Review of The Shining (1980) by Alison C — 10 May 2016

There is no mystery in The Shining: every viewer ultimately knows what is going to happen from the opening scene. However, it is the way the story is told, not the story itself, that makes this one of Kubrick's finest works. The heavy use of one point perspective as well as tracking the characters with the camera is absolutely brilliant and gives a great effect in the contained spaces of the hotel and the maze.

The pacing of the movie has often come into criticism, but I felt it was appropriate in this situation as The Shining is more of a psychological horror story than the more fast-paced "hack and slash" side of the genre. it also manages to avoid dragging, which is one of my greatest pet peeves.

There are a couple of reasons I only give four out of five stars for this film. First of all, Duvall's performance is quite bad for the first half of the film, though I found that it was more digestible as the story reached it climax.

Second, Kubrick overuses dramatic music in the first half of the film to an almost obnoxious degree. Dramatic music - nothing happens. Dramatic music - nothing happens. Dramatic music - oh guess what? Nothing happens. It works with the scenes where Danny is riding his tricycle but does not encounter the ghostly girls (yet) because the audience *knows* something is bound to happen. Jack concentrating on his typing but otherwise looking perfectly normal? Not as necessary. It works so well in the second half of the film, but the suspense was necessary at that point, not to mention that things were actually happening.

Anyways, despite a couple of rather glaring flaws, this film is worth any movie buff's time and is a necessity to watch if you are a fan of the horror genre.