Review: The Shining

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

Written by: Stanley Kubrick & Diane Johnson

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd, Philip Stone

Rating: [5/5]

Singular isolation can certainly make an individual go mad from the lack of actual connection with another person as we humans exist as social creatures. However, isolation can also occur when not the only person in one particular space, especially when those other beings taking space happen to be spirits trying to drive you mad. The Shining expounds this to bring us one of the more terrifying and iconic horror films ever crafted. 

Hired on to maintain the Overlook Hotel during the offseason, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) and his family which includes his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and son Danny (Danny Lloyd) prepare to travel. An already tense relationship between Jack and his family only becomes worse when Jack begins to see different entities appear to him hoping to have him turn on his family. 

Of every iconic film that we have seen on the big screen, the iconography of The Shining has permeated popular culture in an inexplicable manner. From the ghost twins who appear in the hallway to the iconically improvised line by Jack Nicholson yelling “Here’s Johnny,” this feature has remained in our minds long since its release over 40 years ago, and with good reason. The horror it delves into satisfies on both a surface level in providing creepy imagery but even more sinister when looking at what all of this represents. 

Everything in the setup of this feature indicates things will go horrifically wrong here and our opening scene with Jack where he lands the job shows we cannot fully trust him. As a married man openly looking at magazines he shouldn’t be, something about him seems a bit off, which ultimately explains what makes him such an easy target for the hotel to prey upon and utilize as a vessel for the horrible deeds it seeks to carry out. This becomes much clearer when Jack and his family move in and the mayhem begins for each of them. 

Navigating through this hotel you receive the perspective of both Jack and Danny as they enter rooms they should not and encounter individuals or entities they did not suspect to cross paths with. Each of these moments deliver their own horror and really displays how much this hotel preys upon these individuals and what they desire and fear. Through Jack, we have an obviously unhappy man, who struggles to find the time and tranquility to write. He carries this anger inside of him because of how much he dislikes his life circumstances both professionally and evidently sexually as well. With Jack you see his desires and fear played with in the bathtub scene and then when he enters the ballroom and has his lovely conversation with Lloyd. Everything happening in this particular scene strikes gold as it confuses but also sets the table for what actually transpires in this story. 

When you see the excellence on display with this feature, you cannot speak about it without mentioning Stanley Kubrick, who remains my favorite director of all time for a long list of reasons. One of them comes from the versatility he can display in the type of stories he can produce and instantly rank upon the height the genre has to offer. You see this in science-fiction with 2001: A Space Odyssey and A Clockwork Orange, in war with Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Full Metal Jacket, with comedy in Dr. Strangelove, with the crime genre in The Killing and now you have the horror genre with this feature. He steps right in and with Diane Johnson adapts a very dense horror story and even with the heavy distaste from the original author creates something eerily spectacular. Utilizing his demanding methods he crafts a feature so meticulously crafted to match his overall style and certainly leaves an impact. 

On the other side of the coin, this feature also lives with the infamous legacy of how Kubrick treated Shelley Duvall on set. Certainly shows when one’s methods go entirely too far even if it does produce a tremendous performance by the actor. Duvall’s Wendy serves as the heart and soul of this story as she seeks to keep this family together despite the madness going on with Jack and this hotel. Her fear matches how we would feel in these circumstances, which comes alive in the scenes in the bathroom, when she reads what was written on the typewriter, and of course, when an axe begins to get swung in her direction.  It remains a shame Kubrick felt he needed to go to the lengths he did in order for Duvall to get there emotionally when she certainly had the inherent talent. 

In addition, we have Jack Nicholson perfectly embodying this slow descent into madness his character endures. Nicholson just has that look and does the necessary “Kubrick Stare” employed in many of his films. This decline for Jack has this sense of destiny and a feeling of something that could never be stopped once they set foot into the hotel. A sense of dread where these characters feel claustrophobic in the space they have within an immense building and surrounding land. This sense of inevitability when the score booms throughout the feature draws its inspiration from a piece of music labeled “Day of Reckoning.” The nail truly gets hit right on the head with that one, but the synthesizer utilized makes for something deeply disturbing and foreboding as it plays right at the beginning of the story. 

To this day still, one of the greatest horror films ever made, Stanley Kubrick demonstrates once again his unparalleled mastery of the medium with yet another transcendent film. He crafts a gripping and terrifying story of inevitability and takes us on this ride of a hotel refusing to let go all punctuated by the very final image of the feature, which ultimately serves as the most terrifying single image in all of film history based on the thematic implication and what it means in the context of the entire story. Such a richly layered and horrifying experience that will forever continue to scare anyone who dares to watch it.