- NOTE: This page is only about the version of Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film adaptation. For his literary counterpart, as well as the version in the 1997 TV adaptation, see here.
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| “ | All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy… | „ |
| ~ Jack Torrance's papers written after losing his sanity, and one of the most famous movie quotes of all time. |
| “ | Here's Johnny! | „ |
| ~ Jack Torrance appears after chopping down the door that Wendy was hiding behind — another famous line. |
John Daniel Edward "Jack" Torrance is the main antagonist of the 1980 psychological horror film The Shining and a minor character in its 2019 supernatural horror sequel Doctor Sleep, both based on the respective Stephen King's 1977 and 2013 novels of the same name.
He is a former teacher, aspiring writer and a recovering alcoholic who lives with his wife Wendy and his son Danny, the latter of which wields a special psychic power known as "the Shining". Jack is offered the position of caretaker of the Overlook Hotel for the winter season, but during his time there, slowly falls into insanity due to cabin fever and the evil influence of the ghosts inhabiting the place, such as Lloyd the Bartender and the Hotel Caretaker, leading him to turn on his own family.
He was portrayed by the legendary Jack Nicholson, who also played Randle Patrick McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Daryl Van Horne in The Witches of Eastwick, The Joker in Batman, Colonel Nathan R. Jessup in A Few Good Men, Jimmy Hoffa in Hoffa and Frank Costello in The Departed. In flashback sequences of Doctor Sleep, he was portrayed by Henry Thomas, who also played Lloyd the Bartender in the same film, a young Norman Bates in Psycho IV: The Beginning, Sean Roberts in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Tom Mahout in Gerald's Game.
Personality[]
In contrast to its book counterpart, who was an initially good but deeply flawed man whose flaws were ruthlessly exploited by the evil hotel, and who eventually redeemed himself after his fall to darkness, Kubric's Torrance is from the start an abusive, menacing, hostile, and borderline psychotic alcoholic wretch, whose wife is clearly walking on eggshells whenever around him. As revealed during his discussions with Lyold and Grady, he's quite misogynistic, racist, and violent, as he injured his son's arms prior to the movie, without feeling much remorse about the incident.
Torrance quickly slipped into madness, and while he did complain of his horrible nightmares to his wife, soon enough, he began to angrily dismiss her and also discuss with the ghosts inhabiting the haunted place. Jack was already far too gone when Wendy confronted him with the bat, as he spent weeks writing the same thing over and over again, and later confronted her with the clear intent to murder her, followed by Danny. From this point on, Jack remained completely psychotic, gloating about destroying any means of communication and escape when his wife locked him up in the pantry. Jack becomes a slave beholden to the Overlook's will, coldly reassuring Grady and the other ghosts that he'll "take care of the problem" that is his family once he gets out of there. Set loose upon the hotel, Jack, now armed with an axe, sadistically taunts his wife while breaking down the bathroom door (where she and Danny took refuge), and later smiles while brutally axing Hallorann.
Biography[]
Jack was a writer who accepted the job of winter caretaker for the Overlook Hotel, despite being informed of the building's grisly past and reputation as a cursed place (which he shrugged off as a superstition), and he took his wife Wendy and son Danny with him to the hotel, thinking that the solitude of the place would help inspire him in his writing as well. He shows his first sign of going insane about a month after his application when he verbally abuses his wife Wendy for "distracting" him from his work.
Not long after, Danny communicated with him about their experiences in the hotel. Danny uses his Shining ability to tell that Jack wants to hurt both him and his mother, implying that Jack has already gone insane. He has one of his more sympathetic moments in the film when he has a nightmare about killing Wendy and Danny, before waking up, screaming and crying about it to Wendy.
However, when a silent Danny walks in and reveals the neck injury that he received from the old woman in Room 237, Wendy accuses Jack of abusing his son again. Jack is surprised and confused by this. Jack bitterly goes downstairs to the Hotel's abandoned pub to brood about his family, whispering to himself that he'd sell his "goddamned soul" for a glass of beer.
