Rating: 
Summary: SERIOUS HORROR!!!
Review: Stanley Kubrick's version of The Shining is more of a reimagining of of Stephen King's bestselling horror novel than an adaptation. In my oppinion this is better than the book. It's scarier, and has more suspense in it. Blood? Yes there is blood, but it helps the movie, not detracts. The Shining is terrifying--but not in the way fans of the novel might expect. So any negative reviews are from book purist, or somebody who wants people to think he/she is tough, so see this movie. It is long, but it is worth you time. This is one of the scariest movies of all time! WATCH IT ALONE IN THE DARK!
Rating:
Summary: The Shining-----
Review: The Shining is a great supernatural horror film from the grand master of filmmaking, Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick's films have a undescribably rich quality to them that makes them even harder to forget. This is especially present in The Shining, along with A Clockwork Orange, another favorite of mine, and a classic. The Shining is a gothic horror film about a family Jack, Wendy, and Danny Torrance, who sign on as caretakers of the Overlook Hotel, a rural Colorado hotel that has horrible things lurking every door. Jack is an author experiencing a writer's block. A year earlier, Jack had gotten drunk and broken Danny's arm when he found him fiddling with a manuscript. He comes to the Overlook to get away from everyday distractions and work on his most recent novel. Young Danny has an extrasensory power known only as the shining. This information is told to Danny by the Dick Hallorann, the chef in the Overlook, who shares this eerie sixth sense. He tells Danny that if he is ever in trouble, to contact him using the shining. Danny's confused as to why he would say this, yet Danny has had some disturbing visions himself, and is watching his back. Dick knows about the Overlook's unstable history. Meanwhile, Jack is in a rut, and still can't write. The whole family is feeling claustrophobic, and strangers keep appearing to Jack and Danny. Jack has been recieving alcohol from Lloyd, the ghostly bartender in the dining room who really isn't there, and attending large black-tie parties and gatherings in that same dining room. At a party Jack meets Delbert Grady, a waiter trapped in the Overlook, who Jack has been told about. He tells Jack to kill them. To kill his whole family. Danny is experiencing bizarre visions of ghostly characters. Jack is spiralling into insanity, and he plans to take his family with him. He will further the pattern, put another piece in the puzzle. The Shining is a disturbingly gothic fairy tale horror film that has yet to be matched by any other. One of Kubrick's best, and a modern classic, The Shining is a film that many will enjoy. I suggest going out and renting yourself a copy. The Shining
Released in 1980
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Starring Jack Nicholson, Danny Lloyd, Shelly Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Joe Turkel, And Phillip Stone
Rated R for Violence, Some Sexual Content, Nudity, And Strong Language. If you like this, you might like---
A Clockwork Orange, Misery, The Silence Of The Lambs, The Dead Zone, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and 12 Monkeys.
Rating:
Summary: The scariest movie ever made- coming from a huge horror fan
Review: This is the most terrifying movie ever made. Amazingly shot, completely atmospheric, and tremendously acted. Jack Nicholson is superb. The last twenty minutes alone are well the worth the price of admission. But there's another two hours to the movie, and thankfully, they are equally as enjoyable.
Rating: 
Summary: Horror is rarely this good
Review: Realised as a masterpiece of its genre, The Shining incorporates everything a horror movie should have and then some. Telling the story of Jack Torrance's rapid descent into madness and homicidal impulses towards his family as they look after the Overlook Hotel during the winter, it's very effective in telling its story. Seeing ghosts and growing more and more unhinged, Jack's character is perfectly balanced by that of his son Danny, who has 'the shining', a rare gift which allows him psychic powers and an insight into the history of the creepy hotel. As the lead character, Jack Nicholson is about as close to perfect as you can possibly be, and in such a movie it would be easy to solely concentrate on him. However, thanks to the winning performances by Duvall as his wife and that of the child Danny, we are also made to worry for the safety of his family. Duvall's wide-eyed performance is masterful, implying not only innocence and vulnerability but also the cold determination to protect her son. The boy who plays Danny is also immensely talented in a role today that would seem tailor-made for Haley Joel Osmont. His terror and innocence are emphasised to the max, although interestingly enough the actor never continued a career in film-making. Many people have criticised The Shining due to the fact that it isn't very faithful to the book. Scenes such as the hedge animal attack aren't included and there's a completely different ending. However, both are really excellent in their own way and if Kubrick's film isn't a by the letter adaptation of Stephen King's novel then it at least follows it in spirit. The grim and gory hallucination and psychic vision scenes are genuinely horrific, in particular the woman who rises from the bathtub only for Jack to realise that she's dead. Many of these have become a much-parodied part of pop culture, especially the lift that opens with a gush of blood, and rightly so too. This is generally regarded as one of Kubrick's best films, and it probably is. It's original, scary, disturbing and brilliantly acted. Not only that but it's an adult horror picture, a genre that is so few and far between that it has all but become extinct.
