The Shining (A- or 3.5/4 stars)
Jack Nicholson's utterly chilling performance dominates Stanley Kubrick's 1980 horror/thriller 'The Shining', loosely based on Stephen King's 2nd novel {more on that later}. Nicholson plays Jack Torrance, a recovering alcoholic, former teacher & struggling writer who is new to the Denver area after needing to leave Vermont in the rear view window. Luckily - or not so luckily - he is hired by Stuart Ullman (a creepy Barry Nelson) to be the winter caretaker of The Overlook, an enormous, vintage luxury resort in the remote Rocky Mountains that shuts down each winter due to the harsh winters. Ominously, Jack's boss mentions that the stresses of this lonely job had led a prior caretaker to murder his family with an ax & then kill himself.
Ullman settles Jack, his fidgety, high-strung wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) & psychically haunted 6 yr. old son Danny (Danny Lloyd) into the resort as the last guests & staff are leaving. Danny, someone who has the 'shining' {can see past & future events} is shown talking to an imaginary friend named Tony ... who lives in his mouth {yes, you read that correctly}. We know that Danny has the' shining' because the head chef of the resort, Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers, warm & wise), has the 'shining', as well; finding a kindred spirits in each other. All the while, dad Jack starts 'losing it'; experiencing disturbing visions that are linked to Room 237 & two little girls; son Danny was sworn off of going to that room by Dick, as well.
Filled with demonic forces, the resort starts ensnaring Jack's mind to the point where he becomes hostile to his family & blaming them for his many failures. Danny's visions become more disturbing, an increasingly irritable, confused Jack finds out the resort's deep, dark secrets and, he unravels into a homicidal maniac hell bent on terrorizing his family. When a severe blizzard rages outside & the road is blocked, the continually heightened tensions finally breaks Jack, as two ghosts egg on Jack to kill his wife & son. Has Jack just 'lost it', or is he possessed? After one of the ghosts warns Jack of "Redrum" {murder spelled backwards}, Jack picks up an ax - like the prior caretaker - and chases his family through the sprawling haunted house screaming "Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in", "Wendy, I'm home", and the thoroughly unsettling "Heeere's Johnny!!" as he axes his way through the bathroom door in an attempt to slaughter his wife. Fiery chaos ensues.
This movie is A LOT. A lot of great, a lot of bizarre, a lot of 'what the heck is going on?', and a lot of peeking through my fingers from the threat of frightful sudden scares. 'The Shining' is a definitive example of directorial bravura & a study of madness. With its intensely claustrophobic, suffocating atmosphere, this film is as mercurially unsettling as anything {maybe short of A Clockwork Orange} that Kubrick ever made. Having said that: I'd say that the film's clear weakness is the prevalent incoherence of various narrative elements. Kubrick takes the skeleton of Stephen King's ghost story and then just decides to go off on puzzling tangents; adding & subtracting what he wants to make the film his own, and not chained to the source material.
And so, it is the direction that overrides the wacky script and makes this film as compulsively watchable as it is. Despite deliberate pacing, Kubrick's encroaching sense of dread keeps the near 2.5 hour run time moving. Kubrick never answers questions - which may irk some viewers - about whether Jack's ghoulish visions are real or just his precipitously warped imagination; ditto that for Danny's visions. It certainly seems to be a 'haunted house' according to Stephen King, but then Kubrick makes things wayyy to visceral for things to be considered simply a ghost yarn. What Wendy & David experience with Jack is not to be trifled with. Elevators full of blood, dead naked women coming out of bathtubs ... this is not your grandma's ghost tale.
I could not take my eyes off Jack Nicholson; lending a performance that is part amazing screen Acting with a capital A, and part self-caricature ... but it just works. What he give us is dazzling, frenzied & acutely disturbing -- a maelstrom of fracturing sanity. He plays crazy with such panache that just him staring is enough to convey the unpredictability of his monstrosity. And what can we make of his character being trapped in a 1920s photograph at the end? Creepy! Shelly Duvall is great as the optimistic-turned-bewildered wife/mom in peril. She's wonderful in the scene where she nervously discusses Jack's past to the doctor. And 6(!) yr. old Danny Lloyd - who never went on to do anything big in acting - brings the right eerie quality to the son role.
