Terrifying and suspenseful, but predictable

Rating: 9/10 (8 August 2015)

I'm not a fan of Stephen King but what Kubrick has done was strip away all the nonsense of the original novel and create a great film. However, despite my love for Kubrick, I still don't love it.
After a writer and his family agrees to watch over the "Overlook Hotel" for the winter, a haunting presence causes him to go slowly insane as the claustrophobia builds up around him.
However, it, admittedly, does many things right. This movie doesn't rely on cheesy jumpscares and unnecessary gore that many other modern horror movies rely too heavily on. The Shining builds up its scare factor with suspense and claustrophobia. This leads up to terrifying and well-executed domestic violence which is done phenomenal thanks to Jack Nicholson's outstanding performance and the great execution of it. His great acting contributes to several great scenes especially the iconic "Here's Johnny" one.
Kubrick uses camera movements and techniques, sound design, disturbing visuals, lighting, colors, foreshadowing, and attention to detail to make this a truly frightening horror film which contains so much suspense. Also, the score is one of the most eeriest movie scores ever written because it contains sharp, high-pitched sounds, and it is perfectly timed throughout the movie.
Sure, this movie did deviate from Stephen King's novel, but Kubrick expanded on the novel. It changed the things in the novel that didn't work that well and he changed them to make sure each aspect of it was as effective as possible.
However, my issue with it is with the character arc. The second Wendy mentions how Jack injured their son while he was drunk, my anticipation quickly faded into disappointment. At that point, I had a feeling where Jack's character was going to headed right at the start. By the end of the film, there was nothing surprising about how he ended up. I wished that his character would have started out softer.
While this film can be terrifying with its clever uses of suspense, claustrophobia, and frightening camera techniques, the character arc has always bugged me, and I don't like it as much as many other people do. I prefer character arcs to be unpredictable. I will always love Kubrick, but this movie was a miss for me.