has been creeping me out for 20 years

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2000)

I remember seeing the trailers for this film on TV when I was 14. It's been creeping me out ever since. It's a film I always have to watch when it's on TV. So here are a bunch of random thoughts about it... The big quiet halls, the grand ballroom and giant foyers so quiet it's deafening, Danny's ride up and down the corridor on the Big Wheel and the ball rolling to him as he plays alone in the middle of the carpet. I just love the way Kubrick shoots this stuff. The sudden jump-cuts to something REALLY SCARY, and then cut CLOSER and then cut away. What's that guy in the dog/bear suit DOING, exactly? The score is heartpounding. I agree with whomever said that the manifestation of the ghosts freeing Jack from the pantry is not keeping with the rest of the story and may ruin it a little bit. You don't trust Jack right from the beginning... he's just a bad, bad man, and you feel it from the first frame. The twins, of course, are insanely scary. Grady's (remember him from Clockwork??) hacked-up wife in the tub. It's been my favorite horror film of all time for many years, only eclipsed now by The Blair Witch Project, which scared me so much I slept with the lights on for over a month. I recommend The Shining 100%. It's just a sinking, slipping feeling into insanity and then heartpounding tension and horror laced with the creepiest most ghoulish images you will ever see on film. Seriously.