Rating: 
Summary: Ultimate Black Comedy
Review: This should serve as a pre-warning to Stephen King fans: stay away!!! Yes, indeed, Stanley Kubrick did take liberties with King's 1977 novel. But is this a crime? Kubrick's entire approach to filmmaking is based on taking a well-know piece of literature and twisting it to meet his own artistic vision. And what a vision it is! While there is a genuine sense of dread permeating throughout the film, it actually plays more successfully as a sly satire of the horror genre than as the real deal. Jack Nicholson's performance, for example, is a comedic one; there is no way one could get through the classic bar scene without cracking a smile. Nicholson winks at the audience from the very beginning; his dialogue during early scenes is tinted with a benign sarcasm. Once he begins to lose it, he loses it ten-fold! Jack has never been as charismatically psycho as he is here. As with most of Kubrick's films, every character (from Shelley Duvall's spacey housewife to the hilariously WASP-y hotel manager) comes off as a one-dimensional parody of their real-life counterpart. Why? Because Kubrick's primary objective is to satirize human behavior, to reveal all of the absurdities and contradictions so commonplace in "civilized" society (check out "Dr. Strangelove", "A Clockwork Orange" and "Full Metal Jacket"). And it all takes place within one of the finest set designs ever used in a Hollywood film. Kurick's approach to horror is take-it-or-leave-it, but there's no denying this is a milestone picture and a work of art. If there ever was a testament to the enormous talents of both Stanley Kubrick and Jack Nicholson, this it is.
Rating:
Summary: The Shining
Review: One of my favorites.It is slightly strange like most Stanley Kubrick films ,however it is also very scary. Jack Nicholson does an awsome acting job in this one.Much better than the remake for tv a couple of years ago/Must see.Enjoy Lisa C.
Rating:
Summary: Stanley Kubrick's ultimate Masterpiece.
Review: This is one of, if not the greatest films ever made. It is extrmely heart-pounding, which is why it made number 21 on AFI's 100 Heart Pounding Movie Ever. This movie grabs you and doesn't let go, even after the film is over. I read the book. It is the greatest book I have ever read. This is my favorite movie. The book and the movie aren't even the same thing -- so don't put the movie down. The picture and sound quality is excellent, and the documentary before the film is awesome. This is the great horror film ever (tied with Evil Dead -- you should check it out). YOu must buy or rent this DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Horror film of the century
Review: This movie is the scariest movie I've ever seen. I love this movie so much and it is way underrated. I think it should get some kind of special award for the greatness of the film. Jack Nicholson is amazing in this movie, the way his eyes just stare right at you in that evil demented way. REDRUM now has me scared to death everytime I look at a mirror, I just love it. I think of this movie every time I look at an axe. Well thats all I have to say about the greatest horror film of the century
Rating: 
Summary: Less effects, more realistic, thus SCARIER
Review: First, I have not read SK's novel, so I therefore cannot evaluate this based on the book. It is good though because that way, I would not be disappointed if the movie fell short from the book's story. I have seen the remake though & here is what I have to say. Kubrick's version is simpler, uses less horror effects (maybe technology constrainsts too or maybe his own option), is less gory but it comes out scarier than its remake version. The scenes focus on the actors' expressions instead of filling it up with cinematic gory effects thus leaving more room for the viewers' imagination. I commend the kid's acting as I find it extraordinary for a kid that age to express utmost fear as if it's real.
Rating:
Summary: An Enduring Classic
Review: The Print is Beautifully restored, there are hardly any nicks or sctches, the are a few articating problems in the transfer, such as a few jaggies and glittering artifacts, but nothing too drastic, If you want you version of The Shining to be perfect, wait for the Supernit version to come out when ever :)
Rating:
Summary: A horror classic
Review: Anyone who likes horror flicks has this in their collection. A real scary story this movie follows a man(Jack Nicholson) and his family as they care for a beautiful hotel in the mountains. The hotel by the way is haunted, and buried on an indian burial ground and so on. Even though the movie is over 20 years old I still get chills when I watch it. The dolby digital aspect is ok mostly music comes from the rear and voices in the front. A definite DVD for anyone's horror collection though. You may want to rent it first if your the squeamish type.
Rating:
Summary: The third in Kubrick's major Time and Space trilogy.
