A real chore to sit through!

Rating: 1/10 (9 January 2009)

I never did understand the appeal of this terrible movie. Mind you, I could probably say the same about most movies directed by Stanley Kubrick. He is one of those directors who produces very long, boring movies that move at a snail's pace and are really difficult to withstand for more than a few minutes at a time. Movies such as 2001: A SPACE ODYESSY, DR. STRANGELOVE and SPARTACUS are examples of this kind of movie.
As many other commenters have pointed out, Stephen King didn't like this movie because it was not faithful to the book. In fact he hates it so much that 15 years or so after, he made his own movie entitled STEPHEN KING'S THE SHINING. I've never seen the other version. But anything with his name attached is normally worth watching so I'll at least make the effort to track it down. It really couldn't be any worse than this tripe churned out by Stanley Kubrick.
I've heard THE SHINING being referred to as "scary", "terrifying", "masterpiece", "classic", "thrilling", "horrifying" and so on. Yeah right! This movie does not even come close to producing anything equating to those words. The only horrifying thing about it is how it became so popular.
Where can I start with the problems of this movie? Let's start with Jack Nicholson. I thought Jack Nicholson was great as The Joker in Tim Burton's BATMAN, but in this he doesn't even seem to be acting. He plays a character who is supposed to become insane as the story progresses. Yet it is very clear from Jack's first scenes that his character has already "got a few screws loose". And that stupid "Here's Johnny!" line. Was it supposed to be scary? Funny? What? Who knows? It was just downright stupid as far as I'm concerned. Yeah I know it was a reference to Johnny Carson, but what's Johnny Carson got to do with this movie? The answer: absolutely nothing at all.
And Shelley Duvall. What can I say about her? She looks like Olive Oyl from the POPEYE cartoons. How ridiculous! Somehow the viewer is expected to believe that her character and Jack are married with a kid. Yeah right! There is no chemistry between the two actors at all.
Finally, Scatman Crothers. I have great respect for this actor. He appeared in TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE and it was one of the very dull segments. Yet his superb performance gave it credibility and the story touched upon my emotions. In THE SHINING, however, Mr. Crothers is there just to be killed and I don't suppose he was bothered about his character being killed off considering how lame the movie is. It was probably just a paycheck used to pay off a few debts. And the ridiculous thing is that the character in question never dies in the book.
I honestly can't believe that people think this movie is better than classics such as THE EXORCIST, THE OMEN and THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. But yet this movie has a higher IMDb rating and is sitting very comfortably on the top 250 chart. Nonetheless, that won't alter the fact that the three mentioned movies put THE SHINING to shame any day.
Stephen King's SALEM'S LOT was infinitely superior to this movie. Personally I think the director of that movie, Tobe Hooper, should have been asked to direct THE SHINING. We would have had an infinitely superior movie. Trust me. I've seen plenty of Mr. Hooper's movies and he very rarely fails to disappoint. THE FUNHOUSE was a low point of Mr. Hooper's career but even that movie looks like Oscar-worthy material compared to THE SHINING.
Overall, I would not recommend this at all. I've not seen STEPHEN KING'S THE SHINING, so I can't really recommend it just yet. But, I would recommend checking out some proper horror movies such as SALEM'S LOT, PSYCHO, THE EXORCIST, THE OMEN, THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE just to name a few.