Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) has a job interview for the post of watchman and maintenance of the Overlook Hotel in Colorado during the winter months. From November to May, the hotel is isolated due to heavy snow. Although the hotel owner warns Jack of the danger of isolation for so long since the last watchman went crazy and killed his family before kills himself. However Jack is isolation precisely what he wants to concentrate on finishing a book that he is writing.

Meanwhile, Jack's son, Danny, who has extrasensory powers that allow him to live past events that he haven't lived and see the future, have a vision about the hotel where newly hired his father, a vision full of blood.

Danny, with his mother, arrive at the hotel the day is closed to the public and begin to live there during those three months of isolation. At first everything is peace and quiet, but Jack begins to hear voices in his head ...