (1980) below.
LISTEN - oh boohoo, it isn’t a house, Paul you lied to us all that’s literally not a house you’re terrible waaah. Silence. They lived in it as a permanent residence and as such, it counts. The Overlook hotel from Kubricks’ The Shining (1980) is a haunting, empty hotel that contorts and expands before us, presenting us with rooms that have no proximal ties to anything else. Where is the kitchen in relation to the dining areas? Where is the grand room where Jack writes on the typewriter obsessively? Where is the ball room? The modern, tiled toilets where Jack meets Delbert Grady? The Overlook feels massive both inside and out, the hedge maze outside mirroring the winding corridors Danny explores on his trike. The sharp turns, without being able to see what’s coming both inside and out, heighten the suspense of what I consider the best horror film of all time.
But where is the Overlook Hotel? Well, the original hotel that Stephen King based the novel on, was the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. King recalls meeting a friendly bartender called Grady - who became the former caretaker in the book - and dining with his wife in a completely empty hotel with grand rooms. He had nightmares that night of his child running screaming down the corridors, waking up in a sweat. And so, The Shining was born. But that’s not the hotel we see in the film. External shots were filmed at the Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon. BUT that’s not the interiors we see in the film…those were inspired by Awhawnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park, California. BUT! The Awhawnee interior is not the interior we actually see in the film either. The hotel interior was a massive set, built entirely at the Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire (England, to my international rats).