So yeah, the winning combination of Kubrick's insistent direction, the expert performances, the staggering set design {the huge labyrinthine resort, the outdoor wintry hellscape}, the exceptional shot selections, the dread-inducing tracking shots, the ambience of decadence, and the unnerving music score ALL creates an ambience & aura of sinister anxiety & macabre fear. The climactic outdoor night chase through the seemingly never-ending snowy hedges remains one of THE most suspenseful & intense sequences ever put to film; horror genre or not. Not even Friday the 13th - which I liked, and also came out in 1980 - comes close to matching the terror on tap, here. 'The Shining' is as mysterious, enigmatic & bold as its title. I like bold.
Ullman settles Jack, his fidgety, high-strung wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) & psychically haunted 6 yr. old son Danny (Danny Lloyd) into the resort as the last guests & staff are leaving. Danny, someone who has the 'shining' {can see past & future events} is shown talking to an imaginary friend named Tony ... who lives in his mouth {yes, you read that correctly}. We know that Danny has the' shining' because the head chef of the resort, Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers, warm & wise), has the 'shining', as well; finding a kindred spirits in each other. All the while, dad Jack starts 'losing it'; experiencing disturbing visions that are linked to Room 237 & two little girls; son Danny was sworn off of going to that room by Dick, as well.
Filled with demonic forces, the resort starts ensnaring Jack's mind to the point where he becomes hostile to his family & blaming them for his many failures. Danny's visions become more disturbing, an increasingly irritable, confused Jack finds out the resort's deep, dark secrets and, he unravels into a homicidal maniac hell bent on terrorizing his family. When a severe blizzard rages outside & the road is blocked, the continually heightened tensions finally breaks Jack, as two ghosts egg on Jack to kill his wife & son. Has Jack just 'lost it', or is he possessed? After one of the ghosts warns Jack of "Redrum" {murder spelled backwards}, Jack picks up an ax - like the prior caretaker - and chases his family through the sprawling haunted house screaming "Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in", "Wendy, I'm home", and the thoroughly unsettling "Heeere's Johnny!!" as he axes his way through the bathroom door in an attempt to slaughter his wife. Fiery chaos ensues.
This movie is A LOT. A lot of great, a lot of bizarre, a lot of 'what the heck is going on?', and a lot of peeking through my fingers from the threat of frightful sudden scares. 'The Shining' is a definitive example of directorial bravura & a study of madness. With its intensely claustrophobic, suffocating atmosphere, this film is as mercurially unsettling as anything {maybe short of A Clockwork Orange} that Kubrick ever made. Having said that: I'd say that the film's clear weakness is the prevalent incoherence of various narrative elements. Kubrick takes the skeleton of Stephen King's ghost story and then just decides to go off on puzzling tangents; adding & subtracting what he wants to make the film his own, and not chained to the source material.
And so, it is the direction that overrides the wacky script and makes this film as compulsively watchable as it is. Despite deliberate pacing, Kubrick's encroaching sense of dread keeps the near 2.5 hour run time moving. Kubrick never answers questions - which may irk some viewers - about whether Jack's ghoulish visions are real or just his precipitously warped imagination; ditto that for Danny's visions. It certainly seems to be a 'haunted house' according to Stephen King, but then Kubrick makes things wayyy to visceral for things to be considered simply a ghost yarn. What Wendy & David experience with Jack is not to be trifled with. Elevators full of blood, dead naked women coming out of bathtubs ... this is not your grandma's ghost tale.
I could not take my eyes off Jack Nicholson; lending a performance that is part amazing screen Acting with a capital A, and part self-caricature ... but it just works. What he give us is dazzling, frenzied & acutely disturbing -- a maelstrom of fracturing sanity. He plays crazy with such panache that just him staring is enough to convey the unpredictability of his monstrosity. And what can we make of his character being trapped in a 1920s photograph at the end? Creepy! Shelly Duvall is great as the optimistic-turned-bewildered wife/mom in peril. She's wonderful in the scene where she nervously discusses Jack's past to the doctor. And 6(!) yr. old Danny Lloyd - who never went on to do anything big in acting - brings the right eerie quality to the son role.
So yeah, the winning combination of Kubrick's insistent direction, the expert performances, the staggering set design {the huge labyrinthine resort, the outdoor wintry hellscape}, the exceptional shot selections, the dread-inducing tracking shots, the ambience of decadence, and the unnerving music score ALL creates an ambience & aura of sinister anxiety & macabre fear. The climactic outdoor night chase through the seemingly never-ending snowy hedges remains one of THE most suspenseful & intense sequences ever put to film; horror genre or not. Not even Friday the 13th - which I liked, and also came out in 1980 - comes close to matching the terror on tap, here. 'The Shining' is as mysterious, enigmatic & bold as its title. I like bold.