Rating: 
Summary: all work and no play.....
Review: It had been a while since I had seen The Shining. This is one film that is really standing the test of time. Sometimes horror movies lose their luster over the years but not this one. It is still scary as hell! Jack Nicholson gives an amazing performance as the troubled writer who is taken over by the hauntings at the Overlook hotel. Buy this movie! It's not just for Halloween!
Rating: 
Summary: good film, new transfer looks and sounds great
Review: >A very good film, but a rather bad DVD transfer. Warner's replaced the old, bad transfer with a terrific new one some time ago, so my old negative review does not apply anymore. All of the Kubrick stuff looks and sounds MUCH better now than it did a few years back. This film has been the subject of a long-running contraversy about the proper aspect ratio. SK shot it open matte--that is, full frame--and reportedly prefered full frame (at least for home viewing in the VHS era) even though he knew it would be projected in the US at 1.85:1. As a result, there's some ambiguity about which ratio is "original." Plausibly, BOTH are (and SJ's symmetrical compositions generally look fine both ways). The DVD is full frame, reflecting the original negative, with "extra" image at the top and bottom. --SRP
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant. Fully entertaining and time-less.
Review: Excellent film, one of the best scary movies I've ever seen. Nicholson "shines", he was born to do this role -in fact he was born to do pretty much all the roles he played in most of his movies. You don't see films like this anymore. Watch it, you won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant. Fully entertaining and time-less.
Review: Excellent film, one of the best scary movies I've ever seen. Nickolson "shines", he was born to do this role -in fact he was born to do pretty much all the roles he played in most of his movies. You don't see films like this anymore. Watch it, you won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: Terrifying Kubrickian Adaptation of King's Chilling Novel!
Review: This is one of Kubrick's lesser efforts, but then again almost all fo Kubrick's films have become milestones in their genre and this is no exception. Filled with unsettling images and chilling sequences that stay with you long after the first viewing. 'Chilling' is probably the best way to describe this film, the pace drags is spots here and there but maybe Kubrick intended that to heighten the sense of seclusion and boredom which than produces 'cabin fever' and then things tend to get a bit scary. The use of steady-cam cinematography is great and the low-key score really heightens the suspense. Jack Nicholson goes way over the top at times, but still, he delivers a compelling performance. Shelley Duvall, on the other hand, is very effective as Nicholson's wife who must protect his son against Nicholson's maniac killer. Once Nicholson begins his descent into madness is when the film really gets on its feet. Many now-classic scenes such as the 'Heeeeere's Johnny' sequence and the chilling ending. Stephen King aficionados may argue that the novel is better, and in many ways it is, but this film survived best in the audience's mind and in America's culture. From a scale of 1-10 I give this film a 7!
Rating: 
Summary: Weak Adaptation
Review: In spite of Kubrick's impressive and unmistakeable style... In spite of Nicholson and Duvall's remarkable performances... the weak novel's flaws are magnified rather than minimized in translation to the screen. There is little here that will frighten you--and, unlike most other Kubrick films, still less upon which to ponder.
Rating:
Summary: Great Horror movie
Review: I loved this movie it is one of the best horror movies out there today. It had it all horror/shock/supence and a good look in to the human mind and what happens to some people when locked up in a house together and that feeling of lonelyness and isulatetion. What really made the movie was Jack Nicholson" performance plus Shelly Devall as the suffering wife. If you want a good movie then rent or buy this movie and watch it you will not be sorry.
