If there were to be a Mount Rushmore of horror film directors through the ages, I am very much of the opinion that Stanley Kubrick has to be on there.
When most people think of Kubrick, they probably think of any number of masterpieces that he made: Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Barry Lyndon, etc. But something that perhaps gets lost within the larger conversation of his work is just how much of a true-blue horror filmmaker Kubrick was.
One of his earliest feature films, Killer’s Kiss, is a noir story blended with a proto-slasher. Clockwork Orange is many different things simultaneously, and a science-fiction riff on Hammer horror films is very much one of those things. Obviously, The Shining is (correctly) regarded as a monolith within the genre. I would even argue that 2001: A Space Odyssey is very much rooted in the visual vernacular of horror, right down to its awe-inducing and transcendent finale.
But the final note on Kubrick’s horror epitaph has to be his final film, Eyes Wide Shut. Released in 1999 and infamously starring then-married Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, the film is most often referred to as a ‘psychosexual thriller’ or a "dark comedy," and it certainly is those things, but much like many of his other films, Eyes Wide Shut is also an existential horror film, to some degree.
I am far from the first person to say this, just as I am far from the first person to attempt to litigate what Eyes Wide Shut is or isn’t. Ever since Kubrick’s tragic passing shortly before the release of the film, a tremendous amount of weight and scrutiny has been placed upon this movie. As a result, a whole host of conspiracy theories have popped up in the intervening decades. But fascinatingly, Kubrick’s daughter and collaborator, Vivian Kubrick, just released a statement outright combating many of these claims.
Any film that has a creator as ubiquitous and acclaimed as Stanley Kubrick is going to garner a lot of attention, doubly so if it is the last thing that said individual makes before they die. But the fact that Eyes Wide Shut was a movie about a secret circle of the social elite who had deranged sex parties, dressed up in masks, and may or may not have been murdering people to keep it all on the down-low only served to fan the flames of conspiracy surrounding this film that much more. Paired with the documented fact that the film had to have some adjustments made in order to be deemed appropriate enough for an R-rating, this has made many people lose their minds about this movie for several decades, including folks like Joe Rogan and Roger Avary.
When on Rogan’s obscenely popular podcast a few years back, Avary floated some conspiracy-fueled theories about Eyes Wide Shut’s relation to the Epstein files and beyond and how these crucial bits of context were in twenty minutes that were cut from the film after Kubrick’s death. He also went on to insinuate that Kubrick’s death was a result of his refusal to cut these portions of the film. Since then, this has become a bargain-barrel movie conspiracy theory, so much so that Vivian Kubrick has now felt the need to speak out.
On social media, Vivian took the high road and simply said, “There has been a lot of speculation that some 20 minutes were removed from Eyes Wide Shut after he died. This will be very disappointing to many people, but I certainly did not hear anything about a missing 20 minutes at the time, nor have I heard anything since…”
She goes on to detail her involvement with her father’s work at this point in his career, which was extensive. If anyone would have insight into Kubrick’s process or the making of Eyes Wide Shut, it is Vivian, and the fact that she even felt the need to speak on this is absurd. Of course, the writing between the lines here is essentially '"Please stop peddling nefarious lies about my father’s final days," which she would have been well within her rights to say.
She also does go on to detail that the adjustments made to the film prior to release were basically exclusively to add CGI body doubles in some of the orgy scenes so as to obscure key bits of nudity that were giving the film trouble with the MPAA. This was done so that the film could see wide release, which would seem a very odd thing for any studio to do if they were, you know, ready to allegedly murder people to keep that from happening.
All of these Eyes Wide Shut conspiracy theories have always struck me as dim-witted, especially when there’s so much to engage with in the actual substance of the film that these people infallibly fail to speak to at all. But now it's all officially debunked; we can only hope they all find something else to fixate on.
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