Properly Chilling but Disappointingly Cold

Rating: 6/10 (10 August 2012)

As a huge fan of the original Stephen King novel, I went into Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING with pretty high expectations. After all, this is THE quintessential scary movie, the film hailed as a masterpiece of horror, a brilliant and classic piece of cinematic awesome. And considering how much I loved the novel...
... You can guess where this is going, can't you?
Despite the obvious skill of both director and cast (well, most of the cast) THE SHINING falls flat both as a film and as an adaptation, succeeding to disturb the viewer but failing to deliver on any of the pathos or depth of character that was present in the novel. The film, like the book, doesn't outright scare so much as it builds tension to breaking point, forcing the invested viewer to the edge of their seats without them even realizing. However, by electing to ignore the more human aspects of the story, the film forgoes many opportunities, primarily with the characters. Where the novel made you sympathize deeply with the characters (thus making everything that happens to them that much more terrifying), the film almost immediately distances you from them.
I could go on for hours about how badly the individual characters were butchered, but let's keep it concise:

Novel!Wendy has a great deal of inner strength, is fiercely protective of her son, and though she tries to keep her family together she is not afraid to stand up to Jack when he goes too far. Movie!Wendy does nothing but shriek, cry, and lie back and take much of Jack's (early) verbal abuse with a quiet and terribly pathetic subservience.

Novel!Danny is a precocious and endearing child; intuitive, kind, strong, and very, VERY brave. Movie!Danny is irritating, dull, mumbles half his lines, and spends a great deal of the movie croaking "REDRUM!" like a particularly grating parrot.

Novel!Jack is a sympathetic (though deeply flawed) character who genuinely loves his wife and son and truly wants to fix their all-but broken life. This makes his eventual descent into madness both horrific and tragic. Movie!Jack is cold to his family from the get-go and seems ready to snap the moment he sets foot in the Overlook.

Though the film is definitely chilling and enjoyable, it lacks the novel's essential humanity and suffers for it. Kubrick's creepy but emotionless vision of THE SHINING sucks the life and pathos out of a very human horror story.