'The Shining' Axe Fetches $175,000 Dollars At Auction

It seems “The Shining” axe has found a new home to haunt.

The 1980 horror movie showed Stanley Kubrick’s take on the Stephen King novel of the same name. The film starred Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, among others.

According to TMZ, the iconic axe has found a new buyer.

Dylan Kosinski from GottaHaveRockandRoll auction house told the outlet that a “successful businessman” who is “a big fan of the movie” won the axe in a bidding war that included a dozen possible buyers.

The total price of the axe was $175K after adding in the buyer’s $35K premium. The axe itself is made out of foam and resin, so it’s much lighter than it looks. In the past, the axe sold for $61K, so clearly inflation is even hitting movie memorabilia pretty hard.

The axe comes from the memorable scene in the movie where he uses it to break through a wooden door before sticking his face in the hole and saying, “Here’s Johnny!” It also appeared in several other scenes, such as when Jack kills Scatman Crothers’ character of Dick Halloran by striking him in the chest with it.

Although “The Shining” is vastly different from the book of the same name, it has an 85% critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an audience score of 93%.

Kent Garrison from the Mad About Movies Podcast wrote, “I have never watched The Shining and not been blown away. It's an absolute clinic in the atmosphere, tension, family drama, production design, cinematography, and so much more.” He gave the film an A+ rating.

Matthew Rozsa of Salon wrote, “The classic Stanley Kubrick film isn't just scary - it is also, in its own odd way, defined by a hopeful perspective on life and death.” He gave the movie a 4/4.

Adam Nayman of The Ringer wrote, “Kubrick's gallows humor, which was always about confronting and critiquing his audience's baser impulses: reinventing The Shining as a slapstick comedy about murderous patriarchal insecurity is a daring move.”

Bruce McCabe of the Boston Globe wrote, “When you sit down to The Shining, you sit down with normal expectations of being diverted, perhaps even being gripped, but not being undermined. But the film undermines you in powerful, inchoate ways.”

James Berardinelli of ReelViews wrote, “As a ghost story and adaptation of the Stephen King novel, it's largely a failure. On the other hand, as an example of directorial bravura and as a study of madness and the unreliable narrator, it's a brilliant success.” He gave the film 3 out of 4 stars.

However, not everyone was a fan of the film. Bob Thomas of the Associated Press wrote, “Kubrick is a master of visual images, and many of the scenes display his brilliance. But much of the suspense ends in anti-climax, and Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall seem over-extended in trying to maintain the terror.”

Ernest Leogrande of the New York Daily News wrote, “Shock effect and graphic imagery don't compensate for the sense of pointlessness and even distaste that is left at the end of the movie.” He gave the film two out of four stars.

Although it failed to impress all critics, what’s clear is that “The Shining” is a cult classic that deserves a watch… at least once.