Stanley's Kubrick's classic The Shining is considered one of the best horror films of all time, but for me its a good one that is entertaining, very well acted, and has a great feel to it that gets a groove in your spine that tingles and wiggles as you watch it. Jack Nicholson is by far the best here, but we'll get to that in a second. I think the only problem people have with it is is that it doesn't follow Stephen King's book very well, but that's debatable.
Here is a rundown of the plot:
Jack Torrence, a struggling ex-teacher, now writer, gets a job as a winter caretaker at a beautiful Colorado Hotel, and takes his wife and son up to the hotel as winter begins, but his son Danny has a special power: he can read minds, or something like that.
Little does he know that the cook, Dick Halloraan, the cook, also has this power, known as Shining. He shares the information about the power before he leaves and warns him of a specific room in the hotel.
As the beginning of winter happens, the family slowly starts to go a little crazy, well, sort of. Jack's temper rises, Wendy, his wife, begins to feel a power struggle, and Danny gets strange hallucinations. One of the key blows against Jack is when he starts screaming profanities against Wendy, which has happened before, but is not a good sign.
The nail in the coffin for poor Jacky boy is when he claims to have a nightmare where he kills his family, which happened to the last winter caretaker Grady, and Danny walks in with bruises. Wendy immediately blames Jack and threatens to leave. Little do they know, but we do, that Danny had in fact entered the very room that Mr. Halloraan had forbid him to enter.
Now it is Jack's turn to start having the hallucinations. He enters the hotel bar and finds a bartender there. Only trouble is no one else is at the hotel. Wendy runs in and finds Jack sitting alone and tells him that Danny claims it was a lady in the bathtub. Jack visits the room, and sees some horrible stuff. He returns and lies to Wendy before marching off.
He returns to the ballroom, which is now the center scene of a party, and talks to Mr. Grady, a sort of ghost of the previous caretaker who tells him about his experience and killing his family.
All meanwhile, Mr. Halloraan senses Danny is in trouble, but due to a storm, he cannot contact the family at the hotel. He decides to take a plane from Florida back to Colorado.
Eventually Wendy decides to take Danny, who has not improved, to a doctor in the next town, and puts Jack, who is nearly demented now, in the frozen fridge where he is safe, until Mr. Grady lets him out.
Mr. Halloraan arrives as Jack begins chasing Danny and Wendy. Jack kills him, and chases Danny through a maze. Jack gets lost, Danny escapes with Wendy, and Jack freezes to death. However, the last shot of the film zooms in on a photo of a Fourth of July Ball at the hotel from 1920, with Jack front and center.
Now the ratings:
Acting: 8 out of 10- Nicholson does very well. The rest of the cast is hit and miss.
Entertainment: 8 out of 10- A little long and slow sometimes, but pretty good.
Screenplay: 7 out of 10- Pretty good.
Directing: 10 out of 10- Kubrick does fantastic.
Technical Credits: 5 out of 10- Very basic. Some good cinematography, though.
Genre Fit: 6 out of 10- Some parts are sort of comedic and sometimes it serves more as a drama than horror.
MPAA Rating: 7 out of 10- Some sequences are a little gorier than usual R rated films, and the nudity lingers on a little long.
Stupid Scenes: 10 out of 10- None that come to mind.
Deeper Message: 7 out of 10- Does talk about isolation and madness quite a bit.
Beginning: 21 out of 30- A slow start.
Middle: 25 out of 30- Gets better as it goes.
Ending: 30 out of 30- Absolutely great.
Final Score: 144/180 or 80%. Just barely an A-. Good film. Very good.
Replies
I just recently watched this movie. I thought it was a very good movie. Of course since its a little older movie then the movies we watch today we didn't see some of the movie magic that amazes us all.