Jack Nicholson plays Jack, who has taken on a job as a hotel caretaker for the winter months and moves with his wife, Wendy and son, Danny to this huge hotel in the middle of nowhere. He is warned that things will get lonely, but as he is a writer, he is only too keen to have a bit of time to himself. However, he doesn't come prepared for the amount of solitary time he will have, and as the time goes by, he starts to withdraw and become hostile to his own wife. His son has some sort of psychic powers that tell him something terrible happened in the hotel, and something terrible could happen again. As Jack loses his sanity and his son see ghosts around the hotel, will he and his mum be able to stay safe in the hotel until the end of the contract in May?

I think today a lot (not all) of films tend to need big groups of people who drop like flies, dying horrific deaths that the remaining survivors often witness and the emphasis on how gory the film can be. Obviously I wouldn't want to give away if anyone was killed in The Shining, who or how many people if so, but it is clear that in this remote place where it is only Jack and his family the number of potential deaths is small, although the already dead count is a bit bigger. Much of the film is more about drawing out the onset of psychosis and Jack's increasingly strange behaviour. I liked this film because it was different to most of the films I've seen lately, which are starting to feel like clones, even if they are good! The idea of being stuck out there in the middle of nowhere with only two other people is probably the only thing that gives me the creeps, but that was effective enough.

Acting/Characters

I don't think it is Shelley Duvall's fault at all, but I really hated her character and the way it was done. It sounds like Kubrick insisted on having an actress who would play a feeble woman for Jack's wife, who was really quite helpless. In those days maybe this would have been a more likely option, so maybe this is just another outdated element of the film, but where I couldn't relate to her at all it was impossible to care what happened to her or to picture myself in her shoes, which I like to be able to do. I think today a lot of people would look at Wendy, and in some scenes just think "you flimsy bitch, just stop your faffing and wack Jack!" I think it was a tough role to play, but it would have been better if the character had a bit of strength in her.

Scatman Crothers was also really good in this film, and I was surprised to realise that he was actually 70 when this film was made. He looked 50 at the most to me! His character was a bit strange but I think this made the film more interesting. He shares an ability with Danny and so although their meeting is brief and you could hardly call it a friendship he helps to alleviate the isolated feeling just slightly, albeit temporarily. I think the film would have just been depressing if it had been constantly just the three main characters and never getting to know anyone else.

Obviously everything is a little outdated in this film so we can't expect what we might today. I mean, you only have to look at the dreadful wallpaper in some of the hotel rooms. That's fitting for a horror movie! Everything looks a bit more 'real', though, which is something I do quite like about the film, and the limitations are not too bad. There is a scene of blood gushing through from a lift, which is repeated several times in the film and I did not really get the significance of this but it was impressive. There is some gore in the film and although it is vague and shown very quickly it looks quite real.

Classification

Conclusion