"Here's Johnny!!"

Rating: 10/10 (17 July 2001)

What he did for science fiction with 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, Stanley Kubrick did for horror with THE SHINING; he made a film that got people talking. Adapting Stephen King's superlative book, though changing it considerably, Kubrick made what I have always believed is one of the best horror films ever.
Jack Nicholson is at his maniacal best as Jack Torrence, a failed writer who takes on the job of winter caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, located high in the Colorado Rockies. He is advised by the hotel manager (Barry Nelson) that the big requirement for the job is that the person who takes it on should be able to handle five to six months of absolute isolation. One past caretaker couldn't, and went insane, killing his wife and two daughters with a hatchet, and himself with a shotgun.
Nicholson nevertheless takes on the job, and brings his wife (Shelley Duvall) and son (Danny Lloyd) up there with him for company. But Lloyd, blessed (or cursed) with extrasensory powers (the "shining"), is acutely aware of the Overlook's inherent evil, embodied in his mind by the ghosts of the two girls, and in Nicholson's ever-crumbling mind by a sinister barman named Lloyd (Joe Turkel). And once the winter snows shut the Torrence family in, these elements combine with isolation and claustrophobia to turn Nicholson into an axe-wielding maniac.
Shot primarily on one vast soundstage in England, THE SHINING has some of the most awesome cinematography and production design ever made for a horror movie. The camera work (using the Steadicam, one of its first uses ever) is incredible. Kubrick's choice of music is also very savvy: dissonant works by Bela Bartok, Gyorgy Ligeti, and, most ominously, Krzysztof Penderecki really give the film is epic sense of terror. And of course, no one can ever forget Nicholson's celebrated "Here's Johnny!!" during his final rampage.
But perhaps the best shot in the film, and one of the pivotal moments in horror history, is of the torrent of blood spilling out of the hotel's elevators in slow motion, punctuated by the avant-garde rumblings of Penderecki's music. It is one of the best scenes of its type since the shower murder in PSYCHO, and Kubrick should be commended for such a feat.
Note to all book-versus-film folks out there: While the film and book versions of THE SHINING differ considerably, the basic structure of the novel is still in place. I myself liked the book AS A BOOK, and I like the movie AS A MOVIE. This is why I'd give THE SHINING a "10" rating.