Editorials
A Double Feature of What We Love About Indie Cinema
I’ve always been able to say that I loved, love, and will forever love movies. I haven’t always been able to say that I understood how most of the polished talent being showcased in the huge multiplexes, actually was culled from more humble beginnings. Where would we be without the honesty of independent film? Think of it as big budget films being processed and genetically modified through studios and rewrites, and indie films are the organic stuff, locally produced with love and careful diligence. Another plus side is that the organic stuff, in this case, is actually more affordable. The irony of it all is that all too often, independent filmmakers almost have to give all that film goodness away. It may be the only industry where a customized product doesn’t enjoy high demand at a premium price. Then again the sheer will of wanting to tell a good story or doing something innovative that ripples through the larger framework of the medium isn’t always about money. Shallow pockets for me always up the “wow” factor, and when someone does something clever or groundbreaking on a break from their day job, well color me impressed. I recently discovered two films from filmmakers on opposite coasts that excelled in different avenues, but still flow into the same confluence of substance over style. One for telling a good story and the other for technical innovation.
THE LISTING
Director: Mario Cerrito III
Anyone that’s had to weather the challenges of house hunting can attest that finding a new place to live is a killer. It’s all about location, location, location, granite countertops and hoping that weird smell in the basement is only temporary. It can be very stressful on both sides of the deal. Absolutely anything could happen, good or bad, and the real estate agent dynamic has been utilized in a few horror and suspense films before. It’s not new to use the old bait and switch of using home turf advantage to lure potential victims into a convenient kill spot. So to take on such a trope-y hook to hang a film on requires some faith on the writer’s part that there’s a sharper hook in there somewhere else. New Jersey filmmaker Mario Cerrito III’s latest, THE LISTING, is the tale of a very average realtor that finds himself in a very extraordinary situation. He’s got the biggest sale of his career nailed down, and everything seems to be perfect. All is well until his son is kidnapped and his captors issue a very complicated ransom. It’s not money they want, but six dead bodies in 24 hours or his son is dead. The logistics alone seem impossible, but he’s got an ace in the hole with a house listing and several prospects interested in coming by to take a look at it. If killing strangers isn’t hard enough, he also besieged by visits from acquaintances and even family members as the deadline rapidly approaches, and the body count is still lacking. It’s a solid tension builder that gauges the limits of human desperation over morality, and what bad things a good person may do without any other options. Why this happened to such a normal guy is also a nice bit of dysfunctionality that seals the deal with a very elegant twist.
Genre favorite Jessica Cameron also makes a cameo.
THE SECRET OF 40
Director: Kourosh Ahari
Death is the life’s blood of horror. Someone is either dealing it or getting the business end of it. The best thing about horror films is the catharsis of dealing with the imminent specter of death whittling away at our mortality. No one gets out of life alive, and some of the most thought provoking films deal with the denial that death is final. That angle seems to push the most buttons because it’s outside the realm of accepted possibilities, and always poses the question of if “dead is better”. West Coast filmmaker Kourosh Ahari’s THE SECRET OF 40 follows a son who lost his mother in a horrific car crash. While at her house, he finds an incantation that could bring her back. The most striking thing about this film is the revolutionary way in which it is presented. THE SECRET OF 40 is the very first horror film to use the Barco Escape three screen technology. It utilizes the three screen system that not only immerses the viewer in a panoramic field of view for a single scene, but also simultaneously displays two separate, but related scenes in a way that a conventional split screen never could.
The technology could be a refreshing alternative to the mixed blessing and the divided camp of contemporary 3D. An indie movie that shares the same platform with more widely released notables is definitely noteworthy. I opted not to watch the screener on a laptop, and waited until I had access to three screens proper, and it is very immersive and works perfectly in a horror film. A wider field of vision keeps the viewer unsettled by a peripheral assault on the senses. With the prevalence of virtual reality, three screen technology is encompassing, but still, has the comforting tether to the material world. Another side note to THE SECRET OF 40 is that it features Judie Aronson (FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER, WEIRD SCIENCE, AMERICAN NINJA) and Robert Rusler (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2, WEIRD SCIENCE, THRASHIN’).
There’s so much talent in the indie film industry, and the beauty of it is that it gives that talent an opportunity to shine without being diluted by the politics of movie making. Nearly every independent filmmaker’s end product has the true representation of their vision that the funding will allow. That alone can yield some pretty revolutionary stuff. After all, most of the classics started with someone that had a good story to tell, and a distinctive way to do it.
