The Shining

Released: May 23, 1980

Studio: Warner Bros.

Genre: horror

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 44.02 Worldwide: ?

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: ? Worldwide: 119.29

Directing: Stanley Kubrick

Screenwriting: Diane Johnson, Stanley Kubrick

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers

Review:

The Shining is an “intense, epic, gothic, haunted house horror film masterpiece.” ^FS It is often called “the scariest horror movie ever made.” ^E18 It’s also “the least suitable movie to watch on Father’s Day ever” ^E18 unless you think “chasing after your wife and kid with an axe constitutes good fathering.” ^E18

“The film has beautiful, stylish work that distances itself from the blood-letting and gore of most modern films in the horror genre.” ^FS Kubrick “created lush images within the ornate interior of the main set” ^FS making “it warm, well-lit, and devoid of threat.” ^T95 He added “a disturbing synthesized soundtrack…., used a Steadicam in groundbreaking fashion…and built an unforgettable, mounting sensation of frustration, rage, terror, ghosts, and the paranormal.” ^FS

The movie stars “a wonderfully deranged Jack Nicholson” ^E18 as frustrated writer Jack Torrance. He, his wife Wendy (Duvall), and son Danny (Lloyd) “are the snowbound caretakers of an enormous resort.” ^A7 They “become affected by a ‘psychic photograph’ of a bloody series of historic murders committed” ^FS at the Overlook hotel. “Cabin-fever and telepathy collide, as frustrated writer Nicholson goes completely insane.” ^A7

The film bears little resemblance to its source material – Stephen King’s best-selling third novel from 1977. The title “refers to the extra-sensory, paranormal psychic abilities possessed by the Overlook’s head cook Halloran (Crothers) and Danny.” ^FS Kubrick and co-screenwriter Diane Johnson “moved from the conventions of traditional horror film thrillers, displacing them with his own, much more subtle, rich, symbolic motifs.” ^FS