IFC Midnight picks up rights to The Shining documentary, Room 237

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

IFC Midnight announced it is acquiring North American rights to director Rodney Ascher’s highly acclaimed documentary ROOM 237 which concerns the theories surrounding and within Stanley Kubrick’s film THE SHINING. The film, which was produced by Tim Kirk and scored by Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson, recently played at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

Don’t expect your standard behind-the-scenes doc, however; check out the synopsis:

In 1980 Stanley Kubrick released his classic horror film, THE SHINING. Over 30 years later, viewers are still struggling to understand its hidden meanings. Loved and hated by equal numbers, the film is considered a genre standard by many loyalists, while other viewers dismiss it as the lazy result of a legendary director working far below his talent level. In between these two poles, however, live the theories of ardent fans who are convinced they have decoded THE SHINING’s secret messages regarding genocide, government conspiracy, and the nightmare that we call history. Ascher’s ROOM 237 fuses fact and fiction through interviews with the fans and scholars who espouse these theories. Ideas of five devotees of the film with wildly different ideas about its true meaning arebraided together in a kaleidoscopic deconstruction of the horror classic.

IFC Midnight plans to release the film theatrically this year..