One of the Best Horror Movies Ever!

Rating: 10/10 (18 February 2002)

...and definitely the best movie Stanley Kubrick ever made. Beautiful, haunting, very subtle but brilliantly explicit when it needs to be, this film is a great balance of suspense and revelation, build and pay-off. The sense of tension and claustrophobia that pervades the movie is absolutely incredible and the constant, seething supernaturalism is so eerie, so overpowering, you find yourself getting scared by nothing half the time. The ghosts are very well done- totally unsettling and clearly unearthly while at the same time lacking things like dripping ecotoplasm or other stupid, heavy-handed and fairly typical Hollywood touches. Unlike most of Kubrick's other movies, the characters here are well fleshed out (maybe that's because, for a change, there is so few of them)and all the actors really put in stellar performances. Nicholson's legendary psychotic is of course, the show stealer, but Shelley Duvall carries her role very well, a powerful combination of vulnerability and hidden strength, she moves through the movie like wounded, frightened animal but still makes her moments of ingenuity and courage totally believable. Danny Lloyd is very believable and never precious- so rare among child actors. Many of the smaller roles are also well played- Anne Jackson, in particular, is very convincing and the scene between her and Duvall where Wendy casually reveals Jack's history of abuse and alcoholism is one of the best examples of the subtle strength of this film: Duvall's fluttery, nervous smile screaming evidence of a darker, deeper, un-talked about fear waiting to erupt and held in check by a very, very delicate boundary. All in all, a brilliant film, chilling and enthralling and practically perfect in every way.