Rating:
Summary: A Harrowing Masterpeice
Review: This film uses such imagary and atmosphere it's quite an intense experience to watch and so it has to go down as one of THE great films love or hate the story. The direction is so utterly unsettling it will have you on the edge of your seat and leave you cold at the end, the true elements of any horror film. The true masterstroke of the film is the ending which in my view points so blatantely to reincarnation hence the date on the photograph, the film peices togeather so well using this therory.
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Summary: Kubrick's consumate statement
Review: Kubrick's joyously pessimistic, counter-Nietzschean remake of "2001: A Space Odyssey" finds a paradoxically rhapsodic filmmaking style to portray a nightmarish universe governed by malevolent supernatural forces (or is it that Time itself is a malevolent force, or the key to allow our own malevolent urges to work through eternity?). Taking the glacial beauty of the ultra-aesthetic "Barry Lyndon" and revving it up with free-floating Steadicam action, endless tracking shots and zooms both somber and shocking, Kubrick makes "The Shining" a hyper-stylized art object. What other space in cinema feels so inhabitable, so tangible to its viewers, as the Overlook Hotel? We might well declare, with Nicholson's Jack Torrance, that we know what's going to be behind every corner. And yet, all this pictorial seduction is tingling with menace-- and menace made concrete in all the worst forms; Kubrick incorporates themes of child abuse, spouse abuse, self-loathing, lust, madness, murder, even genocide in this cinematic catalog of sin and damnation. Most disturbingly of all, Kubrick's notorious invocation of Eternal Recurrence reverses the starchild optimism of his "2001". Indeed, by quoting a theme from Berlioz' "Symphonie fantastique" (itself quoted by Franz Liszt in his "Danse Macabre") Kubrick seems to reverse the Romantic quotations that open "2001" (Nietzsche's dawn to Strauss' to Kubrick's). The Vermeeresque lighting provides an uncanny backdrop for the spectral goings-on; Kubrick and John Alcott's cinematography is flawless both in conception and in its technically breathtaking execution. Why then has "The Shining", like "Apocalypse Now", been unable to shake a certain unsavory reputation among critics? The explanation may lie, not with Nicholson's terrific performance (calibrated, in its exaggerations, to Kubrick's ultimate design) but in the film's uncanny irreducibility-- very few movies hide their most shattering ambiguities as well as "The Shining". And yet it is one of the most compulsively viewable films in cinematic history. Perhaps no other film comes as close to being a communally shared dream as "The Shining". It is a gorgeous, intoxicating and obliterating nightmare from which a generation has yet to awake.
Rating:
Summary: A horror masterpiece
Review: Why Stephen King disliked Kubrick's masterpiece take on his novel is beyond me. I know certain elements we're left out, but others added which made this film very unique, and chilling. The film focused more on Jack's psychotic breakdown, rather than Danny's premonitions. The soundtrack alone will creep the hell out of anyone. Nicholson's best performance of his career, and he definitely deserved an Oscar for it. You talk about one diabolical character... Those eyebrows are forever etched in my mind! There's some pretty weird stuff going on in this film, for instance that scene where the guy in the bear suit is obviously performing a lude act with the man on the bed. I have no clue what that was meant to symbolize, if anything at all, but it was a really bizarre element. In my opinion Kubrick's take on King's book murders the "made for tv" version which was just weak. Danny Lloyd, the kid who played Danny in the original was a much better actor than that annoying brat in the remake. Essential viewing.
Rating:
Summary: One of the greatest horror movies of all time!
Review: The shining was released in a year where horror movies were allways successful, the early 80's. The movie stars Shelley Duval, Danny Loyd and Jack Nickolson as the ever-horrifying Jack Torrance. He is later possessed, but that is much later. The family is driving to the overlook hotel. Jack will stay there and take care of it as he will also have time to write his book. The boy sees visions of dead, in the hotel. Soon enough, 2 hours into the movie, Jack's wife reads his book. "All work no play makes Jack a dull boy" about a thousand pages of the quote over again. He's crazy. "You've had you're whole life to think things over, whats a few minutes gonna do ya now?" and "I'm, not gonna hurt you, i'm gonna bash your brains in!" Some of the teriffying phrases Torrance uses. This is a classic and if you didn't see it and love horror movies, you didn't meet horror yet. P.S. If you think that those cheap flicks like the Jason movies and Freddy are scary, see this real life situatiON, NO GORE, little violence and no special effects, just suspense, horror, chasing, screaming and horrifying quotes that make this movie scary. With a body count of just 1 or 2 deaths, THE SHINING is a clean, terrifying and suspensful ride into the new generation of horror that opened a gate for a new opening in the genre's world.
Rating:
Summary: REDRUM...REDRUM...HEEEEERE'S JOHNNY!
