Editorials
5 Horror Films to Make You Feel Isolated from Chevelle
There are some horror movies that make us feel like we’re part of a team, where, no matter what, there is someone by our side. Then there are the films where loneliness and desperation are integral in how we view and experience the story. Films like The Shining and Alien are built upon this concept, where isolation only fuels the terror we are witness to.
Just recently, Chicago hard rockers Chevelle released a new album by the name of The North Corridor, which they say was inspired by, “…the cold, dark winter months it was recorded during.” To really explain this sensation, frontman Pete Loeffler put together five films that he feels really capture the essence of their new release, specifically that frigid, both physical and emotional, isolation. Head on down to check them out!
You can order your copy of The North Corridor via Amazon.
Sunshine
A science fiction, end-of-the-world type movie that pulled me in really quickly. Not fully a horror flick, but with touches of horror toward the end. With the sun slowly burning out, they send a team of astronauts to reignite the sun using hugely powerful nuclear bombs, and of course being a long ass trip there’s plenty of time for a few entertaining inter-crew squabbles, fights, and one big freaky mystery along the way. Reminds me a little of being on a tour bus at times…but I loved all the close-up beautiful shots of the sun and the way I’m left wondering, will they succeed or go absolutely batshit crazy in the end?
The Fourth Kind
This movie is set partly in the faraway town of Nome, Alaska; it’s also supposed to be based on actual events and captured videos of alien contact, but either way—if you believe these things happened or not—this movie can scare the shit out of you. Dean (our bass player) and I have had more than a few late nights up talking about the creepy things that happen in this one. It kinda feels like you’re seeing inside someone’s nightmare. At one point after being abducted by aliens, the memory is replaced by a white owl. I liked this idea quite a bit, and strangely enough I have an owl that has woken me from atop my chimney sporadically over the last few years.
So, I splurged and had an owl carved into the door on the front of my house. It just seemed fitting. I’m also a huge fan of Milla Jovovich. who plays Abby Tyler in the film. She’s incredibly talented and being easy on the eyes never hurts—after first seeing her in the movie “The Fifth Element” I was smitten.
The Vanishing
In terms of isolation flicks, it’s hard to think of a more terrifying idea than being buried alive. If you have any claustrophobia this movie could bring it out.
A simple concept: a couple goes on a trip and the girlfriend goes mysteriously missing. The guy is obsessed with finding out what happened and devotes his life to finding out. Jeff Bridges plays the most psychotic evil type of person we all dread meeting while keeping a seemingly normal lifestyle on the outside. Almost a “Jekyll and Hyde” kind of character. You can’t help but be pulled in and root for Kiefer Sutherland’s character to finally come into contact with the killer and have some kind of closure, albeit with an absolutely gruesome and well-deserved ending I still to this day have to look away from.
Event Horizon
Few movies have left me visibly shaken and constantly glancing behind myself as I shuffle off to bed in a hurry—this movie does that. So twisted does this movie get that when I watched it recently again I said that’s probably the last time. The crew of the doomed spaceship “Event Horizon” is on their way to check out a distress call from a lost ship. Cue strange unexplainable demonic happenings, and couple that with time travel, and now anything is possible. So chaotic does it get that all you want is to whip your remote at your TV to end the suffering you’re feeling. But as far as horror flicks go it’s a must see.
Right At Your Door
A truly terrifying—yet believable—situation is what you’re hit with in “Right At Your Door”. Chemical bombs have gone off in Los Angeles and a husband and wife are separated, not knowing if the other is okay or not. Left at home while his wife heads off to work, the husband is told by the media to seal up all the windows and doors and stay away from anyone who’s been infected on the outside. I feel that if most of a movie is going to be shot inside of a small house, you’re going to need great actors to carry it through, and without a doubt this movie has them. Things are going haywire and there’s tons of pretty damn realistic emotions coupled with awkward conversations. You can’t help but try to imagine what would you do in this situation. There’s also a nice little twist at the end that sort of sums up an altogether shitty situation. Worth checking out if you feel you’ve got a thirst for this type of terrifying drama or if you’ve just been taking seemingly simple luxuries like clean air and breath for granted.
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Tour dates:
07/26 – Indianapolis, Ind. – The Farm Bureau Insurance Lawn
07/27 – Columbus, Ohio – Express Live!
07/29 – Pittsburgh, Pa. – Stage AE
07/30 – Cleveland, Ohio – Roverfest (no Bush)
07/31 – Richmond, Va. – The National (no Bush)
08/02 – Huntington, N.Y. – The Paramount (no Bush)
08/03 – Boston, Mass. – Blue Hills Bank Pavilion
08/05 – Asbury Park, N.J. – Stone Pony Summer Stage
08/07 – Niagara Falls, N.Y. – Rapids Theatre (no Bush)
08/09 – Charlotte, N.C. – Charlotte Metro Credit Union Amphitheatre
08/10 – Greensboro, N.C. – Cone Denim Entertainment Center (no Bush)
08/11 – Bethlehem, Pa. – Musikfest (no Bush)
08/13 – Portland, Maine – Maine State Pier
08/14 – Baltimore, Md. – Pier Six Pavilion
09/10 – Englewood, Colo. – High Elevation Rock Fest
09/11 – Wichita, Kan. – The Cotillion
09/13 – Louisville, Ky. – Mercury Ballroom
09/14 – Asheville, N.C. – The Orange Peel
09/16 – Norfolk, Va. – The NorVa
09/17 – Chester, Pa. – Monster Energy Rock Allegiance
09/21 – Birmingham, Ala. – Iron City
09/22 – Nashville, Tenn. – War Memorial
09/24 – Fort Worth, Texas – Texas Mutiny
09/25 – Houston, Texas – Houston Open Air
10/02 – Fort Wayne, Ind. – Piere’s
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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