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| 1408 (83%) |
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| Stephen King's The Shining (70%) |
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| The Number 23 (69%) |
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| The Changeling (62%) |
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| A Nightmare on Elm Street 5 - The Dream Child (33%) |
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Plot:
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 lear...( read more 
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The Shining Recent Reviews
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Recent Reviews
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MCT:November 21, 2008
I thought this was very stylish but not frightening in the way I expected. I guess I expected more from Kubrick.
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MCT:November 18, 2008Easily the best Kubrick flick.
All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.
All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. -
MCT:November 17, 2008
yr dead rajan, this movie is not scary!!! it only has potential :)) wel, was loads of fun to watch at chetana's house!!
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MCT:November 13, 2008'The Shining' is one of the finest horror films ever made, and one of Stanley Kubrick's most amazing achievements (however there was many more). It was the only horror movie Kubrick ever made, which may be positive on our part; because he was always motivated by a style that seldom had seen reproduction from other filmmakers, this allows one to look at the product from a neutral perspective, canceling out all standard comparisons to other horror movies, especially those that were also tailored from Stephen King novels (although King himself thinks Kubrick's adaptation of his novel was butchery, for some reason?). To say that the picture is one of a kind is accurate, but one in a million feels even more appropriate. It is in that small handful of the scariest horror movies ever made, and it distances itself from the typical 'slasher' genre, which is now very tiring, because no remake in made in the 2000s can beat out the original 1970s/1980s version.
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MCT:November 6, 2008
Stanley Kubrick, you bastard. You took the best, most chilling work of Stephen King's entire oeuvre and, through your detatched camera style and flat color palette, reduced it to a nearly two-and-a-half hour case study of mood. I've never been much of a fan of the works of Stanley Kubrick (I think Eyes Wide Shut kind of got me started on the wrong foot), and I'll admit that my earliest impressions of this, his adaptation of the Shining, weren't informed by an appreciation of the workings of his style; but while the Shining does have a spooky atmosphere (bolstered by the discordant, atonal music and a great deal of sound editing) and it even makes good use of jarring visual jumps in place of the unusual narrative play of the novel, it is also filled with long stretches of dullness, distracting camera work, and excessive overacting. Ultimately, it never goes beyond the realm of unsettling and into the realm of terrifying. The film is about Jack Torrence, a former teacher and aspiring writer who is hired on as a live-in caretaker for the massive Overlook Hotel, a mountain retreat nestled high in the Rockies. Along with his wife Wendy and young son Danny, Jack moves into the hotel for the whole of winter, secluded from any contact with another human being by twenty-five miles of snowed-in highway. But the Overlook has a dark history, and that darkness lingers in its corridors, waiting to be discovered; slowly Jack succumbs to its allure, slipping closer and closer to madness, until the last hope for the splintering family may rest with Danny's special gift- a psychic ability to see into the past... and the future. Front and center of this production is Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrence, loving husband and father turned axe-wielding psycho; Nicholson famously raises over-acting to an art form with this wild, often animalistic performance. I find it disconcerting that the character is presented here as irredeemable and acerbic even before his exposure to the hotel; it seems to me that Jack Torrence never really was a decent person- the hotel just brings out the worst in him at full-force. Further strengthening this impression is Shelley Long's performance as Wendy Torrence, a template for a battered wife if there ever was one, who slowly slides from her standard mousy nervousness into screaming, bug-eyed hysteria through the course of the film. I can't really blame her for going as far as she does- Kubrick's disconnected visual style demands compensation from its actors for the coldness of its frame- but near the end of the film it sort of twists into a sick joke as the story tosses one overplayed horror after another at her, forcing her to keep reacting even as she starts running