The Funniest Comedy of 1980

Rating: 1/10 (11 May 2010)

I shall never, ever be able to understand the phenomenon known as Stanley Kubrick. When he was on, as with DR STRANGELOVE, he was brilliant. But when he was bad, he was awful.
I saw THE SHINING in its first release in a packed movie house in New York City. I had read and loved Stephen King's novel; I am widely read in the horror genre and do not scare easily, but that book gave me the creeps for weeks.
Well for all the people who have been raving what a masterpiece this film is, I can only tell you this. The crowd in the theatre started giggling the minute Jack Nicholson appeared on film, and by the time he chased Shelley Duvall up the stairs, the whole crowd was literally in stitches. And I was laughing right along with them. Maybe New York audiences are just jaded; I don't know.
Not that this movie does not have some scary moments. Shelley Duvall is rather good when she is away from Nicholson and it starts to dawn on her that something evil is taking over her family and her life. Unfortunately, Miss Duvall plays Wendy Torrance, a strong, intelligent, and resourceful woman in the novel, as a pathetic, whiny ninny most of the time, and by the time Nicholson had her trapped in the bathroom, I am sure plenty of us were screaming for her head. It must be said that this is not the fault of Miss Duvall, a talented and intelligent actress who according to reports fought bitterly with Kubrick over his interpretation of Wendy.
The kid talking to his finger is another idiotic and unintentionally hilarious bit of business that was not in the original novel. Why Kubrick thought this was a good idea is beyond me.
But let's get down to the real problem: Jack Nicholson. In the right role, he can be very good, though he has never been among my top ten. Jack Torrance is totally the wrong role for him; for one thing, he does not look ordinary enough. But the worst thing is that Stephen King's story was about a man being SLOWLY AND INEXORABLY driven out of his mind. Nicholson goes nuts so early in the film that there is literally nowhere for him to take the character. And Kubrick was either in awe of Nicholson, who was still riding the post-Oscar high from CUCKOO'S NEST, or he just didn't care, or he thought it was scary when it was actually funny. I don't know.
As if all this were not bad enough, the whole mess drags on for two hours and twenty-two minutes; this movie practically cries out for a pair of scissors.
Some people will feel that I have spat on an icon, I suppose, and they have that right. But Stephen King himself was not happy with this film, and when he finally got the opportunity to re-do it as a television miniseries in 1997, the results were much better. For the one thing that is missing in Kubrick's version is a heart.
Anne Rivers Siddons, in discussing her excellent horror novel THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR, writes that the thing about horror is that it smashes people and relationships. Thus the best horror stories are at bottom also very sad (Brian De Palma's CARRIE gets this; Kubrick's film does not). And whatever your feelings about the miniseries format may be, the Torrance family created in 1997 were people you could care about. Director Mick Garris understands King better than Kubrick did, and Rebecca De Mornay, in particular, redeems the Wendy character in a spectacular tour-de-force towards the end. In 1980 the Torrances were figures of fun. Rather like the barbaric Victorian custom of laughing at the lunatics in Bedlam.
Awful, awful, awful.