Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining is widely regarded as one of the scariest movies ever made (even if the renowned horror writer isn’t a fan). Moody and tense and harrowing, it’s meticulously crafted to send shivers up your spine and negatively impact the amount of sleep you get after watching. While not particularly terrifying, The Chickening, a new spoof video of the Kubrick classic making the rounds, is sure to give you crazy dreams, only more of the mind-bending psychedelic, what-the-living-hell-did-I-just-watch variety. It’s…bizarre is the best way to describe it, and something that you absolutely must witness for yourself.
If you need a few moments to catch your breath, rub your eyes, and just gather your sanity back after watching this video, I completely understand. You’ll likely be seeing crazy images of a bearded Danny Torrance, the creepy hallway twins decked out like old school rappers, and Jack Nicholson in a full-sized chicken costume when you close your eyes tonight. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m in the same boat, and it’s wonderful.
The Chickening is the warped brainchild of Nick DenBoer and Davy Force, who are sick, sick men in the best possible way. They call their project "remixed" or "augmented" cinema, and what they created certainly lives up to that billing. They take Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and give it one hell of a makeover, reimagining the chilling horror story as a bombastic, way, way over the top sort-of commercial for a fictional chicken joint. To be fair, I’m not 100% certain what the hell is going on here, but I’ll be damned if I can look away. The chaos is mesmerizing.
Words can’t even come close to doing these visuals justice. If you’re familiar with The Shining, you know it tells the story of Jack Torrance, a writer who sequesters his family for the winter in sprawling mountain inn that he looks after as it is closed for the season. Snowed in as they are, the place gets to him and he slowly loses his grip on reality, and an evil spiritual presence pushes him to madness and violence against his wife and young son. All work and no play, right?
Now imagine that The Shining spent a summer following the Grateful Dead around in the back of a VW bus living on nothing but mushrooms, LSD, and too much sun. And if that had a bad trip, I suspect it would look something like The Chickening.
