There’s still no real explanation for that creepy bear costume scene Stanley Kubrick included in The SHINING

Stanley Kubrick’S The brilliant it definitely takes the audience on a wild, scary and extremely intense ride. For the most part, the movie flows perfectly and the madness of it all slowly engulfs you as the story unfolds. Then, during the climactic finale, the damned breaks down, blood gushes from the elevator, and all hell breaks loose.

There is a moment during that maddening climax of the film that blew my mind when I first saw the film. When Wendy is frantically running around the hotel, she at one point she looks into one of the rooms and sees a guy in a bear suit “serving” some random guy in a suit, and they look at her.

I was quite young when I first saw this movie and of all that happened in that movie, that was the most shocking to me. I remember this intense shock going through my body when this happened, it was like this pure fear of what the hell is going on here! Every time I watch this movie and that scene pops up, I remember that feeling I had the first time I saw it.

I’ve actually searched for answers to this over the years, but all I’ve found is pure speculation from fans as to why Kubrick included that scene. I’ve always wanted a real answer, and when mega-fan and Pixar director Lee Unkrich looked for his answer to that scene for his upcoming 2,200-page book, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, he couldn’t find it. . .

He spoke to Kubrick’s film co-writer Diane Johnson about the scene, and she doesn’t even know where it came from! She wasn’t in the script! Unkrich explained:

“The weird moment when the guy in the bear suit gives him a blowjob on the bed while Shelley runs around? No response as to why she chose to include it.

Johnson told him:

“It’s not in King. It was nothing we ever discussed – it came out of Kubrick’s imagination, as far as I know.

Johnson also had nothing to do with the iconic shot of the blood pouring out of the elevators. Of that, he said, “This was already in his mind, or maybe even filmed, so I wasn’t called in to visualize anything.”

Now, while Johnson says the bear suit isn’t in King, in the book there is a guy in a dog suit named Roger who shows up in costume to a hotel dance. He was asked to come by his one time lover, Horace Derwent, one of the owners of the Overlook Hotel. Some say he is harnessing his power over Roger and flexing his dominance of him. But there is no clear explanation whether this is somehow related to the random scene in the film. Maybe he inspired it, but there’s no context as to how that fits into the story Kubrick was telling.

As for some of the fan theories surrounding the bear scene, some are saying it’s one of the many clues behind the real relationship between Danny and his father. The image of the bear suggests that the animal is symbolic of Jack’s predatory control over his family and sexual abuse of his son.

All we really have is speculation. Even the people who worked on the film have no idea what Kubrick was thinking when he shot it! What do you think that means?

Source: variety