I see dead people....

Rating: 9/10 (5 October 2003)

*********** SPOILERS ***********

Nothing from the age of CGI has yet managed to produce anything as creepy as The Shining. Before the family even move into The Overlook Hotel, Kubrick makes expert use of the screechy, fingernails-down-a-blackboard style music to build a sense of foreboding. Add to that the disturbing flashes about the tragic history of the hotel being experienced by the Torrences' son Danny, and you'll be hiding behind the sofa.
Then they move in, isolated in the hotel for the whole of the winter. Jack Nicholson stuck in a hotel with Shelley Duval and all that orange wallpaper. What did they think was going to happen? That's a combination that would have any man reaching for the axe before you could say `All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!' And a hotel built on an ancient Indian burial ground. When will these Americans learn? Before long, the various nasties that live in the hotel are springing into life, giving booze to Jack, a recovering alcoholic, and encouraging him to do in his family in a variety of interesting ways. Kubrick repeatedly uses the same stylistic tricks; the low tracking shots of Danny in his pedal car; the scary music; the shots reflected in mirrors that throw your sense of perspective off balance, and delivers no payoff. The spring just keeps getting wound tighter and tighter, and when the trap is finally sprung you'll hit the ceiling. The real genius of The Shining though, and the reason why despite advances in technology no horror film has been able to match it, is that the really scary thing is not whatever dead thing is going to come crawling out of the hotel rooms next. It's the look on Jack Nicholson's face. Now that's scary!