Rodney Ascher's acclaimed documentary
Room 237 has been perplexing and entrancing cinephiles throughout its hugely successful festival run - the film screened at A-list events including Sundance, Cannes, Karlovy Vary, Melbourne, Locarno and Toronto - by embracing one of the most compelling stories going. You want a rabidly loyal fanbase? Looks no further than the adherents of Stanley Kubrick. You want fanaticism gone strange? Ask them about the meanings hidden within Kubrick's
The Shining. That's exactly what
Room 237 does.
In 1980 Stanley Kubrick released his classic horror film, THE SHINING.
Over 30 years later, viewers are still struggling to understand its
hidden meanings. Loved and hated by equal numbers, the film is
considered a genre standard by many loyalists, while other viewers
dismiss it as the lazy result of a legendary director working far below
his talent level. In between these two poles, however, live the theories
of ardent fans who are convinced they have decoded THE SHINING's secret
messages regarding genocide, government conspiracy, and the nightmare
that we call history. Ascher's ROOM 237 fuses fact and fiction through
interviews with the fans and scholars who espouse these theories. Ideas
of five devotees of the film with wildly different ideas about its true
meaning are braided together in a kaleidoscopic deconstruction of the
horror classic.
Intrigued? UK distributors Metrodome have released a trailer for the film which you can see below.