out of steam. Stuck between the two of them is Danny, played by a strikingly unemotive Danny Lloyd, who, despite moments of believable terror, is about as flat of a child actor as they come, speaking in disinterested monotone even during the more dramatic scenes and forced to do an "evil voice" (while wiggling his finger in time with his words, of course) to play his ominous imaginary friend in a way that we can see and hear. I guess he does okay, considering his age, but the character sort of takes me out of the film at times. Even weirder at times is the portrayal of Dick Halloran, as played by Scatman Crothers, who bounces between avuncular nice guy and black-man stereotype more than once during the film. I know it's just part of the construction of his character, but it's just damn bizarre to see the camera pull back from a close-up of him in his bed to squeeze a portrait of a naked black woman with an afro into the frame behind him. Is that necessary? I guess it tells you something about his character, but it seemed more like a joke than an actual bit of relevant storytelling. Other than that, though, Scatman does just fine as Halloran, with the wee exception of getting an AXE IN THE STOMACH just when he bursts in to save the day (in the book, the same thing happens, but with a croquette mallet instead of an axe, and he manages to help the remaining Torrences escape). The score is minimalist and kind of extreme when it actually kicks in, playing off the themes from Psycho a bit when the horror kicks up. The lighting is cold and dull, I guess emphasizing the coldness of the hotel and its surroundings, and as I mentions before, the shots are all still and objective, framing the tiny figures of the characters within the immensity of the hotel to make them seem more fragile (despite a few moments where a ridiculously quick zoom or pan is used, which always looks cheap and corny, like a remnant of seventies television). The editing does have its moments, particularly during Danny's visions, which are presented as soundless jump-cuts to shots of abject horror. Overall, if you are willing to accept the film on its own terms, there is a lot to be had from this movie, and I'll admit that I enjoy it more now that I know where its distinctive style is coming from than I did when I simply took it at face value. It's nothing like the book it's based on, unfortunately- King and Kubrick constructed their tales on diametrically opposed premises, with King advocating the presence of real ghosts in the Overlook while Kubrick saw them more as a manifestation of the growing psychosis and abusiveness of Jack Torrence, a physical realization of cabin fever and insanity- but as an entity unto itself, the Shining is a great work of cinematic ingenuity... even if it is a little overdone.
Comments
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Juliaistoocoolposted 130 days ago -
could some-body please explain the ending of this to me ........what was the deal with him being in the photograph ??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????????
posted 146 days ago -
REDRUM REDRUM. (People have gotten jack nicholsons face from the movie poster tattooed on them.Thats how good this movie is)
posted 159 days ago -
I see that the short version of this film has just been reissued on DVD in the UK again. What a wasted opportunity. And who cares what Stephen King thinks or doesn't think about Kubrick's "The Shining"? As far as I'm concerned, he forfeited the right to complain about lousy adaptations of his work when he directed one of the worst: "Maximum Overdrive".
posted 249 days ago -
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Stephen King may be a talented writer, but he is an IDIOT for saying that his version of The Shinning, which aired on I believe it was the Sci-Fi Channel, is scarier than the original. He probably felt chaffed that he didn't have the artistic control over the movie, which I heard he didn't want & gave up willingly when he signed the rights to the book over to the studio, but he grew disenfranchised with it over time.
This is a MUCH scarier and better version than the thing that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel!posted 303 days ago -
i love this movie! couldn't take a bath again for a while. I was really young when i watched this film.
posted 315 days ago -
Well,its one of my favorite movies,but just if you dont relate it with Stephen Kings book,Kubrick changed almost everything!!! the characters are great,but if you read the book at first and you are a King´s fan...you can hate the movie.
posted 384 days ago -
if you like the shining have a look at this - it's very funny and the guy doing jack is amazing.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=bZVhXxzzG58posted 443 days ago -
Amazing. Along with Clockwork Orange And 2001: Oddisey... The best of Kubrick. Different from the book, a lot. But I'm not comparing, I'm saying that, as a movie, is simply a classic, and one of the best. With Misery and It, the best movies bassed on King's movies.
posted 464 days ago