Not long after this Lloyd the Bartender mysteriously appears (implying the Overlook Hotel may have taken up Jack's deal) and offers Jack fine alcohol on the house. Jack accepts the bourbon, breaking the alcohol abstinence he had been taking for the past few months. Lloyd and Jack act as if they've known each other for years, as the latter tells Lloyd that he's not happy with both his family and his life, and claims that he injured Danny's arm three years ago, whereas Wendy claimed that it was only five months ago. This implies that this wasn't the first or last time that Jack injured Danny or that Jack lied to make himself look better.
When Jack goes back upstairs, Wendy immediately apologizes for accusing him and immediately tells him about the woman in Room 237. He insults her and calls her crazy instead of accepting the apology before she makes herself serious. He then checks the room where he finds a beautiful woman in the bathtub. With a sinister grin on his face, he lustfully embraces the woman as she seduces him and they start kissing, blatantly cheating on his wife, before discovering that the beautiful woman is actually the ghost of a hideously deformed old lady. In shock, he escapes the room as the ghost cackles wickedly.
When he gets back, he lies to his wife about not seeing anyone in the room, in order to cover up his tracks, claiming that Danny injured himself. When she asks for them to leave the hotel, he berates and insults her, claiming that he absolutely refuses to leave the hotel before storming off in a rage. When he gets to the barroom, it's now filled with ghosts before reuniting with Lloyd and asking for a drink. He starts exploring the place before a waiter accidentally spills lemonade all over him. The waiter apologizes and takes Jack to the bathroom to clean him up.
There, they have a friendly conversation, before Jack recognizes him as Charles/Delbert Grady, the previous caretaker, and reminds him of what he did. Grady then claims that he "corrected" his family and explains to Jack that his son Danny is attempting to contact Dick Halloran for help using his Shining ability, which Jack was previously unaware of. Grady then convinces Jack that his family is being disobedient and they need to be corrected as well. Jack is then seduced by the hotel, and unlike the novel where he is being brainwashed against his will by the spirits, he willingly agrees to kill his family (although his sanity was already gone by that point). Jack then heads back to the radio room and removes capacitors from the radio, rendering it inoperable. He then proceeds to remove the fuel injection manifold from the snowcat, also rendering it unable to start, preventing Danny and Wendy from leaving.
After Wendy discovers just how far gone Jack is and tries to convince him they need to leave, Jack becomes angry and threatens her life. Wendy then knocks Jack out with a baseball bat and locks him in the pantry for her and her son's safety. He's quickly let out though by the spirits and gleefully attempts to kill his wife and son with his iconic ax instead of a rogue mallet. When Dick arrives to help, Jack ambushes him, then murders him with the ax, also causing Danny to scream.
During a fearsome manhunt, he maniacally and gleefully chases Danny with his ax through the snowy maze until Danny outsmarts him by leaving a false trail, allowing him and his mother to escape. As he stumbles around in the maze, all Jack can do is scream and yell incomprehensible gibberish, showing just how far his mental state has degraded while succumbing to the freezing weather. Wounded, exhausted and suffering from hypothermia, Torrence collapses in the maze and succumbs to the cold. The next day, his frozen-over corpse is shown, to such an extreme extent he has icicles growing off him.
The film ends by featuring an old photograph of a ball at the hotel from July 4, 1921, that shows Jack at the event. What exactly this means is beyond anyone's speculation and is likely up for the viewer to think about, although, in all likelihood, Jack's soul was captured by the hotel, now serving as fuel for the Overlook's evil.
Victims[]
- Dick Hallorann - Struck in the chest with an axe.
