Relentlessly scary...

Rating: Null/10 (28 November 1999)

"The Shining" is (I think) the very first movie directed by Kubrick that I ever saw. I can't say I've ever looked back. There is little to tie all of Kubrick's films together - one of the greatest things I admired about him was his ability to triumph in a number of different genres. And this is certainly a triumph of horror.
"The Shining" is the only movie that really makes me scared any more - and it doesn't get any easier each time I watch it. The atmosphere is so intense, it will leap out of the film and invade your house. When you leave the cinema, or stop the video recorder, you will look at everything around you very differently. When I saw the movie a couple of years ago, and I had a live-in job at a hotel, I could not help but shiver as I wandered through the corridors late at night to check the fire doors and so on. It is a film you will never forget.
What's clever is that Kubrick deftly manages to avoid making you sympathise with any character - you feel sorry for Shelley Duvall, certainly, but you can also see why Jack Nicholson might find her so irritating. Scatman Crothers as Mr. Halloran is also an interesting character, although his position in the film is one open to debate: is he there to symbolize hope? To provide the kid with the knowledge of his powers and that he is not alone?
Classic scene follows classic scene; when you think it can't get tenser, it does; when you think the images and sound can't unnerve you any more, they will - this is a film that constantly surprises, shocks and genuinely frightens. Strange, then, that Stephen King - who wrote the book on which the film is based) should dislike the film so much (he once famously stated that Kubrick knew nothing about horror). The acting is good - Nicholson as the questionably mad/possessed/tortured author, Duvall as the irritating wife pushed to the limits, Danny Lloyd as the troubled child.
But the true genius lies in the steadicam sequences, the stunning set, the brilliant cinematography and sound, the interspersed shots of horrors past and the inevitability of horrors future. This is a stylish film, the work of a true genius, recently voted the scariest film of all time by "Empire" magazine in the United Kingdom. It is a film that you will remember, simply because you won't be able to forget it. How many films can you say that of today?
Horror has come a long was since 1980 - the re-writing of the slasher movie with "Scream", the introduction of new and exciting premises of horror such as "The Blair Witch Project", and slicker, and more intelligent thrillers like "The Sixth Sense". (I appreciate these are recent films, but I cannot think far back enough at the moment!) However, all horror films have a long way to go before they can measure up to this film - one of the most intense and inspired horror films cinema has to offer.