What a great film this is!

Rating: 10/10 (4 March 2006)

What a great horror film "The Shining" is! It is a well-known fact of film trivia nowadays that Stephen King "hated" the adaptation of his novel, and was bothered by Stanley Kubrick's "creative liberties" (his main complaint: the lack of hedge monsters). I hate to point this out to Mr. King, but his novel was a rather simplistic horror yarn - a classic of its genre? Maybe, but I feel there is far more depth in the movie -- and we saw the result of a faithful adaptation in the form of a late 1990s television miniseries starring Rebecca Demornay - the result was enjoyable but nowhere near the greatness of Kubrick's vision.
In general, I'm not a Kubrick fanatic and I don't devour everything he's done. I consider "2001" and "Full Metal Jacket" to be overrated - but this is probably my favorite film of his (but then again, "Clockwork Orange" and "Paths of Glory" are superb, too). This was perhaps only the second truly epic horror film (the first being Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho") - and the direction is really amazing. The eerie nature of the movie is unsettling all at once without showing anything at all.
Simply built on music alone, Kubrick manages to convey so many feelings. He pulls out to an overhead shot of a boy playing on a red rug. Coupled with the soundtrack it's terrifying. This is how all horror films should be. It shows what an impact subliminal terror has - an axe-yielding maniac can only have shock and jump value; seeing something this psychologically mind-screwing is utterly gut-wrenching.
See this movie. Honestly, if you haven't watched it yet, please do. And avoid the edited TV version, which omits some of the more terrifying moments (I guess they're considered too "scary"?). Some omitted scenes are simply too risqué for television. One of these moments happens towards the end - I saw it as a child and it still disturbs me and has stayed with me after all these years. Shelley Duvall is running through the Overlook and she comes to a hallway, and in one of the rooms two party-goers (one dressed up as a lion or something) are performing some strange sex act. You only see it for maybe two seconds, and they're fully clothed, but it's impossible to forget. The TV version simply shows them sitting next to each other on the bed - odd enough, and still freaky, but the uncut version of the scene is even more so.
Truly, the only word to describe this movie's vibe is "freaky." I'd place it as one of the top five horror films of all time, and in my own personal opinion, I'd probably rank it right below "Psycho" as the most masterful and epic of them all.