creepiness that haunts

Rating: 8/10 (17 October 2014)

Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is a former teacher trying to do some writing. He gets a job to watch the Overlook Hotel for the winter with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and child Danny. Danny has an imaginary friend and premonitions of future horrors. The family arrives at the hotel just as it is closing up. Danny continues to have visions. The chef Dick Hallorann is able to communicate with Danny telepathically. Dick calls this 'shining'. Danny asks about room 237 and Dick tells him to stay out. A month later, Jack's writing is going nowhere and he's growing more distance.
As a horror, this is not scary. It doesn't make you turn away from the screen. There is not a thrilling drama or an exciting action movie. This is simply art and nothing less. Director Stanley Kubrick is impeccable in his vision. It imparts a mood of foreboding. There is a feeling of wrongness about every scene of this movie. It makes the audience uneasy. There is a creepiness that haunts.