Reviews of The Shining

The shining example of horror.

Posted : 4 hours, 29 minutes ago on 10 November 2009 12:23 (A review of The Shining)

''Darling. Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just gonna bash your brains in. I'm gonna bash 'em right the fuck in. Ha, ha.''

A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.

Jack Nicholson: Jack Torrance

Shelley Duvall: Wendy Torrance

The Shining as soon as it begins, as soon as the music eerily plays and the landscape zooms in and past, you instantly know this is a piece by Kubrick. I mean it's so blindingly obvious.

The film is based on Stephen King's novel and the combination of Stanley Kubrick bringing it to life on the big screen, we have before us gold.
We get a boy who right from the off is made apparent he has a psychic gift and visions of things best not seen.
Danny Lloyd plays Danny Torrance with remarkable skill for a boy so young which is a wonder to behold.
Shelley Duvall who portrays Wendy really annoyed the hell out of me. I mean here we have this strange looking woman who delivers her lines in such a flimsy fashion, and I mean some of the clothes she wears are so distasteful it makes The Shining in areas a horror movie for all the wrong reasons. Her scared disposition is believable in parts though and she doesn't do a totally bad job.
Moving on to the main attraction of Shining and yes you have guessed it, it's Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance who steals the limelight and ultimately the show. He's so insanely nuts and off the chain, my humour called for me to laugh every single time he went psychopathic. I mean he totally captures and freezes onto frame the sheer madness of Jack's character. Whether it be visions from his mind perhaps of figures from the past or real supernatural influences from the Hotel, we are treated to his mind and left to make up our own conclusions. Are the figures real or merely part of his sub conscious being drawn out? It's definitely an excuse for discussion and Jack going completely ape is an excuse to re-watch this horror masterpiece.

''Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in. Not by the hair of your chiny-chin-chin? Well then I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in.''

The Shining features some of the most warped music which reminded me of the other greats of Kubrick like 2001 and Orange. The Cinematography especially the last scene in the dizzying maze and the start with the countryside being shown is virtually faultless.

Be it the creepy visions the boy has of past occurrences, rooms splashing with blood, or a pair of twins who were blatantly murdered by a previous caretaker. Be it Jack's spiraling maddened journey into the dark side, or his conversations with a surreal bar man who appears to be from the past and part of Jack's weathered conscience. Shining really shines as a masterful piece in the horror stakes and will remain a shining performance for Jack Nicholson and a directorial achievement for the late Kubrick.
The REDRUM and ''HERE'S JOHNNY!'' has become iconic and it's not hard to see why.

Overall I felt Shining is a work of genius that obviously will be replicated and copied by many more horror films trying to achieve the same shocking outcome but alas they all pale in comparison. The ending wasn't as bloodthirsty as I would of hoped, and the closing part with him in the picture wasn't totally understood by me. But the more I think about it, the cleverer it appears to be, like The Shining is telling me Jack has been consumed and become one with a Hotel and place that has buried an ancient angry foreboding embodiment of anger.

The shining grand achievement of Kubrick.

''Heeere's Johnny!''

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REDЯUM

Posted : 10 months ago on 14 January 2009 12:46 (A review of The Shining)

Nearly thirty years after we first saw Jack Nicholson hack his way through the toilet door, 'The Shining' continues to put the frighteners viewers old and new. I've watched this film a couple of times, and even though I now know exactly what's coming and where, it still sends an uneasy chill up my spine. It's downright disturbing, is what it is.

This timeless horror stars Nicholson as a struggling novelist who, along with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and their son Danny (Danny Lloyd), takes a job as winter caretaker in an apparently empty hotel. The fact that's it's the scene of a previous grisly murder and built on an Indian burial ground should set alarm bells ringing, but it seems there's only one person willing to point out how bad an idea the whole thing is. And that's Tony, the gruff-voiced "imaginary" friend who talks through Danny's finger. Suffice to say, they should all have listened to the kid's finger.

Nicholson's display in this is quite simply superb. His gradual descent into outright madness seems slightly unfounded, but there's a strange credibility to his performance that makes such logic seem almost irrelevant.

Director Stanley Kubrick but brings to the story his own brand of visual perfection. Long shots down endless corridors underline the sheer size of the hotel, whilst rapid cuts to an increasing array of ghostly apparitions are unnerving in a way few films have been able to match since.

