One of Kubrick's best

Rating: 10/10 (29 June 2018)

The Shining is the best horror film I've ever watched and one of my favorite films of all time. In this genre, it is unparalleled in vision, atmosphere, and class.
I was constantly wondering what his style of film making would turn out to be. Though because of how mysterious the premise of The Shining is, I can't say I've really learned much in that department other than the fact that Stanley Kubrick was definitely influenced by some of David Lynch's earlier works, which is awesome. This is not a bad thing though, that I didn't learn much, as the mystery of this film along with its endless possibilities for theories is what makes it so timeless and engaging. Even with its 2.5 hour runtime, I never felt drained by the end, in fact I was left with more questions I had going in. I love that this movie never gives the audience the satisfaction of knowing exactly what's going on. Much of the film feels like amusement art, where we're immersed into the world of the characters, enveloped in realism and tension. I say realism because one of the core themes of The Shining is about family. This makes way for many dialogue sequences that don't really seem like they are just the "what you see in the movies" type of thing. Because they can seem real, the story, at times, feels more grounded and personal.
Even on a surface level, The Shining is such a well-made, perplexing cinematic masterpiece. Without even trying to further read into the plot, The Shining is already one of those slow but unsettling festivals of tension that effectively utilizes music and cinematography to captivate the audience every second of the way. Everyone who has praised this movie has talked about the cinematography, and I'm going to do it here again. It's amazing. The use of the Steadicam camera stabilizer along with the intense score made the tension so powerful and the film so visually appealing.
Of course, I can't forget about Jack Nicholson. I haven't seen many of the movies he has starred in so this was definitely a sight to behold. Aside from the fact that he gives many great performances throughout the film, he just knows how to demand screen presence. My attention was always on him when he was on camera; he really has a way of "face acting" that helps the viewer kind of piece together what is going on inside his head. As far as acting goes in general, it doesn't get much better than this guy. In fact, as far as movies go, it doesn't get much better than this one either.