Flawed but effectively creepy

Rating: Null/10 (11 September 2004)

Stanley Kubrick begins his love affair with the Steadicam in this film, five years after 'Barry Lyndon.' Tracking shot after tracking shot after tracking shot fills this film as Kubrick, liberated from laying track for his camera, follows his characters as they run, walk, limp, stagger, hobble and cycle from room to room all over the Overlook Hotel and through the Maze outside on the hotel grounds. Jack Torrance (Nicholson) is a writer (surprise) with, apparently, a history of mental problems and alcohol abuse. In recovery, he and his wife Wendy (Shelly Duvall) and their son Danny (Danny Lloyd) are hired as caretakers of the Overlook Hotel in Colorado during the off-season. But during the winter, Jack falls off the wagon and descends into madness---or does he? Are we witnessing the hallucinations of a deranged mind, or is the hotel really haunted---or both? Is son Danny really telepathic and clairvoyant, or is he also a little nutty? It would appear that the hotel really is haunted and that Jack's mental frailty is fertile soil for the spirits' pernicious influence.
I have not read the book, but I've heard that Stephen King was sufficiently dissatisfied with Kubrick's adaptation that he approved a 1997 TV miniseries starring Steven Weber and Rebecca de Mornay. Maybe so, and this is film is not without its flaws, but the power of Kubrick's unique vision is undeniable. The sets of the interior of the hotel are huge; they are somewhat reminiscent of the Discovery-2 in '2001.' We see ceilings and hallways that really appear to be connected. Different rooms are lit in different hues, so that there are sudden color changes as characters run from room to room, which must have given the cinematographer some truly baroque headaches. The emptiness and stillness of the hotel's rooms and corridors are effectively creepy. The film would not succeed, however, without Jack Nicholson's ferocious portrayal of a man losing his mind. His fortissimo performance simply overwhelms all the other actors' work, with the exception of Scatman Crothers. His riveting performance as Halloran astonished viewers who were familiar with Crotheres only as a rather clownish older black actor who made frequent appearances on TV dramas, comedies and talk shows that were rarely or any consequence. Since Crothers and Nicholson are almost never together on screen, Crothers has the opportunity to steal every scene he appears in with effortless aplomb.