The Shining (1980)

 

Ondskabens hotel

Wow, that was quite an experience. I knew “The Shining” should be good, but I had no idea it was this good.

Stanley Kubrick has an established track record of trying out different genres, but in each case excels in it as if he never did anything else. “The Shining” was his attempt at the horror genre and as usual he nailed it.

Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) takes a job as winter janitor at the exclusive Overlook hotel as it shuts down for the winter. With him he brings his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and son, Danny (Danny Lloyd). The Overlook is an exclusive hotel where they can live in style all winter and Jack can get some quiet time to finally write his book, but it is also built on top of an Indian burial ground, and we all know what that means.

Danny has psychic abilities, so he understands early on that something is off, but for the adults this looks like a perfect deal. Jack never realizes something is wrong, but is sucked into a madness that makes him aggressive and delusional. He sees people in the hotel who convince him that his family is the enemy, which supports an underlying resentment that they are in the way of his glory. Wendy sees her husband visibly change, first to a bad tempered and grumpy man and then to a raving lunatic and obviously she is not thrilled.

At some point Jack completely loses it and chases his family through the hotel with an axe.

There are a lot of things that works in this movie. While the original novel by Stephen King is clearly supernatural, Kubrick’s rendition keeps it more veiled. We are never in doubt that something is badly off, but a lot of the supernatural elements have a strong flavor of psychological effects. Is Jack seeing ghosts or is he getting insane, or are the ghosts making him go insane? Could his aggression be projections of his inner frustrations, now being let loose in the isolation of the lodge?  If this had been a simple ghost story, it would not have worked half as well, but the sense that there is more behind the surface adds so much extra to the movie.

Kubrick also avoids explaining too much. Calling all this the effect of a violated cemetery is too cheap. There are things going on here we are only partially let into, and that mystery is both fascinating and frightening.

Then there are the basic elements of setting up the horror. The confined space, the ominous corridors, the sounds, the Steadicam moving along with the characters. It is a very submersive feeling and reminded me a lot of Lynch’s rooms in Twin Peaks. We do not need to actually see a lot to feel the evil.

And then there is Jack Nicholson. Few actors can be as expressive with their face as he can, especially along the lines of being mad and aggressive. His evil smile is truly vicious, and yet he can also be completely affable. The most iconic scene must be when he breaks down the door to the bathroom with an axe, sticks his head inside with the line: “Here is Johnny!”. I watched this movie with my son and he rewinded several times, photographed the face and sent it to his friends. But the fact is that all through the film, Nicholson’s face steals any scene he is in.

“The Shining” works at every level it intents to and is one of the best horror movies I have watched. Granted, this is not really my genre, but if even I can see this is great, there much be something to it.

Highly recommended.