The Shining

I love it when a film takes me away for two hours and lets me wander in an unpredictable labyrinth of cinephile perfection, and in the end exhausts and decimates me emotionally and psychically. The Shining is the only film in my life that can fully do that several times. It’s no wonder that King doesn’t like this masterpiece, Kubrick is a visionary of such style that he playfully surpasses the narrative value and power of an otherwise great book, and he does it “only” with carefully built interiors and a minimalist staging of a space that is arranged in detail and expressively connected to the different perspectives of the three protagonists. What is reality and what is fantasy? Is the deranged Jack an instigator or an unfortunate victim? What do all those carefully constructed events represent and symbolise? Kubrick gives clues, ambiguously and cunningly, to constantly draw the viewer into a seemingly depersonalised world and at the same time force them to experience the simple story of the characters. The Shining is an incredibly complex product by a genius who likes to hide and wrap meanings, but also knows how to narrate with the intensity of a monsoon storm and entertain the viewer with an iconic direction of the scenes and the actors, who are exposed to the bone – Jack Nicholson delivers what’s probably his most amazing performance and he actually carries most of the film’s meaning. I strongly recommend to watch the shorter, 114 minute version, the longer one has redundant scenes that explain things for the dumber part of the audience and lack filmmaking zest. (17/11/2018)

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. (11/11/2003)

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. (01/04/2013)

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. (18/01/2011)

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. (10/05/2016)