So there’s me yesterday, trying to shake a cold that is bound and determined to keep me in a state of sweaty and snotty misery. As you might well know by now, it’s on these days that I like to watch meaty dramas to accompany my weary condition. For yesterday’s title of choice, I decided to go with a newly acquired blu-ray edition of Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING.

As it was nearing the end, I found myself starting to drift in and out of sleep. What can I say? To me hearing Shelley Duvall scream is like a turkey sandwich and a glass of warm milk.

However, at one point I found my eyes popping open, and my hand riffling around for the remote control. I was sure that my dopey state and cocktail of cold meds had just made me see something in the film that wasn’t there…but a quick press of the rewind showed me that I was indeed seeing what I thought I was seeing.

The sight in question is captured slightly in that shot above. Towards the end of the film, when all hell is breaking loose at The Overlook Hotel, Wendy looks down a corridor and sees an open hotel suite, with what appears to be a dude in furry pyjamas with a butt-flap (that’s hanging open by the way). He’s leaning forward over the bed, and then straightens up to show that he’s in some sort of dog costume. As he straightens up, a man in a business suit leans forward too – suggesting that the dude in the dog suit was just giving shirt-and-tie oral sex.

That would be weird all on it’s own. But gang, what was weirder was the fact that I’ve seen THE SHINING about four or five times in my life, and for one reason or another, I must have always been distracted when that shot came up because I never noticed it before!

At first I thought I’d bought some new edit of the film, but a quick bit of research tells me that it was always there. As to how I never saw it, I haven’t a clue…perhaps out of the room refilling a drink, perhaps turning my head to talk to whoever was watching it with me, perhaps I looked down at the ground and saw something shiny. Pick a reason and we’ll run with it, but believe me when I say that I’d  definitely remember a guy in a furry dog costume blowing a dude in a suit.

I feel like I’ve been missing out all this time too, because with all of the weird things that happen in this film – and if you haven’t seen it, there’s weird by the boatload – this quick moment takes the cake.

Tell me I’m not alone here people. Have you ever watched a movie a bunch of times, and suddenly on rewatch noticed something you never saw before?

27 Replies to “Never There”

  2. Can’t think of movie that that’s happened to me, but it happened in real life just a few weeks ago. I looked at my wife’s ear and remarked “when’d you get that piercing?” – to which she replied “when I was 17…?”. Seriously, 7 years of being together, 6 of the happily wed, and I JUST noticed this piercing 2 weeks ago. How’d I block that one out?

  3. On an unrelated note, I heard back from the costume store today McNeil and they said your cat costume has finally come in. Also your drycleaner asked me to pass along the message that they’re no longer going to clean your bunny costumes for you… something about principle and morals. Any idea as to what they may be referring to?

  4. I have a similar tale, but mine is due to age more than simply not noticing.

    I, like many ladies my age, watched the living hell out of Dirty Dancing when I was a kid after it hit VHS, around the age of 8. Then I just forgot about it. I never picked up the tape again, didn’t bother sitting down to it during its many runs on cable. I no longer had a need for it.

    Come the wiser age of 18 and I’m hanging out in the lounge of the freshmen girls’ dorm one night as a big group of us start watching it and it smacks me like truck: Penny’s entire subplot was about a back alley abortion?! I sat there mortified that I had never known this about such a beloved 80s classic. Even worse was when I looked around and none of the other girls seemed taken aback in the least.

    To this day it’s probably my most embarrassing cinematic confession.

    1. Yeah, that one got past me the first several times too. But that one seems a bit more permissable (It’s not as overt).
      I too had that same “Holy Shit!” moment when I put two-and-two together around age sixteen or so after seeing the movie a dozen times or so over the years.

  5. Haha…I think this happens a lot with me, but I usually just blame it on the UAE and India excessive censorship 😛

    Though yesterday I was watching Miss Congeniality (the first one, which is fun to watch…really) and there is this part when this girl is asked to describe the perfect date and she says April 25th, and I never got it until yesterday. And I’ve watched that film many many times.

  6. Wow. first I have to admit that I too have seen the Shining at least a handful of times and I can’t recall this moment that you are now speaking of and would like to chalk it up to your meds, but knowing Kubrick it’s probably real. Now I have to get it on blu and check it out myself (if only i can find it).

    Also, I see where you’re coming from. I’m sure that’s happened to me before, but on a much smaller scale. Like I keep finding new things in Memento and Magnolia (two of my all time fav films) to analyze and marvel at. But a whole new random image I’m not quite sure.

    1. Yeah! I’m completely used to seeing new threads I hadn’t seen before in the fabric of a film, but completely forgetting such an off-the-wall moment? I’m ashamed!

      Do get your mitts on the blu-ray of this film. Makes cabin fever look so pretty.

  7. I remember being floored when I saw Requiem for a Dream for a second time. The first time I had seen it I apparently grabbed an edited version, so when I was in bed with the flu and Jennifer Connelly appeared in the “infamous scene” I started freaking out.

        1. I’d be wildly curious to see that scene as it was shown to you and how it changes the impact. That scene is the biggest reason why I can’t repeatedly watch REQUIEM despite respecting it a great deal.

          1. That scene by itself makes a huge impact along with the other scenes. I honestly can’t make myself watch it again, like Irreversible.

  8. I just watched this movie for the first time about two weeks ago…I can’t say I noticed that part, but my memory is a bit hazy.

    I had one of these moments when I watched Black Swan for maybe the fourth time. I mean, I always notice something new in this movie for some reason, and I’ve seen it lots. But it took me ages to notice that Natalie Portman kept turning into a swan. Like, her skin was getting all of these bumps and stuff, all the time. And then I also didn’t notice how many times Nina and Lily kept crossing over…it all got very confusing!

    But I notice new things all of the time with movies that I’ve watched more than once. I don’t know whether to feel smart or dumb!

  9. My god, you must have simply blocked that image out, it is pretty hard to miss, perhaps the climax of the OVERLOOK manifesting itself for the first time to Ms. Duvall who spends most of the time blissfully in the dark.

  11. Man this is the main scene from that movie that stands out to me because it’s one of the biggest WTF moments I’ve ever witnessed. I’ve only seen THE SHINING once so I can’t say I didn’t notice it first! That has happened to me before with a few films though. Like in BETTER OFF DEAD there’s a scene where John Cusack’s green gooey food suddenly moves off his plate and he just watches it silently. I saw that movie at least 3 times before noticing that!

    1. That’s the thing, when I finally noticed it – the scene instantly burned itself into my brain as a “Holy Shit!” moment. I swear I have no earthly clue how I always happened to be looking away before.

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