If Kubrick's intention is to unsettle the viewer, then his film's got its objective down to a tee. The film is riddled with perplexities yet taking your eyes off it is virtually impossible.

One of the horror genre's finest, this isn't a film to watch if you're about to spend the winter alone in a hotel Full of ghosts and axes.



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"All Work & No Play...."

Posted : 1 year, 3 months ago on 4 August 2008 03:31 (A review of The Shining)

First of all, I'm always partial to Stanley Kubrick. IMO, he tends to make movies that are an inch away from being abstract beyond understanding, but keeps the flow of the film reeled in just enough to make seem like it makes sense on some kind of creative level. Add in the grounding of a Stephen King story & a role taylor made for Jack Nicholson, & what you have is one of my top favorite horror movies of all time. And with very little slashing, gore, or shock that most films of this genre (especially today) tend to rely on in order to frighten their audiences. The horror stems more from Jack's delivery & facial expressions as his character, writer Jack Torrance, gradually slips into the madness of a haunted hotel's dark intentions.
The phrase "Here's Johnny!" wouldn't be a very scary line at all if it weren't for Jack's maniacal mug peering thru the door's craggled "peephole", freshly smashed thru by the axe-wielding author who suffers from writer's block & a possesed spirit, not to mention from a severe case of "redrum" on his mind.




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a classic

Posted : 1 year, 4 months ago on 14 June 2008 12:24 (A review of The Shining)

A most satisfying horror-thriller, with some of the best actors. Shelley Duvall's character is annoying, but the cast is perfect. Some scenes are truly terrifying and that is what makes this movie remarkable.
Definitely Kubrick's best work.


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The Shining

Posted : 1 year, 9 months ago on 1 February 2008 04:04 (A review of The Shining)

From the very title scene I liked it. The aerial shots with brilliant camera and haunting music..
The casting is perfect 10/10. Though i hated Shelley Duvall at the beginning, she and the kid wins it.
the favourite scenes are the long shots of the kid's ride through the lobby and Duvall's discovery of her husband's incredible work!
and of course Jack getting angry at her. wow this movie is one of the best horror -thriller ever

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Heeeeeere's Johnny!

Posted : 1 year, 9 months ago on 27 January 2008 09:07 (A review of The Shining)

Kubrick at his finest, Nicholson at his finest. What else could anyone want? This version of Stephen King's book has almost nothing to do with it. And that's one of the best things about the film.

In 1997 King did a remake with many more elements of the book, and the film is a sleeper. I had to watch it like four different times to get through it.

Anyway, I'm not here today to write about the 1997 version, but Kubrick's version. Which is much more worthy.

The story is about Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) an unemployed writer who gets a temporary job as the caretaker of a summer-time hotel, during the winter. All alone up there with his wife, Wendy (Shelly Duvall) and his son, Danny (Danny Lloyd) as time goes by the father begins going crazy because of the solitude and also that he can't work on his book.

Kubrick with his masterful direction makes everything about the Overlook Hotel scary, even when Wendy and Danny are playing in the garden, shortly before the snow falls.

One little thing that bothers me is that the film answers a question that I feel could remain without an answer: Are the ghosts that Jack sees all over the hotel real or not?

But this doesn't compromise at all the film. It is supposed to be scary and it is. Kubrick-like scary, what makes it so much better.

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Horror classic

Posted : 2 years, 2 months ago on 24 August 2007 04:00 (A review of The Shining)

Does this film really need a review? I mean, it's The Shining! Everyone has seen it, right? And if you haven't whats wrong, why aren't you running to the video store to buy it? It's certainly Stephen King's best adaptation, but I think it is not because of King himself (who hated this version, and was determined to re-make a more true-to-book version several years after this one). The real reason it shines is because the genius Kubrick was at the helm.

If you think about it, not much happens in terms of 'horror', but this film is terrifying simply from the atmosphere and well filmed scenes. The intro is one of the best in any film, showing a car driving down a winding road with majestic mountains everywhere, which that tense classic piece playing. It really sets the tone and gives a sense of just how remote this hotel is.

This is by far my favorite Nicholson performance; he played a family man that decends into madness absolutely without a fault.

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