Niiice Kubrick!

Rating: 9/10 (13 February 2005)

The Exorcist never scared me the way this film still does. Exorcist has the lower lighting and creepy sounds littering the soundtrack from the get go. Save for the ominous opening music the Shining starts out with bright colors and open spaces then gradually closes in like the ghosts tormenting the Overlook and particularly its newest caretaker.
This earlier adaption has noise and shadows and brings home again and again the sense of peril of isolation--The hedge and after that the mountains then the snow. There's the one scene where Danny escapes out the window and I'm holding my breath; if the kid were to sink in it he'd be dead in in an instant.
There's a heap of of others too. Nicholson suddenly kissing the ghost (corpse?) and the briefest of shots of old hag form rising out the water. The twins girls at their hall of death and the blood coming around the corner. Danny's silent scream as Halloran is murdered before his psychic eyes.
That probably 30 second shot of Jack Torrence dead in the snow is in my opinion the most banal but terrifying moments in horror movie history. I've watched this version of the Shining many times having owned the film and I still wind up shying away from this image.
Sight, sound, a group of actors who could pull me in to the mounting terror going on and how desperate times are and one has to do to survive (Shelly Duvally & Danny Lloyd). In that Kubrick far and away exceeding the later version. In less than three hours he made me very, very scared.