Kubrick and Nicholson: When One of the Greatest Director's Works with One of the Greatest Actor's

Rating: 9/10 (29 May 2019)

I don't find horror movies scary as I am one of the lucky few. But, if you were scared by this film I completely understand because this film made me feel deeply unsettled. The atmosphere, the tone, the story, the acting and the cinematography all gave of this atmosphere of something horrible to come. The whole first and some of the second act is just a long build up of tension before everything comes to ahead in the third. Jack Nicholson gives a stellar performance as Jack Torrance. Though it can feel a little campy at times, Nicholson is a master of playing insanity and gives off this presence that something isn't quite right with him even at the start of the film which suits the films tone perfectly. The hotel set is as if a maze like the hedge one outside the hotel with corridors twisting and turning with the audience never knowing what horror will be around the next corner. The Shining is a superb example to filmmakers on how to elicit tone through mise en scène and is an incredible unsettling horror movie and one of Stanley Kubrick's best in a long line of amazing films.