Sean Thomas

How to check in to a haunted hotel

The Shining, 1980 (Alamy) 
issue 17 February 2024

The haunted hotel. It’s a definite thing, isn’t it? From Stanley Kubrick’s classic The Shining to the slightly less classic I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, the hotel with an unwanted and probably long-dead guest is a leitmotif in scary cinema. It can also be found in poems, plays, novels; possibly the first novel on the theme is literally called The Haunted Hotel, it’s by Wilkie Collins and it is set in, yes, Venice.

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