The Haunting of Hill House influenced The Shining

King has praised Hill House at length in Danse Macabre, calling it one of the few great supernatural novels of the century, and quotes its opening paragraph as a model. The Overlook is built to Jackson's specification: an isolated building with a recorded history of deaths, a small party sealed inside it, and a haunting that works by selecting the most vulnerable person present and speaking in their own voice. Eleanor is chosen by the house; so is Jack Torrance.