How to confuse a shallow mind.

Rating: 4/10 (8 September 2014)

I believe the perfect way to describe The Shining is to describe Stanley Kubrick. He is a man with vision and original ideas, but he lacks a purpose. While The Shining aims to be a horror movie, and by the way, fails in that miserably, in my eyes, it takes the worst and most typical horror movie route. That's not necessarily bad, but.
There is always a mystery and the great unknown behind horror movies. This is what The Shining builds up in an impressive manner. The sole terminology and amount of mysteries and mystery elements leads the viewer to think all this build up will lead to an epic conclusion where the great reveal finally tells us what is going on, why is Jack getting insane, why does the boy see those things, who is Tony, what are these shining people and will the black man die first. Nope. Instead we are shown scenes where ghost sets Jack free from the stockroom because that's the only way for him to get out, okay? He needs to get out so he gets out. Of course that is never explained. And this leads to the biggest problem with the story. Nothing is ever explained. "Too many answers will just ruin it." Yeah? I see this as nothing but a terrible excuse for a lousy storytelling and lack of brains since there was hardly anything to get beyond what was told.
The loose ends, unanswered questions and all the other spooky stuff that was in the movie just to make it more spooky and mysterious are, in a one word; cheap. And with few more words; a waste of potential. I guess many of us have seen a meme picture of a dog sitting on an airplane, it looks like the dog is flying it and then there is a text "I have no idea what I am doing." When I imagine Stanley Kubrick directing this film, I recall that picture. I see him behind the camera, the cast, the hotel, the stairs and a text "I have no idea what I am doing" and that's what we call The Shining. Not that the story was even the biggest problem, nor that the ending scene makes no sense due this not being a movie about Jack, but the characters and the sounds too. From this point on, I will act like there are no loose ends, and the story telling and plot is flawless, and I will get into why this movie is bad solely because of it other merits.
In the beginning, I mentioned this failing miserably to be a horror film. The sounds will kill the theme quicker than Kubrick creates a loose end. (This is a joke, so I did not lie 2 sentences ago). I find it incredibly hard to get in the horror mood when the "music" can be described as wheezing. One thing they did miraculously well; they captured the feeling of tinnitus. Seriously, when you hear sounds like that, you go to the doctor and wish for the best. Then suddenly my bass is yelling, I hear the exact sound C-Class horror movies use when jump-scare scene is executed. What does this movie do with a sounds like that? They show us a black frame with a text "Thursday" in it. I ask myself, "Do these guys take this movie as a joke?" but I do not know the answer. I am not sure if these sounds are supposed to be spooky and scary, create atmosphere even, but one thing they do is remind you that you are sitting on your sofa and that you can always turn down the volume because it is just a ridiculously bad sound directing in a movie.
Now, let's get to my favorite part. The cast. Jack Nicholson, what a bastard, I love him. But I see The Shining as his worst acting, not even acting, a role. He looks insane in every single picture that was ever taken of him. How is a man who looks insane a suitable person to be character in a movie where the character changes from your average fellow to a completely insane psycho? Well, he is not. He was a bad pick. I can only say that this is not the story it was supposed to be. There is good acting too. Shelley Duvann does an amazing job acting out a dull retard. Then a question. Who likes dull retard characters? This movie is her story, her family goes insane, she is in the middle of it all, she experience the horror. Then a second question. Why should we give a damn about what happens to a retard like her?
This leads us to final and one of the biggest elements I am going to analyze. The kid. He is shining, he hears Tony, he can contact other shining, he is the reason why Jack does anything, he sees the horror, glimpses of past, future and future past, he is everything this movie is about. He drives the story towards the truth behind the hotel and towards everything this movie is. But what is he exactly? He is called a plot element. This is not a bad thing in my eyes, I think it is great. What is bad is what he wasn't. Imagine with me. He makes Jack shining, he makes Tony talk to Johnny, he resolves Jack's humanity, he is the one who experiences the horror while being the horror itself. After this the movie ends the same way, but now it has changed to a story about Jack who was inflicted by the horror of the kid and Tony. Instead we get an ending where Kubrick is basically saying, "Since we don't know how to end this movie, let's insert bunch of stuff which makes it look deep." Cop-out. That's how you confuse a shallow mind.