“The Shining” Axe

Giovanni J. Guidotti holds the vintage original hero axe from Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic film. Jack Nicholson famously wields this axe in a quintessential horror sequence, as he murders Dick Hailorann (Scatman Crothers), terrorizes his wife Wendy Torrance (Shelley Duvall) hacking through the bathroom door, and stalks his son Danny (Danny Lloyd) through the Overlook Hotel’s snowy maze. This custom axe was ground and polished by the studio to accentuate light reflection for dramatic effect. The axe measures 35.5’ in length and the axe head is 11.5” wide. During the iconic bathroom sequence, over Wendy’s screams, the camera cuts towards the door in close-up, as Jack tears through the wood, and delivers one of the most famous lines in cinema history, “Heeeeere’s Johnny!” - a line the actor ad-libbed in the moment of shooting. Adding to the scene’s terror is director Stanley Kubrick’s choice to whip-pan the camera towards the door - timed perfectly to Nicholson’s axe swings. As the legend goes, 60 takes were needed before Kubrick was satisfied with the door-hacking sequence.

Sold to Giovanni at Heritage Auctions in March 2024, Hirsch Giovanni now owns this iconic horror movie artifact. It was displayed at the Property Master Guild's (PMG) booth at LA Comic Con this past weekend.