This is supposed to be scary!!???

Rating: Null/10 (18 August 2001)

I was very disappointed with this movie. I had read the original novel about 8 years ago and never got around to seeing Kubrick's much ballyhooed film--until just the other night. It's been well-documented that Stephen King wasn't all too pleased with Kubrick's portrayal of his book. I don't blame him. I tried to see the movie as a separate piece from the book and tried to judge it on its own merits. I came away scratching my head and thinking "Is this supposed to be chilling and frightening?" I think it's funny to read all the Kubrick sheep proclaiming this movie to be a masterpiece of not only horror but of cinema in general. Their attempts at trying to find symbolism and an artistic edge throughout Kubrick's "brilliant" direction amuses me. There are some good directorial techniques but they weren't effective in portraying the overall feel of doom for the main characters that King did through his prose. Kubrick's direction aside, the acting is atrocious. Maybe I've been ruined by all the mimicked/cliched Nicholson lines over the years but he never instilled any type of fear in me. All I got was dark humor. I can also see why Shelly Duvall went from doing this to Popeye and then to obscurity. My biggest gripe is that I never felt scared and that's essential in a movie based on a King horror novel. The only slightly scary scenes involved the two little girls hassling Danny on his Big-Wheel pedaling around the Overlook. Very underwhelming...