Horror genre, The Shining

Rating: 10/10 (8 November 2007)

I've always been a big fan of horror films, although one thing I have always felt that they lacked is originality. The stories all contain the same elements and the concepts were all loosely based on something supernatural rather then something realistic and something like body horror.
The Shining was the first film which I thought had brought something original to the horror film genre. The movie follows a writer (Jack Nicholson) and his family who agree to watch over a hotel while it is closed for the winter. There were rumours of the place being haunted, the last resident went crazy and murdered his family as a result of the effects of the hotel onto his stability of mind. However, Jack is convinced that he and his family will be okay and he can use the quiet to overcome his writer's block. After months of solitude and silence however, Jack becomes a grumpy and later violent man. Is it cabin fever or is there something in the hotel that is driving him mad?
One of the scariest parts of the film is the extreme sense of isolation which Stanley Kubrick makes. The hotel is extremely large, with vast, empty rooms and the sense of eerie stillness as Nicholson's son, Danny, rides his tricycle through the deserted corridors.