My favourite thing about The Shining (and it's something I was unaware of until it was pointed out a few years ago by my dad) is this: Everything that happens in the movie can be explained in non-supernatural, rational terms, such as hallucinations and general craziness on the part of Jack and, to a lesser extent, Wendy... except for one thing.
When Wendy locks Jack in the walk-in refrigerator and goes to get help, the ghost of the former caretaker lets him out.
It's not the most obvious of moments. The movie never makes a big deal of it. But it remains the only physically impossible action in the story. And I love that Kubrick never felt he needed to make a big deal of it--by the simple inclusion of that one impossible thing, he opens up the possibility that everything in the story is real, and it's not just an isolation-induced madness hallucination.
Watching Pan's Labyrinth for the second time (I'm rarely smart enough to spot these things on the first watch-through), I was delighted to notice that Del Toro had included a similarly impossible moment: The little girl is locked in her room, and draws a chalk doorway to escape. It's different enough that I wondered whether it was a deliberate nod to Kubrick, but the effect is the same--a single impossible act that allows the possibility that everything we've seen is real.
And then, last night we watched The Devil's Backbone, which I haven't seen for years but which is still a wonderful scary little movie. (The CGI looks a little creaky in places, but that's not fatal in this case because Del Toro has always been smart enough to use CGI to enhance a movie rather than structuring a movie around the effects.) (I haven't seen Pacific Rim yet, by the by.) And there it was, right towards the end of the film--the children are locked in a room, and a ghost unlocks the door for them.
It's a little fan-girl moment that's going to keep me happy all day. :)
