Horror film plot maps are the strangest thing I research, because there is no credit sheet to work from and no discography to check against. There is only the film, watched scene by scene with a notebook, until the shape of it starts to show. The Horror Movie Plot Line Maps collection currently holds two of them: The Shining and Jaws.
Each print draws the characters as named lines and the key scenes as stations, in the visual language of a classic London Underground map. Sizes are A2 (420 x 594mm) and A1 (594 x 841mm), from £42, printed as Giclée art prints, with an optional black wood frame.
Two maps is a short list, so this is not a catalogue. It is the honest answer to which one belongs on which person's wall.
The Shining Plot Lines Map Art Print
Kubrick's 1980 film drawn as a route, from the opening tour to the hedge maze.
Explore These Art PrintsThe Two Horror Film Plot Maps, Side by Side
These two films fail in opposite directions, which is why they make such different prints. One tightens until there is nowhere left to go, and the other splits in half and sails away.
This table is built from the scene by scene passes I made for each map, not from a synopsis.
| The Shining (1980) | Jaws (1975) | |
|---|---|---|
| The constant line | Jack Torrance, from the interview to the maze | Chief Brody, from the beach closures to the last shot |
| The line that arrives late | Dick Hallorann, who leaves and then comes back | Matt Hooper, then Quint with the boat |
| Where the map changes shape | The stations crowd together as the film's own time cards shorten | The Orca leaves Amity and the town lines stop at the dock |
| What the threat looks like | The hotel's spectral cast, running as its own set of lines | A shark that is felt far more often than it is seen |
| Named stations on the print | The opening hotel tour, the typewriter reveal, the hedge maze | The Chrissie Watkins attack, the Indianapolis speech, the final confrontation |
| The viewer it suits | The one who rewatches for detail and argues about what it means | The one who knows every beat and has never seen the structure |
If you are buying for a household where both films get quoted, the pair hangs well together. They are the same size and the same format, and the contrast between a map that closes in and a map that splits is the point of seeing them side by side.
Kubrick's Time Cards Shorten, and the Stations Crowd Together
The Shining tells you where you are with title cards, and the intervals between them collapse as the film runs. It opens with The Interview and Closing Day, moves to A Month Later, then to single weekdays, and finishes on times of day.
Mapping that was the moment the print made sense to me. The left of the map is loose, with room between stations, and the right hand end is dense because the film is measuring itself in hours by then.
You can see the pace of the film without watching a frame of it. That is the one thing a plot map does that a poster cannot.
Hallorann Is the Only Line That Leaves and Comes Back
Dick Hallorann, played by Scatman Crothers, gives Danny the vocabulary for what he can do and then goes to Florida for the winter. His line drops off the map entirely.
Then he turns around and travels back to Colorado, and the line re-enters near the end and stops almost immediately after it arrives. Nothing else on that print behaves that way.
Jack, Wendy and Danny run continuously from the interview onwards. Hallorann is a return journey, and on a transit map a return journey is very easy to read.
One more thing worth knowing before you buy: the map draws the film, not the novel. The hedge maze finale is Kubrick's, and it is on the print because it is in the film.
When the Orca Leaves Amity, Half the Map Stops
Jaws is really two films joined at one station. The first is a town arguing about money, with the council, the mayor and the beaches; the second is three men on a boat.
On the Jaws plot map that join is a single point, and everything belonging to Amity terminates there. Mayor Vaughn's line, which exists mainly to keep the beaches open, has nowhere to go once the Orca sails.
After that the map narrows to three: Brody, Hooper and Quint. It is the cleanest structural change in anything I have drawn from a film.
The Shark Has Fewer Stations Than People Remember
The mechanical shark gave Spielberg constant trouble on the water, so for long stretches of the 1975 film the threat is a floating barrel, a point of view shot and two notes from John Williams. The animal itself is barely on screen for the first hour.
That absence is visible when you plot it. People come to the print certain the shark is everywhere, and the early half of the map shows how rarely it actually appears.
This is the map for the person who has watched Jaws forty times and would enjoy being proved wrong about it.
What I Leave Off a Film Plot Map, and Why
These are key scenes, not every scene. A film has several hundred shots, and a map that tried to hold all of them would be a wall of type rather than something you can read from a metre away.
So a scene earns a station when it changes the story or brings a character in or out. A character earns a line when they run through the film rather than pass across one shot.
Sequels are not on these prints either. Jaws maps the 1975 film only, and The Shining maps Kubrick's 1980 film only, with no Doctor Sleep and no later instalments.
Choosing a Present: Which Map, Which Size, Which Finish
Go with The Shining for the viewer who reads about the film as much as they watch it, and who will stand close and follow Hallorann's line back from Florida. Go with Jaws for the one who can recite the Indianapolis speech.
On size, A2 (420 x 594mm) suits a hallway, a landing or a spot above a desk, and it reads well as an object across a room. A1 (594 x 841mm) is for someone who will stand in front of it and follow individual lines, because the station names are comfortable to read at that size.
Prices start at £42, every print is a Giclée on archival paper, and the black wood frame is optional. For a milestone birthday I would go A1 and framed.
What People Ask Me Before Buying a Horror Plot Map
Are there only two maps in this collection? Yes, The Shining and Jaws, with more horror titles in research. I would rather add one properly researched map a season than fill a collection out with films I have not sat down and plotted.
Do the maps spoil the films? They name key scenes, so yes, for anyone who has not seen them. Nobody buying these is meeting the films for the first time, but it is worth knowing if the print is going up in a shared room.
Is the artwork based on the film or the book? The film, in both cases. That matters most for The Shining, where the ending on the map is Kubrick's hedge maze rather than Stephen King's version of events.
What is not on these prints? Every minor scene, every walk on part, and anything from a sequel. On my music maps the same principle applies in a different form: those plot studio albums only, with live records and compilations left out by editorial rule.
Can I hang one next to a music map? Yes. They share the format, the paper and the sizes, so a film plot map and a discography map sit together without arguing.
What if the horror film they love is not here yet? Tell me which one. The research always starts the same way, with a notebook and a very slow rewatch.
Where to Start
Both prints are in the Horror Movie Plot Line Maps collection, and the science fiction equivalents, Blade Runner and Back to the Future, are in the Sci-Fi Movie Plot Line Maps collection.
If it is the format rather than the film that appeals, the Music Wall Art Prints collection applies the same drawing to discographies, and my guide to reading one of these maps explains how the lines and stations work.
Still torn between the hotel and the island? Tell me which one they quote more often. That is usually the answer.
