Artistic horror - worth seeing!

Rating: Null/10 (15 November 1999)

Kubrick's complex film about isolation and the lunacy following out of that is a chilling art movie. It leads right into the labyrinth of human soul. Wonderful are the usual slow backwards, forwards and horizontal camera motions. Lighting and colours are appointed in an exquisite way. Even the few bloodsheded scenes are artificial. No doubt, there is pure dread in these cold, symmetrical pictures. Danny, the little son knows that. He can see in his mind what happened at the Overlook hotel and he can also see what will happen soon, while his father turns slowly into a perilous amuck runner. Danny meets the murdered twin sisters at the long corridor. He also encounters a long time deceased and decayed old woman who attacks him. The sequence when his father is lookins after her in room 237 is absolutely horrible. The show-down in the maze is overwhelming. The only failing, I think, are the actors. Shelley Duvall is not always convincing and Jack Nicholson is too excessiv with his mimicry. But the music of György Ligeti, Béla Bartók, Krzysztof Penderecki and Wendy Carlos is a guaranty for additional shiver.