Robert Eggers’ Biggest Career Influence Is Stephen King’s Iconic 1980 Movie Adaptation

One of the most promising Hollywood directors to-date, Robert Eggers is also an undeniable expert in modern horror, and good horror at that. Having started his directorial career back in 2015 with a folk horror movie The Witch, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Eggers now has a short, yet very impressive portfolio of four high-rated horror flicks with the most recent of them hitting the cinemas later this year.

Though Eggers isn’t that prolific as many fans of his would want him to be, he’s definitely the one to go with a slower pace, leaving more space for each film to be polished, and seems like he has a right source to turn to when there’s need for inspiration.

In one of his previous interviews, Eggers stated that Stanley Cubrick’s The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson, eventually got to be his biggest source of inspiration when he turned to the director’s chair.

Eggers revealed that he had a long way of trying to figure out “how to make a film with sustained tension” that eventually led him to rewatching the movie lots of times when he was in his twenties.

Based on Stephen King ’s 1977 novel of the same name, The Shining follows writer Jack Torrance who, after experiencing heavy alcohol addiction and then creative crisis, takes up a winter caretaker position in a Colorado hotel where he also brings his wife Wendy and son Danny.

The latter suffers from psychic premonitions that tell him about demons haunting the hotel, but Jack doesn’t take it all seriously until a winter storm traps them inside the hotel with no way to escape and all the dangers the family will yet have to face.

Released back in 1980, The Shining remains Cubrick’s cult movie and is considered one of the best horrors ever made.

With all the cultural influence the movie holds to this day, it doesn’t come as something surprising that more than 40 years later it keeps inspiring the genre’s geeks like Robert Eggers.

Source: Far Out Magazine