Spoiler Discussion

1. The maze scene had my jaw on the floor at how beautiful and creative the transitions were. We saw Wendy and Danny run into the maze. As they twist and turn in it’s long and tumultuous path- suddenly we fade into a shot of Jack playing with his ball. But he’s fading into the twists and turns- almost suggesting his struggle with his inner demons- he doesn’t know what to do or how to deal with the anger and frustration that keeps building up inside. Then he moves over to a maze diorama – staring over it, but as we slowly start to pan into the center of the maze, we realize we’re looking at an aerial shot of the actual maze. All of this coming together to foreshadow, the eventual journey into the maze as Jack looks for Danny. The symmetry of the maze was also amazing to look at it and was beyond picturesque.
2. The “shining” moments were really jarring and helped sell the horror Danny was experiencing. It felt like if I blinked I would miss something and because the shots kept flashing on the screen, there were at least two times where I thought I had just rubbed my eyes too hard or imagined something coming on. Asking myself if what I saw was real or not- probably not an effect of the movie, but it certainly made me enjoy it more.

3. Dick’s death was really sad and a great use of camera angles. We know that Jack has seen him walking in and is deranged. This only creates more and more tension. We know that Jack is going to pop out and kill him, but the moment gets delayed more and more. The whole scene made me feel helpless, like nothing could be done.