THE SHINING

The Shining
Dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1980
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081505/
Reviewed by: Chase

Synopsis: The Shining finds Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) recently out of work and struggling to become a writer. Jack is unexpectedly offered a temporary job as caretaker of an isolated Colorado hotel during the winter. His meek and loyal wife Wendy (a flailing, delicate Shelley Duvall) agrees and soon Jack, Wendy and their son Danny move to the Outlook Hotel. In the quiet and desolate emptiness of winter, Jack begins to unravel and when evil forces begin taking control of Jack and the hotel, the son, Danny's mysterious telepathic abilities--aka The Shining--may be their only hope of survival.

Review: The last time I saw The Shining it was a sunny afternoon in October of 1999. I was a middle school-er at a Halloween party with a pack of giggly girls, and we were buzzin' on Mountain Dew and Skittles. Needless to say, the experience was about as scary as a pile of fluffy kittens. For years now, I've felt I owed it to myself, as a self-labeled film buff and connoisseur of the horror genre, to revisit this Stephen King classic.

Stanley Kubrick has turned out a classic film or two in his time. To many, he epitomizes fearless film making. None more fearless, and potentially disastrous than perhaps "The Shining". Based on a 500+ page Stephen King novel, anchored on three central performances (one being a child, one being Nicholson's crazy eyes, and the other being... Ms. Duvall.), shot in an isolated mountain resort, and tackling some pretty twisted material, it could have easily been a convoluted mess of cheap thrills. Thankfully, that isn't the case.

The film, in short, is masterful. It's long (146 minutes), slow and plodding, but never dull. Kubrick implements some pretty incredible film making techniques to capture the vastness of the Overlook Hotel, yet somehow gives the film a undeniable sense of claustrophobia. His use of tracking shots--long, slow traveling shots--following the characters across spacious rooms or tailing them through narrow hallways are ground-breaking film making.

Nicholson's gradual transformation from conflicted patriarch to ax-wielding lunatic is chilling. His most iconic movie moment of possibly his entire career comes near the end of the film and was actually improvised by Nicholson while filming. Duvall's reaction blurs performance and true terror.

So it's a technical marvel, full iconic imagery (the twins! a sea of blood spilling from the elevators! icky corpse lady in the tub!), performances and dialogue ("Heeeeeere's Johnny!"), but is it scary? Hell yeah. The opening shots of windy roads and beautiful mountainous landscapes are underlain with a dissonant musical score that immediately put knots in my stomach. The scares are perfectly paced, starting with the films subtle moodiness and sense of foreboding, and eventually become down-right bone chilling at the one hour mark. It isn't until about 120 minutes into the movie that Kubrick goes for broke and really lays on the scares (or the crazy).

80s horror movies were a mixed bag; many were absolute crap, while some were instant genre classics. The Shining is most certainly one of the latter.

Rating: 9/10
Scare Scale: Bone chilling