More an opaque gleam in Kubrick's eye

Rating: 7/10 (9 November 2009)

Jack Nicholson, Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick sounded a teaming to die for when announced in 1979. But King's straightforward horror premise has had to bear the burden of Kubrick's portentous cinematic self-importance.
Still, he builds up the atmosphere pretty well at the beginning with those majestic helicopter shots of the Rockies, and of the lonely hotel beset by winter silence, given even more eerie dissonant resonance by Bela Bartok's music.
The technical mastery, always Kubrick's forte, is there indoors, too. The immaculate camera-work (by John Alcott, who lensed 'Barry Lyndon'), with its severely symmetrical compositions and long flawless tracking shots, sets up the scenes superbly, especially when Nicholson meets or imagines the satanic bar-tender Lloyd.
The problem is that as the story progresses it becomes worryingly clear that Kubrick has no firm idea of how to direct a horror film. When it comes to actually delivering the shock moments, all he can manage is a quick melodramatic zoom-in to try and startle up scenes that just fail to exude the frisson intended (the first appearance of the twin girls, the word 'Redrum' on the mirror, the ghostly guest who says "Great party!", or the clunking flashback images of the butchered twins). And was anyone sitting in the director's chair when Nicolson indulged his ludicrous, eye-rolling "Little pigs, little pigs" moment?
Like virtually all of Kubrick films it's undeniably watchable. It's his most commercially successful film and, after shaky reviews, has gained a reputation as a genre milestone. Except it's really just an elaborate dead-end.