Rating: 
Summary: All Growl and No Bite Makes Jack....
Review: I don't think anyone looked more-forward to this movie than I did when it came out in the summer of 1980. "The first epic horror film" was its tagline. I'd read the novel and ate up the hype and saw it opening day...and then left the theatre a little confused: it didn't scare me. At all.
The critic for Newsweek said that THE SHINING made THE EXORCIST look like ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET BEELZEBUB. Really?I will say that THE SHINING is probably the most beautifully photographed horror film ever made. The scene where Jack Torrance sells his soul for a glass of beer to the patient, creepy Lloyd the bartender hints at the evil behind the Overlook Hotel. Satan closing that simple deal in the cavernous ballroom is one of the film's highlights for me.
But the movie never gets any momentum.
I've read as many Stanley Kubrick biographies as I can find (some good, some really bad) and I believe the reason THE SHINING doesn't work is fairly simple: Kubrick never believed in an afterlife. He believed in evil in the world, evil in human beings, but the idea of Satan, ghosts, the supernatural eluded him. Stephen King said in an interview back in 1980 that Kubrick would call him at all hours to pepper him with questions during production. Questions like, "Do you believe in God?"
(In the Argosy article back then, King said that he told Kubrick that he didn't. Since his horrible accident, King now tells the same story--except that he now says he told Kubrick he did). And, in my opinion, when you keep this in mind while watching the film, you understand that Kubrick's normally razor-sharp perceptions as a filmmaker appear a little vague and out of focus. The emphasis shifts from a malevolent haunted house to one guy losing his sanity. The DVD is worth it for Kubrick's daughter's documentary, "The Making of THE SHINING." As a lifelong Kubrick fan (DR. STRANGELOVE is, in modern terms, still Da Bomb), I'd never heard the reclusive director's voice until this DVD came out a few years ago.
What I really missed though was the second trailer from 1980, the one they played on TV just before the film was released. The DVD includes the first trailer--the single shot of the elevator opening to release a tidal wave of blood in the hotel--but does anyone remember the TV commercial? Wendy Carlos' throbbing main title plays as different shots from the film roll. No dialogue. And one of the last shots is Jack with his face pushed through the shattered door--but not the shot from the film! It's some alternate take (and there were a slew of them). He's laughing hysterically, his face locked in satanic glee, all teeth and eyebrows...and his eyes are dead with evil. Somebody, please dig that out! Over 20 years later and I still remember that!
Rating: 
Summary: Honey, I think we need to talk
Review: Let's put this as simply as possible : The Shining, is without a doubt, a film I'm quite literally obsessed with. In all of my twenty three years, nothing I've seen since has affected me quite so deeply as Stanley Kubrick's masterful retelling of Stephen King's little tale about a family, a hotel and a force of pure evil. Forget the book, the film snakes it's way inside your brain and locks you in with The Torrances for it's murderously tense two and a half hour running time. Considered by some (including me) to be the scariest film ever made, noting it's qualities would take up this entire web site. I won't bore you with scrawling out here the plot and themes explored in the movie, I simply urge that if at present, you are yet to view The Shining, waste not another night. Draw the curtains, load up the DVD, pull a chair into the centre of the room and go on a guided tour into the Overlook Hotel. Oh and make sure you know where your exits are.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the money!
Review: I never read the book but since I've seen the movie, I don't really plan to. This is definitely scary. Most horror movies that come out today are just not scary. Jack Nicholson plays as a writer who stays in a haunted hotel with his wife and his son who has mind powers. Jack goes crazy later on and tries to kill his family. You'll see some scary situations, like the bathtub scene. I won't spoil it but you'll see. There's also a remake miniseries that showed on Scifi but you shouldn't try to remake an awesome movie and the remake miniseries weren't that good anyway. If you're a true horror fan, get this movie!
Rating: 
Summary: ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JACK A DULL BOY, HEEERE'S JOHNNY
Review: Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" is totally inferior to the book and the miniseries, but Jack Nicholson does a fabulous job portraying the rantings of a madman. Without Jack Nicholson and the character of Delbert Grady, the film would be a disaster. A mindless, bloody, violent film, failing to live up to the expectations of true horror movie lovers. The only famous actor in films I can think of who would play this part just as brilliant or more brilliant than Jack Nicholson is Robert De Niro, who excellently portrayed the role of pyschopath Max Cady in "Cape Fear". Anyways, this movie is all-in-all great, if you don't compare it to the book or miniseries. I recommend it for fans of horror.
