Has there ever been a horror film more parodied than The Shining? When it comes to fanmade spoofs, Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel is the gift that keeps on giving. There is so much iconography from the 1980 classic film that just lends itself to parody. The latest The Shining parody we’ve discovered came to us via The Laughing Squid and features Mario breaking from his Nintendo adventure and right into the Overlook Hotel. The short comes from Toronto filmmaker Mark Cannataro, and you can watch it in full down below:
Mark Cannatoro’s CGI short film hits most of the major The Shining bullet points, only with a very Nintendo twist. We’ve got Mario, in full Jack Torrance mode, taking the axe to the door. We also see the waves of blood coming out of the elevator doors, and the ghostly woman in the bathtub in room 237. Also (of course) we have the eternally spooky Grady twins. Only in this version, the twins are Princess Peach and Princess Daisy. We even get a shot of Mario in the 1921 photo at the end, with a chiptune version of the song “Midnight, the Stars, and You.”
Maybe our favorite bit of this video is the recreation of the wtf scene in Stanley Kubrick’s film, with a gentlemen in a dog costume getting intimate with someone in one of the hotel rooms. Forty years later, we still have no idea what that scene is all about in the actual movie, although as with most things pertaining to The Shining, theories about it run rampant. Now we think we need to see some Mario or Nintendo versions of some other classic horror movies. Princess Peach as Regan from The Exorcist? Luigi as Norman Bates from Psycho? The possibilities are indeed endless.
