Kubrick Lite still Makes for One of the Best Horror Movies Ever

Rating: 10/10 (26 July 2003)

When you compare this film adaptation of King's hack novel to other films from Kubrick ("2001" or "Clockwork Orange"), there really isn't much depth here. The stuff is pretty straight forward. Family shacks up at haunted hotel and dad goes nuts and tries to ax everyone. Still it's pretty damn scary because Kubrick films it like a work of art (the aerial shots of mountains and the Overlook are haunting to say the least, as are the creepy interior shots of the hotel), and he sets the mood so well (there's an underlying sense of doom sleeping beneath the slow pace and cold feel to the film). This film has aged very well, and is often sighted by fans and critics alike as one of the best horror movies ever made (even if it is Kubrick's slightest film). The reason I think it has held up so well over time is because it can be watched on two levels. You can take it all very seriously and creep yourself out big time, or you can enjoy it tongue-in-cheek and howl over Nicholson's over the top performance, Shelley Duval's incompetent whining, and the flat out weirdness of it all (dead old naked lady laughing in bathtub, blood flooding out of elevators, a little boy driving a Big Wheel down the haunted halls of the Overlook). Let it give you nightmares, and then get your revenge by playing a drinking game to it the next time you watch it.