Room 237

Do you ever get that feeling in your head when you know that something is going to be totally rad? It may start as a rumor, and slowly get put together like a huge 50,000 piece puzzle? You wait and wait for all the red tape to clear and finally you get yours hands on it and you discover that it's just a big old pile of dump wrapped in fancy artwork and sealed with empty promises.

That's the disappointment I've felt while watching Room 237. It was worse than watching Jar Jar Binks for the first time on the big screen. I heard about a documentary that centers around The Shining a couple of years ago. Being one of my favorite movies of all time, I got a little gitty when hearing the news. I followed the production team on Twitter, I favorited their website and even signed up for an email newsletter when the movie was available in my area. Simply said, I have put a lot of work into making sure I saw this movie when it was available. They finally released the movie independently and had shown it throughout the world in small theaters. I missed the Chicago debut, definitely dropped the ball on that one. It toured the festival scene for a while so I waited patiently. It was released in September of 2013 and I finally got a copy through Netflix last week.

I made some tea, put on the pj's and popped this in the computer. I was hoping to dig deep into The Shining and uncover some of the questions I had about the film. Learn some new things that maybe I haven't caught before. Boy was I wrong.

The documentary is four people (they don't tell you their profession, which really discredits anything they say) talking over movie footage (not particularly from the Shining, plenty of footage from other movies that aren't relevant) and making crazy accusations about what The Shining is "about." You don't get to see the people being interviewed which is kind of weird. I'm all about crazy theories, if they have reputable arguments behind them. One dude assumed that the Shining was about the Native Americans being slaughtered by the white man because there are Native American paintings and artwork throughout the hotel. That was the only reason he gave! No ties to the violence in the movie or the spirits that haunt the place, just because the tapestry is Native American in origin.

I appreciate what they tried to do with this documentary. There are so many unanswered questions I had, so many questions about changes from the book. I hope someone else gives this idea another shot because they really failed on this one.

Rated: NR
Run Time: 102 Minutes

I give Room 237 -  2 out of 5 Burning Lariats.