Why The Shining is the Best Horror Film Ever

Rating: 10/10 (4 January 2008)

I've never been a big horror fan, but I think I'm converting. Knowing the legendary status of "The Shining" I chose to watch it on Halloween. I was not disappointed. It's become one of my all time favorite films. I think I enjoyed it as much as I did because it wasn't a simple horror/slasher film. What blew me away was Kubrick's mastery of genre and his ability to incorporate so many different genre conventions into one story.
Here are some reasons why I think "The Shining" is the Best Horror Film Ever (Contains spoilers):
It creates iconic surrealistic images. I will never forget Jack Nicholson hitting the door with the ax, or chasing his son through the maze, or Danny riding his big wheel through the halls.
It is also an adventure with a sort of happy ending. The driving momentum of the story is the hope the audience has that Danny and Wendy Torrance will somehow escape the madness. Danny in particular becomes the protagonist that we are rooting for, caught in a crazy adventure that may be a nightmare for him to experience, but is thrilling for us to witness. He must use both his special power and ultimately his wits to save himself and his mother. He saves them with his power by calling the chef who brings them the snow cat. And he saves them by his wits by outrunning Nicholson in the maze. When all is said and done, it's a satisfying adventure.
It is also a sci-fi fantasy where the hero has a secret power that gives him some sort of edge in this creepy struggle. Credit for this must go to Steven King, a master of sci-fi horror. By giving the boy supernatural powers it gives him a fighting chance against the horror.
It's the best ghost story I can think of. Ghosts in the movie look like real people, making them that much more creepy. Seeing a ghost all translucent and obviously a ghost would hardly be scary because we'd know that they are a ghost. It's the fact that they look real but we know logically that they aren't real that makes them scary. I loved the friendly and cordial British caretaker who slowly reveals his evil madness and gradually influences Jack.
It has a slow measured pace, but always stays interesting and entertaining. It's a consistent slow burn. I really don't know how Kubrick does it. He creates a movie that is relatively slow by today's standards, yet the movie doesn't feel like an old film with a plodding pace. It's constantly interesting and continuously revealing tidbits of info, and so compelling in the performances, that we are sitting on the edge of our seat the entire time, wanting to know what's going to happen next.
It's more scary than gory. Kubrick relies more on mood, odd/surrealistic images, and brilliant cinematography than gore to make the movie creepy. The parts that are gory are quick and intense flash cuts, given by supernatural revelation. And they aren't typically gross but unusually gross. For example, the only thing grosser than a rotting woman is an old ugly naked rotting woman.
It's a unique take on the "Haunted Mansion" genre. Rather than choosing a stereotypically scary hotel, like "Psycho" or "The Haunting" it creates a big luxurious ski lodge, where the horror is lingering somewhere in the big vast spaces and corridors. In other words, Kubrick creates fear out of an environment we've likely experienced, where there's nothing overtly scary, but covertly, our imaginations due us in. We've all been to hotels and motels, and there's something intrinsically creepy about being in a place with so much unknown history. The imagined horrors are far scarier than anything that could be depicted.
It has a certain logic that gets more and more hazy as the film descends into madness. Kubrick gives a lot of exposition in the beginning of the movie, laying the ground rules for everything that is to come. We understand that the child has a supernatural gift for seeing things and hearing things. We know the chef shares that power. We know that the hotel has some bad things that are lingering and haunting the place, namely the vicious murder of a caretaker's family. We know that there's a history of mild domestic violence in the Torrance family. Everything plays out through its set-up, while creating more questions than it answers. Like, what is really making Nicholson go mad? What is the blood rushing out of the elevators? Who's the rotting woman in the room? Why exactly is Jack going mad? And eventually, we wonder why Jack's image is seen in a picture from the 20's. The logic keeps the adventure and suspense grounded and the audience involved, while the mystery keeps the horror alive.
The movie doesn't rely on conventional camera tricks to scare us. Most of what we think is scary in horror films is really surprise. You know the feeling. You're sitting in the theater and suddenly something comes out of nowhere and the entire audience jumps, screams, and then laughs. But there's nothing to laugh about in "The Shining." Kubrick is so confidant that his story is genuinely scary, he doesn't have to trick us into thinking we're scared.
In the end, what is horror? Horror is facing the illogical nature of madness and being trapped in it. Our dreams are the most illogical experiences that we encounter on a regular basis, so it makes sense that he would tap into that collective experience for this film. I can't think of a film that better expresses what it feels like to be in a nightmare than this film.