The Shining fan builds amazing replica maze and now it’s haunted
![Jack Nicholson, frozen to death in The Shining.](https://www.dexerto.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=3840,quality=60,format=auto/https://editors.dexerto.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/30/The_Shining.jpg)
A fan of The Shining built an amazing replica of the movie’s hedge maze – but it may be a bit too close to the source material, as it now seems to be haunted.
Stanley Kubrick’s haunted hotel masterpiece The Shining is a divisive film for many, but it is nonetheless regarded as one of the best horror movies of all time. A lot of this is owed to the film’s unique flair and visual style, which has given The Shining a grounded, timeless look.
One such fan is photographer and model Sarah McGonagall, who shared a look at replicas of The Outlook Hotel’s maze and elevator doors. Based on their appearance in the film, both the elevator doors and hedge maze model are life-size replicas that McGonagall made herself.
Unfortunately, the replica may be a little too accurate. McGonagall revealed in a post on X that she now believes it’s haunted.
In the thread, McGonagall reveals she was sitting with her dog, Beetlejuice, when something bizarre happened. Beetlejuice showed an unusual interest in the room, but when she went to investigate, her cat refused to enter.
Though she noticed nothing unusual at the time, it didn’t stop there. The next day, a replica of the stone ashtray from the film was covered in ants, and she couldn’t find a source.
“In the summer, you’ll find the occasional ant in my kitchen, but usually they’re tiny and come in small numbers,” McGonagall explained. “But these were huge. And when I looked around on the table the ashtray was on, there were no stray ants at all. Not even on the sides of the ashtray, just on the top.”
Bizarre happenings are continuing to occur, too. While working on the maze, McGonagall shared that her phone was acting up. A video she was watching suddenly stopped, and she found a mysterious search of just “m m m m” appearing in the phone’s browser.
And it only got weirder as she was writing the thread, saying she could hear the sound of a small kitten meowing, but she was alone in the room. None of her cats could access the room and were both, in fact, fast asleep on a lower level of the house.
It is a bizarre and terrifying story, but McGonagall doesn’t seem too bothered by her Shining replicas being haunted. Followers on her social media know she has an appreciation for the macabre, and she explained to fans that having a “cursed” maze replica isn’t that unusual for her.
“My brother in Christ, I have a headless body in my basement,” McGonagall said in a later X post. “I own an assortment of coffins. I keep a demon baby in my dresser. I can go on Google Maps and see my giant skeleton from space. This is the most normal thing here.”
If you don’t have the guts to make your own cursed hedge maze, you can always settle for these 12 horror movies to get excited for in 2024.
We’ve also got the lowdown on new and upcoming horror movies, including Longlegs, A Quiet Place: Day One, and M3GAN 2.0. And we’ve got a list of the best 1980s horror movies, as well as horror movies that changed the genre.