REDRUM! All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Rating: Null/10 (15 April 2013)

I can't exactly say why, but up until today I had never seen even any part of this movie. I have it as one of the 9-movie Kubrick DVD set from my public library. I am not a big fan of the horror genre, it just doesn't satisfy my movie-watching tastes, but I mostly enjoyed this one. More for the visuals than for the story.
It starts grandly, with an overhead (helicopter) shot of a small car traveling along a secluded road in a mountainous setting. I immediately recognized it as the Going to the Sun road in Glacier National Park, going westlerly along St Mary Lake towards the Continental Divide. Only this opening sequence was shot there, to establish a sense of isolation, of a man making a trip that perhaps he was not prepared to handle.
Jack Nicholson is writer Jack Torrance , and he has taken an over-winter job as caretaker of an isolated mountainous lodge that gets snowed in from October through May. Bringing along his wife and young son, he hopes the isolation will allow him proper inspiration and time for his book.
Shelley Duvall is his wife Wendy Torrance , and Danny Lloyd is his son, Danny Torrance, perhaps 6. The other key character is veteran Scatman Crothers as Dick Hallorann , the normal chef at the lodge.
The title comes from a reference that "shining" is a psychic ability that allows people to communicate telepathically, and even a building, like the old lodge, can "shine." This is what causes Jack to gradually spiral down into a form of madness, causing him to threaten his wife and son with harm or death. And "seeing" parties of long-dead hotel guests.
Ultimately I found it to be a rather empty thriller, but I really enjoy Kubrick's sense of style, and the way he framed scenes cinematographically. Nicholson is good, but his character is somewhat the same but an expansion of what he plays in movies such as "Five Easy Pieces" and "One Flew Over."
SPOILERS: In the end Wendy, fearful of Jack, gets a baseball bat, and defending herself whacks him on the head. He tumbles down stairs, she drags him into a food storage area, locking him in. He does get out but chasing his son in the snow gets lost in the huge maze outside, and freezes to death while Wendy and Danny take the snow vehicle to safety.