Jack (Jack Nicholson) is a writer. One winter, he got an errand to look after the Hilltop Hotel. This was exactly what Jack meant, as he could have a quiet place to write. So Jack moved into the hotel with his wife and children. In winter, the road was closed by heavy snow, and there were only Jack's family of three in the Hilltop Hotel. As soon as they moved in, Jack's wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) found the atmosphere here strange, and Jack's son Danny (Danny Lloyd) often saw some people he didn't know, but there was no one else here except their family. In addition to writing all day, Jack's temper became more and more weird. Until one day, Wendy found that her husband had been writing only one sentence these days: Jack is crazy!