I don't watch movies to get scared, anyway.

Rating: 8/10 (9 July 2006)

Who cares if this is "scary" or not, in the traditional sense. If I wanted to get scared, I'd go ride my bike on the wrong side of the busy freeway. I'm in for a good story, or whatever you can absorb from a movie. And that, the movie had a lot to offer. I can't tell whether it's because we're not in 1980 anymore, or if it's about Kubrick's style, but I didn't get scared at all. But let's see: right from the beginning, you can tell what's going to happen. Every frame of the movie reveals there's evil stuff on the way. And when we reach the hotel, there's scary music being played *loudly* practically all the time. It's cool having dissonant classical movie being played on a horror movie, but it gets to the point of "okay, I GOT it already" eventually. And Jack Nicholson is freaky right from the beginning, anyway. There isn't exactly a crescendo of things going wrong; it's a crescendo of wrong things that have been wrong right from the start. And if I have to talk about a scary movie that isn't scary, I think I'd pick The Exorcist instead, and mention how that one *does* effectively create the growing sense of impending doom, that something that NEVER should happen will happen eventually.
The Shining, on the other hand, is too obvious all the time. The camera following the characters around huge halls and long corridors, as if something was about to jump out at them, followed by the aforementioned loud dissonant music, gives the impression of evil that just isn't there. It ends up feeling like Kubrick is pulling our leg, *pretending* the movie is scary when it isn't. But then again, it's supposed to be atmosphere, and it works when things start getting tense. The story, in essence, is very simple, but there are those strange, complicated twists along the way. I'm not going to tell the whole plot, since you can find it in almost every review here. Jack Torrance, suddenly, is transported to a 1921 party (as we can see by all the dancers on an *empty* hotel), drinks bourbon without being charged, and talks to a waiter that once was the caretaker of the hotel and killed his family before committing suicide. He is, clearly, being possessed by some kind of evil force that we can never discern, while his psychic son calls for help from Mr. Hallorann, who also has that power. Eventually, Jack chases his family with an axe, providing some exquisitely over-the-top performances, and all those ghosts and dead people start appearing. And after his wife and son manage to escape and he freezes to death, we learn that he *was* there before, in 1921. I don't find all that particularly confusing, since it's rather open to interpretation (I don't know whether that was the intention, but then again, I never read the novel). If *you* don't see sense on the story, you can find explanations out there.
To me, it isn't really about the story (I just don't like Stephen King), but the way it's treated. It's very masterfully shot and well executed. As the story progressed, I found myself captured by it, and that's what I want from a movie, really. The climax of the movie, while a bit disappointing considering all the build-up, was well made, with the chase in the hedge maze and Wendy seeing all those ghosts (including the guy in the costume with some fella who looked like George Bush). In particular, the moment when the blood pours out of the lifts was extremely well made, and the final result is very, very impressive - seeing that on wide screen, on the trailers, would have been utterly shocking. The performances, well, I can't praise them too much. I'm not sure whether I liked Jack Nicholson or not, but it certainly was a unique performance, and I don't doubt it inspired the hilariously awesome performance of Stefán Karl on the children's TV show LazyTown, even if only a little bit (I'm a Robbie Rotten fan). Shelley Duvall's constant whimpering and shrieking got on my nerves a bit, but it did look believable at times, and *thankfully* her character didn't fall on the famous "stupid victim" trap at any point. And Danny Lloyd was effective as young Danny (especially when you consider he DIDN'T KNOW he was making a horror movie, thanks to Kubrick's protectiveness). He didn't impress me - neither did Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense, so maybe I'm not very interested in child actors, though I'm a stark raving fan of Jonah Bobo (Around The Bend, anyone?). So, who knows. I think this movie deserves to go down as a classic, since it's very unique, interesting and hard-hitting. It's BOUND to. And like every classic, it polarises opinions, and gets all sorts of passionate reactions. I won't add it to my list of favourite movies ever, but I wasn't disappointed by it, I don't regret watching it, and I'll definitely see it again if I can. For now, the aforementioned The Exorcist is in the top of my list. Maybe a Mike Oldfield soundtrack can give The Shining a boost? Everything is possible.