Jack Torrance

Real Name: Jack Torrance
Date of Birth: 1947
Place of Birth: Berlin, New Hampshire
Race: Caucasian Sex: Male
Height: 6' Weight: Unknown

Current Location: Well, the last we saw of good old Jack he was sitting frozen to death lost in the maze outside the Overlook Hotel, thanks to some clever footprint cover-up plan his son Danny had. Just sitting there with an axe in his hand and a sweet and gentle look upon his iced face.

ALL WORK AND NO PLAY

Psychotics do not come any more terrifying than this man. Jack Torrance, once a seemingly nice and friendly fellow, a family man. Just a quiet chap wanting to take a few weeks off from the world to get some peace and time to himself – to sit down and write that novel he’s always been planning. And now the opportunity is there and so along with his loving wife and unusual son Danny they take off to spend the winter months caretaking the eerie and disturbing Overlook Hotel. The hotel with the equally eerie and disturbing past.

So with a mixture of ghostly influence and cabin fever the hotel’s past soon affects our lad Jack and he could have gone one of two ways. He could have channelled this built up rage and growing madness and used it to write possibly the greatest and emotionally moving piece of literature in history. But what a dull story that would of made. No, Jacky boy went the other way – right the other way. And that makes for one ripping good yarn!

Apart from Jack’s son also having the ability to see these horrific visions of the past while staying at the hotel, and apart from elevators spilling with blood, the torn bodies of two strange twin girls appearing now and again in the hallways, and whatever the hell that bloated scarred women wants in room 237...you could say this little winter break wasn’t doing anyone in particular any good.

And so with increasing madness and unusual goings-on who would be able to keep a grip on reality. And not until Jack’s new literal masterpiece is discovered weeks on does it become clear that all is not well. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”…over and over again on hundreds of pages. I mean even the worst publishing house in the West wouldn’t print that. In fact reading ‘Little Women’ is more of a thrill. And like any other respectful wannabe author of his generation, Jack, dismayed with his latest work decides instead to pick up an axe and attempt to butcher his family. Just imagine if Barbara Cartland had had the same idea. With an axe and that makeup she’d of made horror history.

As a regular run-of-the-mill psycho he would have been happily accepted by the horror public. But Jack is a little different from the rest of the commoners. It’s more of a progressional madness that creeps up on him over time. Something which is not commonly shown in regular horror. And with Jack Nicholson’s superb performance and ad-libbing (how was I gonna get through this without mentioning “Here’s Johnny!”) this is an unpredictable, and supremely frightening psychotic. I would have been aMAZEd if he had survived the movie! (Apologies for ending the report on such a low note – and using influence from the Richard Blackwood school of comedy there).

Psycho Analysis by Steven Davies © 2003