Creepy Hotels

The Shining by Stephen King really spooked me. If you don't remember the movie, it is about a writer and his family who work as caretakers for a haunted hotel during the winter. In one particularly scary scene, the little boy rides his Big Wheel down a long, dark corridor only to encounter a pair of ghostly twin girls.

I was traveling recently and it occurred to me how many hotel corridors resemble the one in The Shining. It doesn't matter whether it is the Mirage in Las Vegas or the Candlewood Suites in Beaumont, but hotels tend to go for long, dimly-lit corridors with dark carpets. If it is night and the long, dark corridor is devoid of other guests, you halfway expect to see a ghost. It may be that hotels are trying to save energy or perhaps they want to create a calming influence, but it seems rare that hotels go for bright, cheerful hallways.