Spooky, great, difficult film

Rating: Null/10 (18 July 2000)

The Shining is one of the scariest films ever made. The amazing thing is that, when you think about it, it doesn't try to use those usual horror film tricks to make us scared; the apparitions are as realistic as real human beings, the pace is leisurely and unlike many inferior horror films, this pace with its disturbing atmosphere is distributed equally throughout the film.
The problem of the film is that there are those who whine on and on about the film not being loyal to the book. That's right, because it's a film and the tension that is created in the book in some 300-400 pages cannot be presented in a film format, nor should it be even tried; by not slavishly repeating the plot and the views of the book this film manages to shift focus more to the filmic experience.
The major problem of the Shining, however, is that the premise of the story is not clear enough: many people (like Maltin) have obviously interpreted that Jack Torrance should be normal in the beginning, but in the end he goes mad. But the point seems to be that when Torrance comes to Overlook hotel, he is already a time bomb ready to explode, he obviously is disturbed and dislikes his family very deeply. The viewer is left to determine to what extent this is due to the supernatural powers of the hotel. This implies that, as in other Kubrick films, the HOW is what the film deals with, how Jack becomes a dull boy, not so much the WHY. Why is more or less left to the viewer to interpret.