Last Year at the Overlook

Rating: 10/10 (13 August 2006)

The Shining is Stanley Kubrick's only horror film and one of his very best. The movie is based upon the Stephen King novel by the same name and tells the story of a struggling writer – Jack Torrance who moves with his wife – Wendy and son - Danny to an eerie hotel in the middle of nowhere as winter caretakers. While Jack gradually descends into madness, Danny starts having visions of the hotel's horrifying past and of even more terrifying events that will happen in a near future. From the opening scene of Jack's car travelling alone in the mountains, with the haunting Dies Irae remix by Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind, you know you are in for a scary yet beautiful experience. You may ask how can a horror film be beautiful? It is a fact that only a few movies were able to do "beautiful horrors", most notably, Georges Franju's "Les Yeux sans Visage", Dario Argento's "Suspiria" and Mario Bava's "Black Sunday". Not only masterfully directed by a movie genius, the film also counts with marvelous acting from the four leads actors: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duval, Danny Lloyd and Scatman Crothers. But also, you must take note that the hotel itself is a very important, if not, the most important character in the movie. While watching The Shining we – the audience become the very eyes of the Overlook Hotel, who watch every step of those inside it's walls. We must also congratulate Lisa and Louise Burns who plays the ghostly twins, and which if they were not in the film, it wouldn't be that scary. But then again, how great is an actor without a great director behind him? According to several interviews with the cast and crew, Stanley made the actors near the edge, most likely Mrs. Duval, who plays the wife Wendy, so that the hysteria and desperate scenes would seem realistic, and well, it really was worth the hard work. The Shining is a film that must stand up there with classics such as Citizen Kane, Rear Window, 2001 and Casablanca. It's not a mere horror film, it's not for everyone, it's a true classic that even many years from now, while some will be forgotten in time, will remain.