Review: Kubrick's best films have always, thematically, had much in common with horror films - e.g. the mental and physical decline of confident male heroes; the intrusion of the past on the present; the preference for cavernous interiors - so it is surprising people found his choice to make 'The Shining' an odd one. It is only odd if you define the term horror within limited boundaries - a formulaic narrative in which everything is reduced to sensation. Kubrick parodies these boundaries by throwing in every old horror cliche as 'explanation' for the events in the Overlook Hotel (e.g. horrific crime committed there in the past; built on Indian burial grave; the horror narrative as a sublimated account of Jack's marriage, fear of aging etc.). All these threads are plausible, and do what the horror film has always done - created a mythic or symbolic space where crises, fears, anxieties, repressions etc. are played out, and normality is in some manner restored. And 'Shining' is deeply satisfying on all these levels: it is, for instance, the best metaphor for marriage since Beckett's 'Happy Days', a heightening of a very real situation - two people forced to spend all their time together, wearing each other down, making each other feel small until the only release is in violence, child abuse, murder etc. This is a condition for millions of couples around the world, Duvall's voice only a little more grating, Nicholson only a little more mad than the norm. The film can also be seen as an allegory for America's past, the spirits of African slaves and massacred Indians come back to haunt a nation on the brink of the Reagan years. it is a film about what happens to man when this Indian period, the Western, is over, and he must turn inwards, must domesticate himself, become female (Jack is a caretaker, his job is to look after a house). And it is a film about creative failure, writer's block, where inspiration flows everywhere except that white page. 'Shining' could be about all these things and stay within the confines of the horror film. Kubrick, of course, has never been interested in confines, and 'Shining' plays as the third film in a trilogy that includes '2001' and 'Barry Lyndon', culminating one of the major achievements in the cinema. As in those films, Kubrick moves beyond mere genre by displacing narrative, with its linear move towards crisis and resolution. Instead of the past returning to haunt the future, the past, present and future co-exist in a temporal labyrinth, which is reflected in a narrative labyrinth composed of 'reality', dreams, visions, flashbacks, flashforwards etc., with each narrative development repeated or foreshadowed in an endless loop, and physically reflected in the garden maze, whose walls seem to move with Kubrick's camera, and whose model Jack peers over, like a God, or a writer who's just got an idea for a book. As in '2001' and 'Lyndon', Kubrick conflates time and space in 'Shining', so when Jack walks physically in space, he is also walking through time. 'Shining' often feels like '2001', those endless Steadicam shots like voyages through vast, empty, unpopulated space - the film's opening, with its chillingly articulate officials and large lobby hint at a terrifying voyage ahead. The use of architectural space and the collapse of narrative into dream logic, with the hero forced to confront his various selves in one time, also echo that film. Like '2001', 'Shining' is unexpectedly, blackly comic, yet also curiously moving - the Gold Room sequences are among the most resonant in all cinema. The pay-off is unparalelled and devastating. Confines indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: It Trashes the Novel
Review: And in all of the worst ways. Everything that was scary in the novel has been changed or not even used in this movie. One of these story elements involved topiary (hedge sculptured into animal shapes) that comes to life and moves with a chilling red-light/green-light subtleness so you could hear them move when you weren't looking but when you turned around they had stopped in different poses. I don't know why this couldn't be done since it required no effects. In this movie it has been replaced by a giant hedge maze. Jack and Shelly are fine actors but they are horribly miscast. I have yet to see an effective film adaptation of this story aside from the take-off done by the Simpsons on one of their halloween specials. By the time Jack goes after his family with an ax (no ax in the book) we just sit there hoping that he will chop them all up and quickly. People who did not read the book might enjoy this movie.
Rating:
Summary: Not King's Story, But Brilliant!
Review: If you read the reviews of this movie, both by professional critics and by my fellow amateurs, there are many complaints about this movie. This startles me, as I think that "The Shining" is one of the creepiest, scariest films ever made. The only explanation for this disparity that I can figure out is that I did not read the novel before seeing the film (or since, for that matter). I understand, from other reviews, that the film is not faithful to Stephen King's novel, and that King objected to this version so much that he actively participated in the recent television remake. To me, the Kubrick-Nicholson version IS "The Shining", and I love it. Jack Nicholson plays a writer with writer's block, who takes a job as winter caretaker of an enormous and lavish hotel high in the mountains. He takes his reluctant wife, played by Shelley Duvall, along with their young son. The hotel is spectacular as a building and in its setting. Unfortunately, it's also heavily haunted, and completely isolated by snow for months at a time during the winter. Jack and family are totally alone (except for the plethora of ghosts). The viewer gets the feeling that, even before taking the job at The Overlook, Jack's character is not quite right. Shelley Duvall looks like the quintessential abused wife, while little Danny happens to be telepathic (has "the shining"). The ghosts gradually terrorize Danny, while Jack gradually goes over the edge mentally and adopts the persona of some of the hotel's past homicidal guests (encouraged by the ghosts). The long chase scene near the end is pure terror. Jack Nicholson is the only who could play this part well, which was the main flaw in the television remake (it did not have him). The remake might be more faithful to the novel, and I hope this pleases Mr. King (I'm a fan of his, by the way), but it was totally lacking in creepiness and horror; the original was overflowing with creepiness and horror. If you like being scared, watch the Nicholson version of "The Shining" or (for something totally different but equally scary) "Alien".
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