“How are things going, Mr. Torrance?”
Set for release on December 21st, the science fiction film Passengers isn’t a movie we planned on covering here on Bloody Disgusting – that’s what our new sci-fi/action/fantasy/comic book arm Cinema Runner is for – but I just caught a new TV spot last night that warrants coverage on any horror site. It looks like Norwegian director Morten Tyldum is a big fan of Stanley Kubrick!
The spot (which you can watch below) highlights a scene wherein Chris Pratt’s character visits the bar aboard the spacecraft he and Jennifer Lawrence’s character spend the movie inside of, and it’s plainly obvious that the set was heavily inspired by the Overlook Hotel’s bar in The Shining. The bartender is even a direct homage to the Overlook’s Lloyd, right down to his wardrobe and the fact that he’s not exactly a real human being. In The Shining, Lloyd was a ghost who wasn’t actually in the Overlook with Jack, and in Passengers, the bartender is some kind of android.
There’s also a scene in the same spot where Jennifer Lawrence is beating down a door with what certainly appears to be an axe, so it’s possible that Tyldum worked in a handful of tributes to The Shining. If nothing more, it’s pretty cool to see the Overlook’s bar so faithfully recreated.
In Passengers:
A spacecraft traveling to a distant colony planet and transporting thousands of people has a malfunction in its sleep chambers. As a result, two passengers are awakened 90 years early.