Here's...... my review! (The Shining (DVD))

Member Name: moronboy

Product:	The Shining (DVD)
Date:	23/11/00 (20 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Scary

Disadvantages: But not quite what you might have hoped for

There are several possible responses to Kubrick's film 'The Shining'. As an adaptation of Stephen King's fat, hugely entertaining bestseller novel, it isn't even in the game, deciding to go for a far more quiet, Victorian ghost story approach.

As a Kubrick film, there are also grounds for disappointment - following his series of bleak nightmare comedies in the fifties and sixties, Kubrick produced his two great epic, ('2001' and 'Barry Lyndon'), and for all it's stylistic brilliance and sense of menace, 'The Shining' is still just a haunted house movie. Indeed, when you look at the last twenty five years of Kubrick's life, you see one horror film, one dull soft-porn film ('Eyes Wide Shut') and 'Full Metal Jacket', the only film which competes with his best.

But maybe you aren't some anal auteurist film-junkie like me, or maybe you love this movie, and such considerations are meaningless. As a horror movie, it doesn't quite meet the expectations the powerhouse line-up might suggest (King, Kubrick and Nicholson), but it will still send a shiver shooting up your spine.

The visions of the little girls, the endless steadicam prowling of the superbly designed Overlook Hotel, the brilliant climax in the snowy maze are all superb, and the cumulative effect of all of Kubrick's efforts is to create an atmosphere of overwhelming menace, a sense of impending doom and horror so profound that the eventual release can only come with a sense of 'is that it'. Definitely one to be seen at a cinema or on a very big telly (can you get this on DVD, I wonder?), the performances are great, and there are some superb surprises in store.

Summary: