A shining star...

Rating: 9/10 (15 December 2006)

I personally forget this movie is supposedly based on Stephen King's novel: Stanley Kubrick makes The Shining his own, and all the better for it. This is certainly Kubrick at his best, mixing plenty of frightening moments with a chilling, subdued and isolated atmosphere, all rolled into one.
Jack Nicholson is superb as Jack Torrance, a seemingly ordinary family man at first, but gradually turning into an increasingly unhinged character bringing sheer terror and shock to the viewer.... Shelley Duvall plays the terrorised wife very convincingly too - Wendy is so full of fear, we can actually feel her emotions.
The Shining combines alert acting with a sense of loneliness and fear. Stranded in an isolated place with no-one to turn to sounds very frightening to me! Kubrick mixes this and other aspects well, enough to make The Shining one of the best horror movies of the 20th century. The horrible (but simple) reality of Jack's madness graphically displayed with that now infamous "Here's Johnny!" scene certainly proves it.