Movie Review: The Shining (1980)

I don't really like Horror movies. This isn't to do with the usual perception that I don't like scary things, which absolutely isn't true, as many of the movies I watch contain dark elements and shock moments. My main concern with Horror movies is that the idea is to scare and very few Horror films actually end up doing that. In fact, out of the entire catalogue of Horror films I have watched, only three have truly frightened me: The Exorcist (1973), Alien (1979) and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980).

The Shining was originally a novel by Stephen King, the master of horror literature. The book was very popular, so master filmmaker Stanley Kubrick took it on as his first and only project in Horror. And the result is a movie that may be both Kubrick's most known work and one of his best. Considering Kubrick's catalogue of films before The Shining, it is not a real surprise that he had the necessary skill to make the film. Many of Kubrick's films contain dark characters and ideas. For example, the idea in A Clockwork Orange (1971) that criminals can be brainwashed so that they have no desire to kill or hurt people is, on paper, not such a terrible idea. But the deeper meaning behind that is probably that it is like an ideological castration of the mind. In other words, the destruction of who and what you are and the freedom to defend yourself and make love to someone. Kubrick seems to illustrate that this is an awful idea, mainly due to choice and free will being taken away. In fact, it's not just awful, it's downright insane and evil. The time after Alex's release illustrates this, as the actions of the government make him extremely vulnerable to everyone, from old friends to half-crazed men, to the point where he is almost killed. The Shining maximizes the horrifying aspect whilst still asking some intellectual questions, mainly about the supernatural and telepathy.

The plot of The Shining is not exactly genius but the true strength is in the ideas within the plot and also the foreshadowing. Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is a writer who has agreed to take on the winter caretaking of the Overlook Hotel, which is high up in the mountains. Despite being warned that the last caretaker went insane from the isolation, Jack takes the job anyway and moves his family there. As bad weather and the overall wide open space make Jack slowly lose his mind, his son Danny (Danny Lloyd) experiences visions of death and wants to leave, along with his mother Wendy (Shelley Duvall), resulting in one of the most electrifying climaxes of any horror film.

The foreshadowing and opening of the film is handled so well. In the beginning, we are told about O'Grady, the previous caretaker, which will be the setup for Jack slowly losing his mind and being open to the suggestions of the ghosts. It is also made clear from the beginning that Danny has the power of telepathy, and that he has a best friend called Tony, who may or may not be real. As well as this, we are exposed to Jack's previous alcoholism, which has caused a fracture in his marriage. Danny meeting Dick Hallorran is also important, because it will not only lead to Dick's death at the end but also foreshadows Danny and Jack's meetings with ghosts both good and evil. There is also the subtle hinting that the ghosts may be there because of the hotel being built atop an ancient Native American burial ground. The setup of The Shining is one of the most ingenious facets of the film because it tells so much but reveals so little, preferring to stick with the old cinematic saying "show, don't tell".

In this still from the film, we see Jack
in the first stages of his breakdown into
madness.

Another thing I think that the film handles so well is the slow devolution of Jack Torrance. As John David Ebert described in his own review of the film, if 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and its final sequence with Bowman are about the evolution of mankind, then The Shining and Jack's slowly more primitive state are about devolution. The already archaic idea of ghosts fits perfectly well with the theme of a human showing more animal-like behaviour because ghosts and spirits have been a frequent idea since the dawn of man. This is one sign of devolution or humanity going back to its roots. Another is Jack's psychotic behaviour brought on by the ghosts that he and Danny can see. At the beginning, Jack is already a little unhinged, having been an alcoholic and not touching drink for the previous six months (this could also insinuate the extremes of addiction withdrawals). With the complete mental breakdown he suffers from after Wendy accuses him of hurting Danny, his walls come crashing down and he turns from being borderline psychotic to a complete psychopath, killing anyone who comes into his path.

The tricycle scenes leave the viewer in suspense up until
Danny's second meeting with the two murdered girls.

In terms of cinematography, this is the sort of film that could teach many amateur filmmakers how to use spatial awareness in film. The movie is shot in such a way, especially with its large rooms, to get across a feeling of agoraphobia, the fear of wide open spaces. There is a real sense that wide open spaces leave the victim in a more vulnerable state than narrow passages because of how the feeling of something about to jump out at the victim is so much stronger in a wide open environment. I think Kubrick deliberately chose the location of the hotel because of how big the rooms actually are, or how he thought he could make the rooms look even bigger with his cameras. Another of the techniques I liked was the way in which he followed Danny on his little tricycle through the house, which evokes suspense, mainly orchestrated by the sounds of the tricycle wheels going across wooden floor and then carpet.

And then, of course, I have to address the classic performance of Jack Nicholson. What can I say that hasn't already been said? His role as Jack Torrance is one of the most iconic roles in movie history. His line, "Here's Johnny", was actually improvised by him. Jack Nicholson is the sort of man who is only half-crazy on a good day anyway, so the role of an insane writer I think was pretty much a doddle for him, especially considering he went into this film on the back of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), in which he played a criminal who claims that he is insane so that he can serve better jail time. Jack Nicholson is the master of insane roles. And this is his most iconic.

The acting from Danny Lloyd is also very good, especially from the standpoint of child actors, who

Shelley Duvall's career got a massive boost thanks to Kubrick's
(some would say insane) direction.

are usually not that great at acting (understandable, they are children after all). However, Shelley Duvall's acting is actually, considering her credits as an actress, very good. I think the reason why she did such a good job was because Kubrick was the sort of director who always got what he wanted out of his actors. Kubrick wanted Duvall to play the role of someone living with a crazy person, so he took it upon himself to be that crazy person. He intentionally made Duvall feel uncomfortable on set and made her do the scene with the typewriter, not ten, not fifty, not even one hundred times but one hundred and twenty-seven times. In the long term, this was actually better for her career, as the performance she gave got her into higher places in the world of acting. Kubrick was an absolute perfectionist when it came down to everything in his films, because he loved the art so much.

I had a lot of trouble writing this review of The Shining, mainly because there is so much to say and I need to condense what I want to say into a snappy article. I could go on to mention the specific choice of colour for some of the rooms, as they are symbolic. I could delve into the background history of ghosts and other supernatural entities. But I won't because, to wrap this review up, The Shining is one of the classic horror films. It has always been and always will be one of the few effective horror films I have watched and the fact that it came from one of my all-time favourite directors is just the cherry on top.

FINAL VERDICT: 5/5