Quotes[]
| “ | Jack: Wendy, let me explain something to you. Whenever you come in here and interrupt me, you're breaking my concentration. You're distracting me. And it will then take me time to get back to where I was. You understand? Wendy: Yeah. Jack: Now, we're going to make a new rule. When you come in here and you hear me typing or whether you don't hear me typing, or whatever the f-ck you hear me doing; when I'm in here, it means that I am working, that means don't come in. Now, do you think you can handle that? Wendy: Yeah. Jack: Good. Now, why don't you start right now and get the f-ck out of here? |
„ |
| ~ Jack Torrance to Wendy. |
| “ | It is so f-cking typical of you to create a problem like this when I finally have a chance to accomplish something! When I am really into my work! I could really write my own ticket if I went to Boulder now couldn’t I? Shoveling out driveways, working in a car wash… any of that appeal to you? Wendy, I have let you f-ck up my life so far but I am not going to let you f-ck this up! | „ |
| ~ Jack Torrance to Wendy |
| “ | Have you ever had a single moment's thought about my responsibilities? Have you ever thought, for a single solitary moment about my responsibilities to my employers? Has it ever occurred to you that I have agreed to look after the Overlook Hotel until May the First?! Does it matter to you at all that the owners have placed their complete confidence and trust in me, and that I have signed a letter of agreement, a contract, in which I have accepted that responsibility? Do you have the slightest idea what a moral and ethical principle is? Do you? Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future, if I were to fail to live up to my responsibilities? Has it ever occurred to you? Has it?! | „ |
| ~ Jack Torrance |
| “ | Wendy? Darling? Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence… I said I'm not gonna hurt ya… I'm just going to bash your brains in. Gonna bash em' right the f-ck in! | „ |
| ~ Jack Torrance |
| “ | Danny, where… (sees Danny and Wendy leaving in Halloran's snowcat) Danny! | „ |
| ~ Jack Torrance's last words. |
Trivia[]
- The scene where Jack breaks down the door and yells: "Heeeeere's Johnny!" as he did so was unscripted, yet kept in the film.
- The catchphrase "Heeeeere's Johnny!" at the time of the film's release had a doubly iconic meaning, being the introduction to the long-running host of The Tonight Show, Johnny Carson. It even became a popular Internet meme.
- Jack starts out clean-shaven, but as he descends into madness, he grows a five-o-clock shadow to reflect this.
- It is believed that Jack starts wearing his iconic red jacket once he reaches the climax of his insanity.
- He makes a small cameo appearance on the screen of the drive-in cinema before the screen gets destroyed by the F-4 tornado in the 1996 film, Twister.
- Jack makes a brief cameo appearance in The Shining level in the 2018 film Ready Player One, chasing Aech. However, Jack is seen backward as his face isn't seen at all.
- Interestingly, Jack Nicholson was actually approached to appear in Ready Player One, possibly reprising the role of Jack for his cameo appearance. However, Nicholson desisted as he has retired from acting since the release of How Do You Know in 2010.
- Similarly to how Danny Lloyd, who played the young Danny Torrance in The Shining, appeared in Doctor Sleep in a cameo appearance, Jack Nicholson was actually considered to appear in a cameo appearance in Doctor Sleep. However, like in the case of his offered Ready Player One cameo, Nicholson declined because of being retired but did wish everyone involved with making the movie the best. Director Mike Flanagan ultimately felt that it was better that Nicholson didn't return, as he would not have been able to reprise the role of Jack partly because of his age, and partly because the audience would have felt dissatisfied with just a cameo appearance of him. Nevertheless, Nicholson approved and liked the film.
- The Simpsons story "Treehouse of Horror 5" has a segment titled The Shinning where the Simpsons family has to take care of Mr. Burns' winter lodge. Homer discovers that Burns and Smithers cut off the lodge's beer supply and cable TV and with some convincing from a dead Moe (playing the role of Lloyd), he goes Jack Torrance on his entire family in exchange for a beer at Moe's ghost bar. There are several references to the movie which include the blood elevator, Homer having to ax down three doors, and the entire family freezing to death watching a portable TV.
- Two of Jack's quotes "Hurt ya? I'm not gonna hurt ya… I'm just going to bash your brains in. I'm gonna bash em' right the f-ck in", and "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", are said by Horny the Clown in the 2007 horror-comedy movie Drive-Thru, but "Horny" replaces "Jack".
External Links[]
- Jack Torrance on the Wikipedia