Rating: 
Summary: A tarnished "Shining"
Review: It's easy to see why Stephen King and Stanley Kubrick clashed over Kubrick's version of "The Shining" -- much of the horror of the novel is lost with the omission of the sinister topiary animals and the substitution of a garden maze; the culvert little Danny burrows into, only to find himself not alone; Jack's use of an axe instead of a croquet-type stick; and, what is absolutely criminal, the murder of the hotel chef (Scatman Crothers), who was a hero in the novel, sensing Danny's distress and driving across country to help a small bearer of a potent portion of "the shining," a telepathic kind of talent for sensing danger and horror. Couldn't Kubrick stand the idea of a black man being a hero? In the film, only Shelley Duvall remains to save Danny; in the book, Crothers is with her, courageous beyond caution in his efforts to save her and Danny, even though severely wounded by Mad Jack. As a radical feminist and long-time civil rights supporter, I was pleased they both exerted efforts that are usually beyond the ability of the human mind and body to accomplish -- in the book, but left only to Duvall in the movie. The elevator of blood was effective -- if you're frightened of blood. A really great effect is reproduced from King's novel: the dead -- or is she? -- woman in the bathtub. Leaving out the little boy -- a ghost? -- who is Danny's real informant of danger as part of Danny's "shining" and having Danny's thumb -- or finger? -- waggle at him in warnng instead is perhaps intentional comic relief. However, comic relief doesn't belong in this story, and the strategy backfires because of its utter silliness. All that said, "The Shining" is an extremely frightening film. When a Jack Nicholson character goes nuts, you don't want to be anywhere nearby. As his character, Jack Torrance, sinks into psychosis under the malign influence of the hotel and its past denizens, Nicholson gives one of the best performances of his career; who'd have thought that enormous, mischievous, toothy grin could be so horrible, even in the context of an insane character? But it is, and there's no way that his grin, especially in the infamous scene in which Jack sticks his face into a hole he's made in a door with his axe, while Duvall and the little boy cower back, wouldn't scare the pants off the most stoic viewer. There are still T-shirts bearing a close-up of Jack's face being sold. "Heeeeeere's Johnny!" indeed! Duvall perfectly plays the kind of woman King irritatingly and consistently characterized in his early novels, seemingly the only kind of which he was aware: timid, ineffectual, unable to act in her own behalf. But her character gets braver -- maternal instinct, King seems to imply -- while remaining utterly terrified. Kubrick, however, stresses her growing strength much more in the film. The greatest disappointment in the film version of "The Shining" is the child playing Danny, an example of a casting mistake with no excuse. The kid is boring. He has no personality. He's a drag. You don't give a damn about him, and don't understand why Duvall does, except that she's his mother. He is not a lovable child. He's a zero. Crothers is fine, fine, fine as the departing hotel chef, who notices and tells Danny about his "shine," and tells him to use it if he needs help, because Crothers will come back if he does. And he's as good as his word because he does come back, to achieve heroic stature in the novel but to be summarily put down by Mad Jack in the movie. What a shame! I wonder if that was one of King's objections to what Kubrick was doing with his story. If you've never read the book, your first viewing of "The Shining" ought to scare you sick. Otherwise, be prepared for disappointment. Kubrick tarnished the shining of one of the best and certainly one of the most graphic "haunted house" genre stories ever written.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely Incredible
Review: Many reviewers of this fabulous movie, who read the book first, throw around the adjectives "Atrocious", and "Disappointing", without even realizing that this is perhaps the scariest and most terrifying movie that has ever been produced. I've read only one of Stephen King's books(Skelaton Crew, a collection of short stories), and it was certainly very creepy, but I don't think any film maker, could convey the sort of terror that King's books produce. But Stanley Kubrick did perhaps the best job that could concievably have been done. Contrary to what others have said, I don't think Jack Nicholson's character looked psycho in the beggining at all(Jack just looks that way naturally, just watch Batman, One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest, or even Reds), I could see a degeneration in his personality as the movie progressed(don't ask me how other people didn't, it's an enigma!). Also, I found Shelley Duvall's character to be comforting, as opposed to annoying, she just seemed like a normal person in an abnormal world. If people found her annoying because she always screamed, then they're boring and insipid hypocrites(when the Man or Woman you marry, is about to hack you into pieces with an axe, I don't think you would laugh or try to act likable!). The only problem with the movie, in my opinion, is a scene with a bear suit, and a butler(I hate people that ruin movies, so I won't go into specifics!). This is just a horribly terrifying movie, with superb acting, an incredible location, and was directed by the most prolific director to ever exist, Stanley Kubrick. You are depriving yourself of potentially years of trauma, and nightmares by not watching this movie(I would likely be a different person now if I didn't watch this movie when I was very very young[I think I was six or seven!]), and if you have watched this movie, then you almost certainly know what I'm talking about!...
Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece of horror.
Review: A tense thriller based on one of Stephen King's horror masterpieces, this is an 'isolation' story, in that it shows a handful of characters cut off from the outside world. The mansion is wonderfully eerie, especially the scenes involving the big, empty intimidating house from the point of view of a child. There are some haunting images involving undead characters and a butler who is more than he seems, but what really makes the film unmissable is Jack Nicholson's overwhelming performance as a family man who slowly becomes more irritable and unstable, ultimately resulting in an edge-of-seat finale.
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