The Big Bad Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

Kubrick’s ‘Shining’ on Domestic Abuse in The Dark and the Wicked (2020)

Abstract

The thorough scholarly dissection of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) has yielded many results, among which is a reflection, led by Jack Torrance’s “Big Bad Wolf” impersonation, that centres on the implicit theme of domestic abuse. This wolf metaphor stands as the starting point of an examination of Bryan Bertino’s The Dark and the Wicked (2020) through the lens of The Shining’s domestic violence narrative. Both films, although widely different status-wise, and directed forty years apart, seem to tackle this thematic idea through common cinematic elements: prowling shots, hints of fairy-tales, and cannibalistic patterns, together depicting the home as the hunting ground of a patriarchal predator. The domestic abuse theme, subdued in The Shining, remains textually absent from The Dark and the Wicked, but their synoptic analysis shines a new light on the missing genesis of the characters’ devouring trauma, as diverted through its visual narration.