Video Essay Explores THE SHINING and How ‘Mickey Mousing’ Music Movement Builds an Increasing Sense of Horror

I’ve got a fascinating video essay here for you to watch from filmmaker Kristian T. Williams that takes a deep dive into Stanley Kubrick‘s classic psychological horror film The Shining.

I don’t know about you, but every time I watch The Shining, I catch something new that I never noticed before. This new video points out something else that I’ve never realized before. It focuses on how music is used to increase the sense of horror, it’s a technique called ‘Mickey Mousing’ and it deals with music movement synchronization. It is used to express the actions of the characters.

Kubrick together with a man named Gordon Stainforth, who is the music editor for The Shining chose to use this outdated musical synchronization technique to elicit a sense of horror instead of humor. So rather than using it to solely underline an action like those early cartoons, it’s instead used to illustrate the growing invisible corruptive influence of the Overlook Hotel.

Check out the video below and learn something new!