Directed by:
Stanley KubrickCinematography:
John AlcottCast:
Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson, Philip Stone, Joe Turkel, Anne Jackson, Tony Burton, Lia Beldam, Vivian Kubrick (more)VOD (5)
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Frustrated writer Jack Torrance takes a job as the winter caretaker at the ominous, mountain-locked Overlook Hotel so that he can write in peace. When he arrives there with his wife and son, they learn that the previous caretaker had gone mad. Slowly Jack becomes possessed by the evil, demonic presence in the hotel. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (13)
The excellent minimalist soundtrack couldn't be better, and some scenes, especially the bathroom scene and the boy's vision of dismembered children in the hotel corridor, are truly horrifying, but I still have some reservations. Jack Nicholson, as excellent as he is, overacts disgustingly in some scenes; if that's the director's intention, I didn't quite get it. And Shelley Duvall, as she runs around the hotel with a knife in her hand, tries to play scared, but you can see in her face that she's not very good at it. But these are just tiny blemishes on the beauty of the whole.
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Typical Stanley Kubrick. There is not a single moment in this film that is not part of the elaborate mosaic of a psychological labyrinth. Everything is perfectly timed and fluid, with the camera moving most of the time at right angles and in parallel with the walls of the stereotypical hotel. There isn’t a single note in the music that isn't necessary. It’s creative and musical minimalism of the coarsest grain, perfectly enhancing the oppressive feeling of the empty setting in which the story takes place. We don’t just watch Jack Nicholson as a movie character, but we become him thanks to Kubrick’s visually naturalistic directorial approach. As in Nicholson’s character, nervousness builds up within us until we fear what we would be capable of if we were in his shoes. It’s almost impossible to give The Shining the “horror” label, which belongs to ordinary horror movies for genre entertainment. And though it’s a shame that its coldness and precise calculation don’t allow me to experience the story of the main characters in any way different from what Kubrick intended, I’m giving The Shining a full five-star rating. I respect the depersonalised path that Kubrick took, because I'll find something new in this madness with every viewing.
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Incredibly chilling. When you watch one of today’s would-be horrors, you can’t not be shocked at what’s happened. Fear doesn’t come from cheap surprises, but from the stifling atmosphere that pushes the hero over the brink of madness. Is it the filmmakers or the viewers who are to blame? The drive-bys on the tricycle and the visit to room no. 237 are terrifying in their very essence (loneliness, vulnerability) and not because a ghoul jumps out at you. Nicholson is great, a little weird right from the beginning, but still sufficiently natural. The wife in her simplicity is “normal" most of the time, but visually looks very strange, to say the least. Unlike in the book, Danny is demoted from the main role to child medium full of fear, but paradoxically it didn’t bother me much. It works perfectly in Kubrick’s hands. The blood in the elevator is super, the finale in the maze excellently executed. Maybe better than with the boiler.
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This is quite nice. However, I don't feel like Jack has done his best here. Something missing from his highlights from The Witches of Eastwick or Wolf. On the other hand, King adaptations can be absolute hell. And this one got a great Simpsons parody, and it's got the name of the anointed one inscribed in the crest.
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I'm sure I'd have liked it a lot more if I didn't have to watch it in two parts (after about an hour of watching it, my roommate couldn't take it and we had to turn it off and put on HIMYM); the next day the atmosphere was gone, so I kind of thought about it, rolled my eyes, and gave it 5 stars. But maybe it wasn't really there after all, it just ended in kind of a lackluster way, and at the exact moment the black guy called, I told myself he was going to go there and get slaughtered. Yup, and that’s exactly how it turned out... I would have given it the 4 stars for the psycho music, for Jack, who at the beginning looked like he was from the Bohnice Insane Asylum, and for that bloody hallway, but as I mentioned I closed one eye (and plugged up one nostril, but you don't need to know that) and was giving it the damn 5 stars. I guess it's because I live over a cat cemetery. Nah – I opened my eyes, looked again, and it's still just 4 stars.
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