Family man, are ya, Grady?

Rating: 10/10 (4 November 2009)

With this many comments, it's doubtful if this one will ever be seen. The Shining, I believe, is one of the most terrifying movies ever made because it incorporates weirdness as well as a sense of physical and psychological threat. Yes, Wendy may be miscast; sure, she delivers her lines like she's reading them off a matchbook cover ("Over") But Jack Nicholson...holy cow! That lobotomy stare from Cuckoo's Nest, the claustrophobic feel to the whole thing. But my reason for writing this was to bring attention to something I never noticed in past viewings. The butler Grady was done before, although not in quite so threatening a manner, in the Spencer Tracy version of Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde. If Stephen King or Stanley Kubrick didn't have that movie in the back of their minds (right down to dialog "if I may be so bold as to suggest it, sir") I'll miss my guess. Seriously, check it out at your video store or Netflix, it virtually jumped out at me! The TV remake of this movie didn't even come close, and I've always preferred the Kubrick ending to "then everything blew up. The End", which, let's face it, is how most King novels wind up.