The Shining

The Shining is one of my favorite Stephen King novels and, even though it deviates from the source material quite a bit, I think Stanley Kubrick's adaptation is a masterpiece.  I do think that the book is much scarier (I slept with the light on for a week after I finished reading it as a teenager) but the movie is incredibly unsettling.  Just hearing the dark and ominous notes of Symphonie fantastique by Hector Berlioz during the opening sequence gave me goosebumps when I had a chance to see it again yesterday as part of the TCM Big Screen Classics series.  Aspiring writer Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson) is desperate to escape from his troubled past and hopes to find the time and solitude to work on his novel so he takes a job as the winter caretaker at the Overlook Hotel in the remote mountains of Colorado with his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and his young son Danny (Danny Lloyd).  Once they arrive, the cook Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) recognizes that Danny has a strong psychic ability that he calls "shining" and warns him that the hotel also has a "shine" because of its troubled past.  Danny begins having frightening visions about the former inhabitants of the hotel but Jack seems to be haunted by these malevolent ghosts.  When a severe winter storm cuts them off from the outside world, Jack has a complete psychotic break causing him to attack his family.  What makes this movie so unnerving is that you are never entirely sure of what is happening at the Overlook Hotel because Jack, who is a recovering alcoholic with a history of hurting his son, is such an unreliable character.  Is he slowly being driven mad by isolation and claustrophobia or is he being possessed by the ghosts of the hotel?  Whenever Jack interacts with the ghosts of the former caretaker Grady (Philip Stone), the bartender Lloyd (Joe Turkel), or a woman murdered in the bathtub (Lia Beldam), there is always a mirror in the scene leading to speculation that he might be talking to himself.  The sound design, including Danny's Big Wheel traveling across different floor surfaces, ice cubes rattling in Jack's glass, the echo of the typewriter in the cavernous lobby, and the staccato beating of a heart, is incredibly foreboding and does much to enhance the tension.  The long Steadicam tracking shots following the characters through the maze of the empty hotel (and an actual maze) also highlight the isolation.  The many parallels between the shot compositions (which become more apparent the more times you see it) are absolutely brilliant, especially in the scene with Danny and Jack in their apartment and the scene with Jack and the woman in Room 237 because it makes us question how Danny gets the bruises on his neck.  Nicholson, in an iconic performance, is unbelievably menacing and conveys a feeling of terror with just a glance.  Duvall is also very good (although my biggest criticism of the movie as compared to the book is the character of Wendy because she is so weak and passive).  This  movie is one of the best examples of how to create an atmosphere of unease and I highly recommend it, particularly on the big screen (go here for more information).