Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is a film wholly constructed of indelible cinematic images, but few are as striking as the shot of the elevator doors of the Overlook Hotel opening up and unleashing a wave of blood that flows until it crashes up against the camera. It’s a psychotic vision that encapsulates the energy of the genius creation, based on the beloved book by Stephen King. Perhaps the greatest proof of the moment’s power is recognizing the specific influence it has had on filmmakers – which is a list that most definitely now includes writer/director Lee Cronin, who found an incredible way to reference The Shining in his new movie, Evil Dead Rise.
Without getting into too much detail, there is a sequence in the critically acclaimed new horror film where an elevator fills to the brim with blood and opens its doors on an apartment building’s lobby, and it’s impossible not to recognize it as a nod to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 classic (you can see a clip from the scene in the Evil Dead Rise trailer). When I interviewed Lee Cronin during the movie’s virtual press day earlier this month, I asked about the role that The Shining plays in his mind and in his work, and he explained that it’s one of his favorites of all time. Said the filmmaker,