Rating:
Summary: The Scariest Movie
Review: Ok I watched this movie like half a month ago or so for the first time. I watched it at like at midnight with one of my friend's and I was scared even though much doesn't scare me in the line of movies. I haven't seen the exorcist before, I hear that's very scary, but to me this is the scariest that I have seen. It's maybe slow for like a half hour maybe 40 minutes, but that is when it's preparing the story and then it gets really scary. Although not much killing and there is hardly any blood, they are pretty much quick glimpses of mutilated corpses, but the quick glimpses are gory. But anyhow this is a movie that doesn't require showing you a body getting ripped inside out for a minute to scare you. The roles are perfect and this movie had me the entire time. If you thought Halloween or something like that was scary or no movies can scare you, grab this, and if you've got a lot of guts then watch it alone at night, although I watched it at night with a friend. Although it is probably more fun with a friend. Try this. Unless you don't like getting scared then this is for you. It will probably be disturbing for you though for the rest of the night definately atleast.
Rating: 
Summary: Kubrick's vision falls way short once again
Review: Hard to disagree with Stephen King on that point. Highly disappointing if you're a King fan, but if you're another robotic Stanley Kubrick worshipper you will probably love this thing. There's nothing scary or terrifying here, except Danny's constant spastic shaking and drooling. Unless of course you're one of those people that has a habit of looking under your bed at nite to see if the boogeyman has paid you a visit. And if I was stranded on a mountain in a haunted hotel Scatman Crother's would be my first choice for a rescue. Some haunting and stunning visuals as you might expect but the story doesn't gel, and (spoiler alert) you'll want Shelley Duvall to be disposed of in the most gruesome manner possible. What were they thinking casting her in the part of Wendy? Nicholson was great in his prime, as usual but this movie could have been so much better. King's best work gets the ax on the altar of artistic creativity.
Rating:
Summary: All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy!
Review: I just finished watching this movie. Parts of me are still shaking. It's a huge compliment to the movie that I'm shaking from the inside out. My bones are rattling. This movie is a terrifying, completely horrifying look into brutal, violent homicide and paralyizing insanity. If you watch this movie with an open mind and let it take you... then my god, will it take you. As a matter of fact, the movie still hasn't brought me back. This movie is, I think, the scariest film experience next to the Blair Witch Project for me. Although it may have just outdone that movie. This movie succeeds on every level it set out to, and it makes a great, bone marrow freezing experience. Try watching it at night. Alone. And have fun.
Rating:
Summary: Frightening
Review: This film is disturbing and scary. It kept me on the edge of my seat for almost all of its two and a half hours running length. In Kubrick's tale things start to get spooky at a remote Colorado hotel, and as the characters discover they are trapped, so we discover we are trapped with them, shut up in an amazing labyrinth with an axe-wielding madman we have suddenly found out we cannot trust. Music (mainly by the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok) and camerawork are the chief contributors to the atmosphere of a film which is one of the few genuinely frightening I have experienced.
Rating:
Summary: almost perfect
Review: First, as any Stephen King fan knows, this is Stanley Kubricks vision of the Shinning, not Kings. Kubrick makes several changes that will either please you or annoy you. Wendy is a weaker woman in the movie, Dick gets killed instead of coming to the rescue and Danny talks to himself instead of hearing Tony in his mind. Also, in the movie Jack is crazy from the start and the hotel just makes it worse.
So, has Kubrick butchered the book? No. Kubrick's Shinning stands on it's own as one of the scariest, most unnerving horror movies ever made. If you can watch the woman in the bathtub scene and not squim in your seat, check your pulse because you might be dead. The DVD is nothing special, so buy it for the sake of the movie and not because of any background information.
Rating:
Summary: Great comedy but when exactly does Nicholson go nuts?
Review: I mean, he's as psyhchotic in the beginning as he is in the end. Jack is talking about the people who ate each other in the olden days, a story he is telling to his son on the way to the hotel. His face and voice, however, look and sound just as freaky as they do at the end of the film. It's almost a little too hilarious. The Shining is a masterpiece, a classic, yadda, yadda, you already know since all about since nearly 400 hundred people have already reviewed it. If there is an impossible chance that you know absolutely nothing about this film, you will find a great horror film about the mental breakdown of a man, only in Kubrick's version we can't really begin to see when Nicholson goes nuts. The reason I gave it five stars is based on the comedy it unknowingly possesses. No wonder Steven King hated Kubrick's guts long after this film was made. NOTE TO VIEWER: There are a number of hilarious parts in this film, the scene where Nicholson is staring aimlessly out the window for one. The segment with the kid saying, "Red Rum" with his finger is an absolute laugh riot. Also to note, THE SCARIEST THING ABOUT THIS FILM IS SHELLEY DUVALL. Is it just me or is that lady completely scary looking?
WATCH THE MAKING OF THE SHINING, it's enough to make you pee your pants in laughter. Especially as you watch Nicholson. He's as nuts in real life as he is in this film.
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