Perhaps in some earlier incarnation Jack really was around in 1921, and it’s his present-day self that is the shadow, the phantom photographic copy. But if his picture has been there all along, why has no one noticed it? After all, it’s right at the centre of the central picture on the wall, and the Torrances have had a painfully drawn-out winter of mind-numbing leisure in which to inspect every comer of the place. Is it just that, like Poe’s purloined letter, the thing in plain sight is the last thing you see? When you do see it, the effect is so unsettling because you realise the unthinkable was there under your nose – overlooked – the whole time.

jonathan romney on kubrick’s the shining, from sight + sound, september 1999.  i love the twist he points out – that not only have you missed something, but it’s the most unsettling thing you could never have imagined.  that right with you, all along, is that piece of evidence that makes your stomach drop and ends your life as you know it.