The Shining (1980) -- 40 years old

7/10.

9/10 - and I don't like many horror flicks at all. Saw it in a large cinema when it came out and had no idea what it was about. Never heard of Stephen King.

8/10

Heeeeere's Vits to tell you that he agrees with most people's opinions on THE SHINING, except that 2 things ruined it: A) Imagine a tennis match where your opponent throws the ball at your face by accident over and over again and keeps waiting for you to hit it back. That's how I felt watching Shelley Duvall's performance. B) The way that JACK TORRANCE (the protagonist) transitions from normal to crazy was too rushed. As I was watching the movie, I was thinking "What if we had seen the downward spiral into madness?" and then I read that it was different in Stephen King's novel. I've said many times that changes in adaptations don't matter as long as they don't ruin the essence. By removing the element of JACK's struggle to stay sane, it comes off as if he had been evil yet sane all along. It ruined the character. Stanley Kubrick clearly had enough ideas to write an original script and that's what he should've done. Even if you think that's wrong, I still stand by what I said first because, while watching the movie (with no knowledge of the novel), I found the character to be flawed. That being said, there is a change that was for the better: Making the movie much more ambiguous. I'm not saying that the novel had too much exposition; I'm saying that I appreciated the ambiguety while watching the movie without knowing that I could find answers elsewhere. I'm also glad that DANNY TORRANCE (JACK's son) no longer meets his future self (Kubrick turned him into an imaginary friend). King sometimes tries to mix too many elements in his stories. We already have ghosts, telepathy and clairvoyance; time travel would've been overlook overkill!

8/10


DR. SLEEP tries to be a stand-alone movie and a direct sequel to THE SHINING. That's a problem, because both movies are very different in terms of tone, narrative and visual style. Things feel more jarring whenever an iconic shot is recreated. Honestly, I don't have a problem when a sequel severs ties with its predecessor if it's made decades later (especially with a different cast and crew), so I would've accepted it here. Everything was working without the references. In fact, the performances, characters, dialogue, plot, imagery, scares, editing and sound are top notch.

8/10
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You can read comments of other movies in my blog.

I agree visually it looks great and there is some spooky use of sound but if you analyze it from performances they act TOO WEIRD. Only Scatman Crothers acts normal.
But I can watch it now and then for the Jack stuff, however I usually skip the room scene because the woman in the bathtub is just too creepy.

5/10
Only Kubrick movie to fall (dramatically) in my rating on a second and third viewing.
The kid pedalling through the hotel is great.
Most of the "scares" are pretty dumb.

9/10

A movie that has gone down in my ratings. Still good, still Kubrick, still creepy. But the flaw is Jack Torrance. From normal to insane in 30 seconds. Why? Booze withdrawal somewhat but he starts seeing things when he starts really jonesing for a drink. In the book, its better explained. Jack finds a scrapbook in the basement (you can see it, a large white book by his typewriter). The scrapbook gets an evil hold on him.

Ahh, the novel. Typical King adaptations, any resemblance between the novel and the film are purely coincidental. But the book was somewhat unfilmable. The big horror element in the novel are he topiary animals, which come to life and attack Jack and Dick Halloran. you couldn't have done it realistically then. The Grady girls become the big horror element and they aren't in the book. I liked the movie better at first now I like the novel more

I recently saw the sequel, Doctor Sleep.

It centers (sort of) on Danny Torrance, the boy in The Shining who is now a middle-aged man who drifts from town to town and intermittently battles alcoholism. He comes into contact with a young girl, who also "shines", and the two are hunted by a cult whose members have the gift of shine too and use it for evil purposes.

The final battle takes place at the boarded-up Overlook Hotel and we see the same halls, ballroom, bar, stairway, maze, and even the living quarters where “REDRUM” can still be seen. There’s even an interesting stand-in for Lloyd the bartender.

I took off half a point for length and occasional gruesomeness.