Stanley Kubrick's masterful horror adaptation of Stephen King's novel. Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) has writer's block. So he and his...
Stanley Kubrick's masterful horror adaptation of Stephen King's novel. Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) has writer's block. So he and his family move into an isolated resort hotel, high in the Colorado mountains, as the sole occupants and caretakers for the long winter. But this awakens more than just artistic demons as a madness takes over Jack, one the whole family will come to experience.
"Every frame of the film brims with Kubrick's genius for implying psychological purpose in setting: the hotel's tight, sinister labyrinth of corridors; its cold, sterile bathrooms; the lavish, illusionary ballroom. This was horror of the mind transposed to place (or, indeed, vice versa). The clarity of the photography and the weird perspectives constantly alluding to Torrance's twisted state of mind. The supernatural elements are more elusive than the depiction of his madness. The 'shining' itself - the title comes from the line "We all shine on" in the John Lennon song Instant Karma - is the uncanny ability to see dark visions of the truth (young Danny manifests the power through an imaginary alter-ego Tony). A power separate from, yet entwined, with the evil that dwells in the building." (Empire Magazine)
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Where to watch The Shining
83 %106 reviewsRotten Tomatoes® rating
93 %484,345 reviewsAudience score rating
"(Kubrick) manages to make his movie thoroughly unnerving by keeping the horror so close to home."
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The New York Times
The New York Times"The movie is not about ghosts but about madness and the energies it sets loose in an isolated situation primed to magnify them."
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Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert"Kubrick has teamed with jumpy Jack Nicholson to destroy all that was so terrifying about Stephen King's bestseller."
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Variety
Variety"Deeply scary and strange."
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The Guardian
The Guardian"Essential viewing. Prepare to be disturbed."
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Little White Lies
Little White Lies"The classic Stanley Kubrick film isn't just scary - it is also, in its own odd way, defined by a hopeful perspective on life and death."
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Salon
Salon"A masterpiece."
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Time Out
Time Out"The incredibly slack narrative line forestalls suspense."
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Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader"Ostensibly a haunted house story, it manages to traverse a complex world of incipient madness, spectral murder and supernatural visions... and also makes you jump."
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Empire Magazine
Empire Magazine"It's the experience more so than the actual content of The Shining that radiates cold, anti-humanly indifferent terror."
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Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine"Kubrick has made a movie that will have to be reckoned with on the highest level."
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Time Magazine
Time Magazine"Kubrick doesn't dumb it down or anything, but he's not actively trying to appeal only to film connoisseurs either. If any of his movies could be called mainstream, it's this one."
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Film Threat
Film Threat"Its artful ambiguities are immersive. Check in."
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Total Film
Total Film"I can't recall a more elaborately ineffective scare movie."
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The Washington Post
The Washington Post"Boy will it chill your blood."
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BBC
BBCThe Shining | Details
- Rating
- MA15+, Strong violence, Horror theme
- Runtime
- 142
- Genre
- Horror, Thriller
- Country of origin
- UK, USA
