Rent The Shining (1980)

REVIEW OF THE LONGER & BETTER 4K AMERICAN VERSION - The Shining review by Frank Talker™

A sort-of-smart but a little over-long ghost story which only part-successfully deals with fundamental issues in Western culture. A) The decline of the extended family into more-isolated nuclear ones; resulting in a reduced psychological-support network for the remaining nuclear families. B) The descent into madness precipitated by having nothing to feel good about in the form of either spiritual nor material success. C) The abusive psychological-addictions which can result from never having dealt adequately with the past - which continues to haunt the father-figure here, albeit for no well-dramatised reason.

The fictional and shut-down-for-the-winter Overlook Hotel which both the film and the temporary caretaker-family inhabits for most of its length is an excellent metaphor for the alienation of modern Western-lifestyles: Its cavernous size helps physically-depict the internal, unfulfilled mental-states which the characters attempt to evade.

This secluded hotel offers the characters few engaging distractions and, thus, forces its inhabitants - both dead and alive - to confront themselves as they actually are. The wife and mother keeps herself busy with real household chores; the sole child solaces his loneliness with an imaginary friend; &, the husband and father solaces his writers' block with non-existent bourbon. ("Burnt Offerings" [1976] offers a similar story, which handles the family's emotional problems better, set in a country house rented for the summer by a writer whose household then proceeds to psychologically destruct as that film progresses.)

Oddly, for a horror movie, there are few cliché jump-scares, darkened rooms, creaking doors or cobwebs (except a few in the longer American version). The film is brightly-lit for the most part as if a searchlight is being shone upon basic human fears of career failure, past personal errors & the crippling-weight of some unexpressed historical trauma.

Although clairvoyance is a major theme here it is not meaningfully explored. The supernatural "shining" ability thus comes across as a mere plot-device to denote the young son's empathy - an empathy typical of a childhood-innocence which sees the adult world as it appears to be, but does not yet fully comprehend any underlying meaning.

Fundamentally, as always with director Stanley Kubrick, this movie is about his belief that there is something intrinsically-wrong with human nature. Yet, he provides no evidence for this belief; resulting in the visual distractions of continuity errors and lazy film-making which are jarringly-atypical for this usually-meticulous movie-maker.

All of these deliberate visual disorientation-tactics conspire to confuse the audience in a fun game, but to limited dramatic or thematic purpose; indicating that this film marked the beginning of Stanley Kubrick's decline as a commercial film-director of substance. (Perhaps because Kubrick's previous film "Barry Lyndon" [1975] was a commercial disappointment, while "The Exorcist" [1973] - which he refused to direct - broke box-office records around the world: The director needed to adapt a successful novel into a similarly-successful movie to enable his own films to continue being funded.)

At the end of the day, this film's characters are gripped by forces largely beyond their control which are slowly, compellingly & suspensefully rendered by virtue of the excellent acting performances from all concerned. This dearth of moral agency resulting from being mostly-controlled by ghosts-as-memories makes the film's director the real monster of the story much more than the central antagonist. This is what makes Kubrick's films so fascinating and so annoying at the same time (much like Alfred Hitchcock's work): He is always the star of every movie he makes - the actors mere pawns.

what you would expect. - The Shining review by CP Customer

The film is a classic no question Jack Nicholson is incredible,nobody could have played it better and the music is great too. the reason for the 3 starts is because the picture is only only about 20% better than upscaled dvd version i know the film is 30 years old but if the picture is almost the same why bring it out?

A horror classic - The Shining review by JD

The picture of Jack Nicholson pushing his face through a smashed door panel must be one of the most famous film covers ever. The film itself has got to be in the best known horror top 10. Don't let this build up the film too much, because although it is a good horror film, it is not as horrific as many others and not to my mind either well scripted or well filmed. I did like some of the scenes particularly the young lad pedalling around the empty hotel the noise of the wheels on the rugs alternating with the parquet floor, and the best moment of tension is of the boy running through a snowy maze trying to cover his tracks. If I hadn't been expecting so much it would have been better.