not a bad for a 25 year old 'horror epic'

Rating: Null/10 (11 January 2004)

I just bought the VCD version as soon as I saw the 'Kubrick Collection' on sale in Hong Kong alongside one of my most favorite films: Clockwork Orange. F.Y.O. the VCD colouring is a bit dark and the sound is quite low - a shame if you otherwise have a large screen and surround sound etc. And a large screen is called for if you are to really feel the effects of being positioned inside the vast snowbound hotel complex the characters get locked up in, and the earlier aerial shots of the Canadian Rockies.
I used to (about 10 yrs ago) read Stephen King a lot and always found non-stop suspense in his novels. I only vaguely remember The Shining plot however, so cannot judge the interpretation of the novel as King wrote it. This film version is by far better than all the other film adaptations of King's novels, (and there have been some really dire ones), but I'm still left unsure about its high aclaim from other reviewers on this Site. I agree that Nicholson does a great job of 'insanity', but would have liked to have seen even more of it. I can accept the seeming speed of his mental decline if you assume that he was already harbouring something before the family go to the hotel. It's only in the final 30 mins, however, that we see the 'chase' of Nicholson on his family. The suspense wasn't held long enough. I thought the child actor did a fine job, but also agree with others that Nicholson's wife is the soppiest character with some really painful lines. I was actually hoping to see her head roll at the end just to avoid having someone like that being responsible for bringing up a kid alone, and somehow, her and the kid's relatively easy escape was a slight anticlimax. B.t.w., if the wife's character was really so strong to escape, why didn't she put that kitchen knife straight in the eyeballs, as her husband takes eons to axe down the door, and has all the time in the world to peer through and say 'here's Jonny'? Also, there wasn't enough 'gore', which the build up was suggesting to come. About the only 'gorey' scene was the fruit juice spilling from the elevators.
Overall though, it still isn't bad for a 'horror epic' if you remember that it's already some 25 years old, and it still has much more class than those brainless films such as 'Scream' etc.