Review: "The Shining" is a haunting film, featuring the marvelous performance of Jack Nicholson. The movie is not really based on the book. It's just got some striking similarities, but mostly, it is a totally different thing entirely. Jack Nicholson is not just scary, but also, quite comical in his role as the madman recovering alcholoic author father who is taking care of the Overlook Hotel. He's endeavoring to fix up his act, write a book, and take care of the hotel while the owners are away during the winter. But, he develops writer's block, is isolated by the snow that surrounds the hotel. He soon sees the bar in the hotel is filled with ghosts that offer him booze. He drinks to his heart's delight. Finally, a drunken, hostile, isolated Jack goes insane, attempting to murder his wife. His child, Danny, can see haunting images of evil in the Overlook Hotel. Jack goes after his wife and son with an axe. It is a very strange yet interesting film, filled with horror, evil, terror, and some probably unintentional comedy. I recommend this film, but fans of the book may be disappointed. It is not nearly as detailed as the book. In the novel, Jack is a semi-normal guy going through some recovering alcoholic problems. In the movie, Jack is always kind of crazy. The hotel is a cramped, dizzy, ugly place, and, if I recall correctly, in the book the hotel was a big and beautiful place. Still, it is a great film, but only because of Jack Nicholson's performance.
Rating:
Summary: creepiest movie ever made
Review: The Shining makes one realize how utterly hard, almost impossible it is to make a scary movie. ...But the Shining, jesus this movie is so creepy. It just gets inside your head. It's scary to even think about this movie. I'm certainly not a film student or critic like some of the reviewers here but I'm in awe of Kubrick's accomplishment.
I thought as I watched it the last time about how Kubrick engineers this mounting sense of unease and dread in the viewer.
I believe that he makes the movie look very unnatural in quite subtle ways. Most scenes are brightly lit, and I noticed that there are not many shadows in the movie. Even in brilliantly lit scenes, you'll notice that things don't cast shadows. The colors are frequently bright pastels but don't have a patina, in other words don't reflect light, don't look at all shiny. I also noticed that so many of the scenes are set up symmetrically. From the scenes in the hallways, to the bathroom meeting between the butler and Jack, to the bedroom of Scatman Crothers, there is frequently a very symmetrical appearance of the room that I find, for some reason, highly unsettling. I think the shot of Crothers watching TV in his Miami bedroom, where the viewer watches from Crothers' viewpoint, and all you can see is his lower legs and feet, the lower half of the bed, and then this highly symmetrical, almost stylized tableaux with the TV, the odd nude painting and wall ornaments, this scene I found very disturbing. I don't know why, it is almost like a Rorschach inkblot releasing some subconscious fear or anxiety. There is also a scene in which the viewer is looking at Jack in bed, then the camera pulls back and you see you were actually seeing his reflection in a mirror, then the camera goes BACK into the mirror for the rest of the scene. It again feels very unnatural and unsettling, as if you can't trust your own eyes. Another unnatural feature is Shelley Duvall. Her performance in this movie has been denigrated but I think it is remarkable. But, she is an unusual looking woman. Coal-black hair, buck teeth, bug eyes, she is just, again, unnatural looking. Definitely not the usual femme fatale or spunky mom. There is never a moment in this movie where she gets a steely look in her eye, or sets her jaw, or makes some cold-blooded comment that lets us know she intends to fight and live. She seems weak,confused and beaten the whole movie. But Duvall can really act weak and confused and horrified. Just check out her face as she begins to read Jack's manuscript ("all work and no play...") as her expressions veer from interest, to confusion, and finally to horror as she realizes that her husband has truly gone mad. And I love, I mean truly love, the scene where the butler spills something on Jack and then shepherds him into the bathroom to clean him up. Notice this, that you do not see the butler's face for the first two thirds of the scene, except a brief and incomplete glimpse as the spill occurs. Again, to be watching an extended scene in a brightly lit (and highly symmetrical) bathroom with only two actors in the scene and yet not really be able to see one of the actors' face is unnatural and somehow unsettling.
And here's this, the scene in the hotel room with the bathing woman. What in the scene lets us know that, as Jack is kissing her, that something is horribly wrong? You can barely see any of her face, just part of her hair and her profile, but she isn't moving at all. She looks dead, although if you stopped the film and examined the frames individually there is nothing to suggest she isn't the beautiful woman who exited the tub.This is a horrifying scene, again highly symmetrical except for the shower curtain only halfway open. Again, weird,flat pastel colors.
The first time I saw this movie, in a theater, when Jack was kissing her, a woman in my row screamed at the top of her lungs in sheer unfiltered terrror, and then,crying, immediately left the theater. This is powerful psychological stuff. An absolute masterpiece of slowly mounting unease and fright.
The only other movie that comes even close to this level of subtle terror, of mounting amorphous dread, is Rosemary's Baby.
But no horror movie has the ability to get inside my head and truly unnerve me the way The Shining can. An amazing and absolutely essential movie.
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