The Shining

The supernatural joins forces with psychosis in Stanley Kubrick’s superb adaptation of a Stephen King bestseller.

Kubrick sabotages his own thesis in the most knuckleheaded way conceivable: we can't be charged as accomplices in horror when there is no horror.

There are a few terrific thrills, and some eerie moments of dislocation that only Kubrick could achieve, but most of the movie is unfelt, unscary, and bizarrely heavy-handed. It's the first pompous haunted-house movie.

"The Shining" is woke, both in that the movie subtly addresses complex social issues and because the in-universe clairvoyant act of shining allows characters to see past and future atrocities (some politically charged) that occurred in the Overlook Hotel.

It's an interesting movie, but not the ultimate work in its genre that some expected from one of the great directors.

The altered tone suits Kubrick's gallows humor, which was always about confronting and critiquing his audience's baser impulses: reinventing The Shining as a slapstick comedy about murderous patriarchal insecurity is a daring move.

Despite The Outlook’s advantages, a hysterical, bookworm, couch potato, chain smoking wife beats it. Kubrick did not intend to create a film about evil’s Achilles heel, but I left with that message. Be a mess, but fight.

With an out-of-this-world cast, "The Shining" remains a cult film, even after 44 years and it’s ideal for a cold winter evening.

Stanley Kubrick somehow manages to feel restrained and more ambitious than ever, delivering a harrowing and nightmarish case study in the impact of isolation and familial resentment.

The Shining might be one of the most accessible classics to new viewers of today to understand why it is, in fact, one of the greatest and most influential horror films of all time. The ending is still mind-blowing after all these years.