The Shining is so equal in brilliance to The Exorcist that it is if often difficult to differentiate between the two in terms of quality. Having seen both in consecutive weeks, what strikes in this viewing of The Shining is how stale it is compared to its other horror brethren. That's not to say it's boring, far from it in fact. It is its stale nature, with it's minimalist camerawork (with excellent of use of stedi-cam) and stark white setting in both the hotel and the snow-capped wilderness outside, that is responsible for the uneasiness that The Shining creates.
Much like The Exorcist, it's a slow burner where foreboding is present from the start but the nastiness takes a while to fully materialise. Between it's squeaking and, frankly, distressing soundtrack, Danny's terrified face, Jack's mental breakdown and the infamous blood-coming-out-of-the-freaking-elevator shot, The Shining is a terrific example of how horror makes you shudder rather than shock. Lampooned by King fans as being a bastardised version of it's source, what the fans failed to notice is that, besides the drastic narrative changes (of which there are many), as a film, The Shining works in almost every conceivable way, turning something as innocuous as Danny riding his trike down a stark white hotel corridor into a skin crawling event. Nicholson's performance, whilst blatantly screaming "hey look, I'm craaaaaaaaaaaaaazy!", is at least as much a slow burner mental breakdown as the pace of the film allows, and once he finally snaps ("all work and no play make's Jack a dull boy…") the gloves are very much off.
King's decision to make a TV mini-series due to his distaste for Kubrick's film was ill conceived and ill advised. This is the definite version: a rare case of the film being better than the book.
6/5
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