Just in time for Halloween, owners of the Stanley Hotel in Colorado have applied for a grant to turn the legendary hotel into a world-first horror film museum and production hub.
Apparently even after Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick established the Stanley as a bona fide creepy-place-to-never-ever-visit in The Shining, the hotel continued to take guests – presumably catering to those who had been living under a rock since 1980 or who were simply born without a working sense of fear.
Then again, the atmosphere the Stanley has cultivated since the film’s release only adds to the $24 million bid, which would see the site become home to an auditorium, a massive horror “discovery centre” featuring exhibits like The Walking Dead, and working production spaces for future horror projects.
The project already has some heavy-hitters behind it, with horror buffs Elijah Wood and Simon Pegg voicing their support for the museum, with Wood saying “there’s really no better place for there to be a permanent home for the celebration of horror as an art form than the Stanley Hotel. It was practically built for it.”
There’s also talk of an artist residency program, with the Colorado Film School’s Frederic Lahey saying it would allow students to “work side-by-side with some of the biggest industry names to design exhibits, curate films, program events and lead workshops and masterclasses.”
We probably wouldn’t let them work too hard though.