Some movies are just so beloved that you can experience them through cultural osmosis without ever sitting down to actually watch them. From loving parodies to meticulous recreations of iconic scenes, memorable filmmaking lives on even after the curtains close on the silver screen. And when it comes to horror, few films can compete with the massive impact that Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining had on popular culture as a whole.
Whether or not you think the flick is a good adaptation of Stephen King’s seminal novel, 1980’s The Shining slowly but surely grew into one of the most influential genre movies ever made, inspiring everything from surprisingly heartfelt sequels to classic episodes of The Simpsons. However, not all The Shining references are created equal, and today I’d like to shine a light on six unexpected homages to Kubrick’s iconic film.
In this list, we’ll be focusing on references and Easter eggs that either came out of the blue or came from creators that you wouldn’t expect to be fans of this classic ghost story. That being said, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite references to the Torrance family and the Overlook Hotel if you think we missed a particularly memorable one.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. A Nightmare on FaceTime – South Park (2012)
Regardless of the brand’s iffy reputation among former employees, the death of Blockbuster Video was a serious blow to fans of physical media. Of course, some folks were more affected by this than others, and South Park’s Randy Marsh definitely took things a little too far in the twelfth episode of the show’s sixteenth season.
Titled A Nightmare on FaceTime, the main plot of this 2012 story is a surprisingly faithful recreation of The Shining where Randy purchases an empty Blockbuster store and begins to go mad once he realizes that his investment may not have been a very good idea due to the rise of streaming and the now-defunct RedBox storefronts.
4. The Overlook Hotel Level – Ready Player One (2018)
I was never really a fan of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, so I viewed Stephen Spielberg’s divisive adaptation of the novel as an improvement over the source material despite having its own narrative issues. In fact, I actually prefer how Spielberg changed the story by removing several references to his own work and replacing a lengthy Blade Runner detour with an over-the-top homage to The Shining.
A CGI-heavy recreation of the film’s most iconic moments that feels like a big-budget ghost train ride set within the Overlook Hotel, this intense sequence is more of a recreation of the freaky aesthetics of The Shining rather than its mind-bending narrative. However, it’s still fun to see Spielberg make a heartfelt tribute to a filmmaker that was once his close personal friend.
3. IKEA Singapore Halloween Ad (2014)
It makes sense that commercials don’t typically borrow from the horror genre, as it might be a bad idea to scare away potential customers, but some references are just too much fun to pass up.
That’s probably why the publicists behind this Ikea ad from Singapore were allowed to turn their commercial into a genuinely unsettling recreation of Danny’s tricycle scene from The Shining. After all, nobody cares if your store is haunted so long as it offers late-night shopping hours and a large selection of merchandise that you can become lost in forever and ever…
2. The End of ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’ – Community (2014)
Community is no stranger to recreating iconic movie moments within the show, and the series had previously tackled horror tropes in episodes like the fan-favorite Epidemiology. However, the most laugh-out-loud moment on this particular list comes from a brief gag towards the end of the season five episode ‘Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality’.
The majority of this episode has nothing to do with scary movies, but there’s a brief subplot involving supporting character Chang and a possible encounter with ghosts that leads him to question his own existence. This subplot culminates in the episode’s hilarious ending where the camera zooms in on a black-and-white photograph of Chang in period clothing at some kind of celebration, just like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shining.
However, the picture’s subtitle eventually reveals that it’s merely a conveniently placed keepsake from the ‘Old Timey Photo Club’.
1. The Overlook Hedge Maze Sequence – Zootopia 2 (2025)
Disney movies are pretty far removed from both the gruesome horror of Stephen King and the heady filmmaking of Stanley Kubrick, so I don’t think anyone was expecting the climax of last year’s Zootopia sequel to take place in an animated version of the snowy hedge maze from The Shining.
In this unexpectedly intense sequence, friend-turned-villain Pawbert Lynxley (an unhinged lynx cat played by Andy Samberg) chases our protagonists through a creepy labyrinth in a loving recreation of Jack Nicholson’s icy demise outside the Overlook Hotel. The actual ending here might be a little more child-friendly than what’s being referenced, but it’s amazing that the filmmakers were able to push the horror elements as far as they did – especially since the scene doesn’t really have anything to do with the rest of the movie.
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