Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is one of my favourite horrors of all time. The Stephen King novel is brought to life by Kubrick with the help of some superb acting from Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall and Danny Lloyd and a brilliantly haunting soundtrack.
Jack Torrence is a writer suffering from writers block and decides to take his wife and son with him on a job to work as the caretaker for the Overlook Hotel over the winter. He believes this will give him the time to get over his writers block and continue his writing. Their son, called Danny, has a special gift known as ‘The Shining’. The chef, who is showing them around, notices that Danny has this special gift and talks to him telepathically. He tells Danny that the hotel has many memories and he needs to stary away from room 237. So obviously this room becomes critically important to the story. The hotel becomes cut off over the winter with the snow that falls, leaving them on their own over the winter.
The movie moves along at a nice pace, introducing you to the charcters and giving the a bit of a back story so you have enough of an investment in them to care about what happens. It is explained that the Overlook Hotel is built upon an ancient indian burial ground, which suggests this is the cause for much of the haunting of the movie.
Jack Nicholson is excellent in the role of Jack Torrence. To me he seems scary even before he turns into a psychopath. But he plays out the slow deteriation of the character superbly, and in my opinion this is Jack Nicholson’s best role. In the final scenes of the movie he is truly believable as the psychopath and is perfectly cast. I couldn’t think of any other actor who could have pulled it off anywhere near the same level as Jack Nicholson did.
Shelley Duvall is equally as good as Jack as his vulnerable wife. She slowly becomes more fragile as the movie goes on, but at the same tim plays the strong parent standing up to the psychotic Jack. Shelley puts in a staggering performance.
Not to be overlooked though is Danny Lloyd, who plays their son Danny. His performance certainly surpasses his age, and seems so effortless. From his imaginary friend, complete with his own unique voice and character, Tony, to playing out the terrorising scenes, with true horror written all over his face, His performance is definitely on par with his co-stars.
The Overlook Hotel also plays a character in the movie. This iconic hotel is the perfect backdrop and certainly has its own character in the movie, from the long haunting halls, to the true 1970’s style decor, the huge lounge area where Jack writes, to the maze in the grounds. This hotel certainly does an excellent job of setting the scene for the movie.
Another great point is the music in this movie is so haunting, and this makes the movie for me the soundtrack is errie and certainly unsettling. It makes the movie, and definitely knocks the horror scale up a few notches. This movie is a prime example of how the music can set the scene for the whole movie.
This movie is the best horror movie I have seen to date, it is definitely unsettling, and edge of your seat stuff, that has scares around every turn. It keeps you on the edge of you seat the whole way through, and ends with an excellent, but slightly unnerving conclusion.
