A family is watching over a hotel for the winter. The father is slowly falling into madness, while his psychic son keeps seeing the horrible things that have happened in the hotel many years ago.
We decided to watch this last night when few of my friends were over, and since that was about 16-17 hours ago, I don't remember everything I thought while watching, but I will be trying my best with this review.
First of all, I haven't read the book. Well, I've read it, I just haven't finished it. The thing is, I don't like Stephen King. I like his short stories, but his novels just are too... well, I'd say "too complicated", but that's not the case. It's like he had tried to make them confusing and all that. The Shining is very hard to read. But the movie is not strictly base on it as the mini TV-show. In the movie, you can very much see Kubrick's ideas and what he's added to it. The novel has way too mane almost useless scenes and details, so it would be hard to make a film without leaving several things out of the movie.
Jon S. Baird once said on Twitter, that so many movies would be much better, if they cut the useless stuff away and made it shorter. And I couldn't agree more, especially when we talk about The Shining. Kubrick made the movie so very very slow. There are scenes that happen twice slower than what's necessary. Of course I'm aware that it's an artistic decision, but it's frustrating. Of course things being slow can be a good thing in a horror film, but let's face it, the Japanese horror movies work that a lot better than American / British ones. And especially when you're watching a movie like The Shining with your friends, it's very frustrating. Last night everyone was practically screaming for the movie to pick up the pace and just get on with it. Some might argue that it's just because The Shining is a horror movie, and the slowness is frustrating because people are scared, but Id on't think that's it.
But is The Shining scary? I actually don't feel like it. It's distressing, yes, in a way thrillers are, but it's not scary. That's not necessarily a bad thing. But then again thinking about Kubrick's style making this movie makes The Shining seem more like an art film than a horror. That may also be because these days horror films are no way near art. Think about Paranormal Activity. They aren't made for the sake of art, but because of the makers simply crave for more and more dollars. You can definitely look at Kubrick's work an be almost sure that he wasn't in it for money.
I'd like to point out, that I like Kubrick's style very much. It might seem right now that I don't. I just don't think it suits with horror films, and his films can't be viewed as entertainment, they have to be viewed as art, and not everyone has the patience for that.
The characters are all very frustrating in this movie. I don't like any of the main characters, but how can anyone? Jack's just fucking insane, and when Wendy would have to do something, she spends time crying and panicking. I know, that's what most people would do in that kind of situation, but it's frustrating. That goes with every horror story with characters like this. My friend pointed out, that when Wendy sees how Jack flips, she never gets that adrenaline rush you could (or would) probably get. And of course then there's Danny who just... I don't know, his character makes me feel so distressed. He just sees things, and what's up with his imaginary friend Tony? I actually don't remember if there was something really important about Tony, him being even partly real, or was he just Danny's imagination? I don't know.
The actors did marvellous job, though. Jack Nicholson can always be so very terrifying. I don't like him as an actor though, not sure why. I feel bad for Shelley Duvall, though. If you read the trivia part on iMDB, you can see how shooting of the film must've been hard on her, and Kubrick definitely was way too, well, rough. I have one goof example, now let me quote
- "Kubrick insisted that Duvall and Nicholson perform the baseball bat scene 127 times, which broke a world record for the most retakes of a single movie scene with spoken dialogue" - Wikipedia (source)
I was going to quote the original article, but it didn't mention which scene. But if you've seen the movie, now you may understand why Shelley Duvall's character Wendy seems as hysterical as she does.
The music is also very interesting in The Shining. It's very distressing, just the way the music in horror movies is supposed to be. However, you know how music in horror films is kind of revealing? The way that the music tells that now something is going to happen, the music just tells it? Well, the soundtrack in this movie is different. It has those spikes that make you think now someone attacked someone, but nothing happens. Someone may just walk around carrying an axe, but when that certain spike comes in the music, nothing changes, it's the exact same scene, the exact same shot, there may not even be any kind of sudden movement. I think it's kind of interesting, and it's somewhat effective.
I'm not exactly sure how should I rate it. Artistically the movie is so great, the cinematography is amazing and the music is a spot on, and everything just clicks - as art. But when you look at the writing behind the movie, and the characters, and how the artistic side suits the story and genre, it just... doesn't click so much anymore. That's the interesting part about The Shining. So again, I'm not at all surprised if someone disagrees with me on this but this movie is really hard to rate. Like I need to think about both sides before I can think about the whole thing.
Of course I'd like to recommend The Shining, but if you don't like horror movies, then maybe not. However, if you do like horror movies, then maybe I still wouldn't recommend it. It's not like the horror movies now, the horror movies we see. It's something different. It's good to view it artistically, though. I have no idea how many people would do that.
☆☆☆☆☆☆
6 / 10
And oh, look at that, I wasn't sure if I'd write more than about three or four paragraphs but here we are.
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