The eerie and evocative season of Halloween has come into its own self as a very respective film genre. That “genre” shall be known as horror. Now if any person looks at the grueling writers who vision horror, there can be only one spoken person, Stephen King. This human being wrote many literature classics that turned into what a whole lot of people consider to be one of the greatest movies ever made. Examples include “The Green Mile”, “The Shawshank Redemption”, “Misery”, and “Stand by Me”. They involve such impossible stories us humans dare to sacrifice for in their lives. Thankfully, what I consider to be the greatest director, Stanley Kubrick, whom has experience with any specified genre possible, was one of those people that marvelously directed one of King’s most brutal stories, “The Shining”.

The film adorns the classic story of the alcoholic character of Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, who cherishes his dream about being an author, accepting a job for the Overlook Hotel. You would think that Jack would be alone checking in a vacation at that hotel, right? Obviously, anyone would answer no at this pivotal point. He would be even more pleasant enough to bring his wife (Shelley Duvall) and his son Danny with him. A hint of fate starts to improve when Danny possesses “the shining”, where he can readdress in his head about the displeasing events of the hotel’s past. The thing is that Danny can communicate telepathically with the cook (Scatman Crothers) since he also can access this as well. The fate is now common at the Overlook hotel which means that Jack’s personality has gone unhinged due to the influence on his son’s supernatural forces.

Understating myself on this film being a vicious masterpiece, this is probably the most well-known horror film that sparked so many gleaming inspiration from several directors. Last year in early 2017, Gore Verbinski created a very underappreciated film called “A Cure for Wellness” that starred Dane DeHaan. That alone borrowed so many vital elements from Kubrick’s film including the theme of escapism and its gloomy imagery that Dane DeHaan’s character went through. There is another film that inspired this that I heard was one of Scorsese’s most underrated from 2010, “Shutter Island”, that I still need to see.

This film is probably one of my five greatest horror films of all time because it provides so much prosthetic and character to prove itself that it is not just a real escapism film, but a legitimate horror classic in addition to this. What backs up my evidence is the viewers hear the eerie opening score by Wendy Carlos, then see the title cards moving like closing credits while you see this long, continuous shot of them on their roadway to the hotel. This is one of the most majestic examples of how to start a horror film. A thing that I admire about Stanley Kubrick as a director is that he holds not a single boundary in terms of what genre he is covering. With 1987’s “Full Metal Jacket”, he had muscular power to hire a real sergeant (R. Lee Ermey) to perform the ferocious Sergeant Hartman. With 1971’s “A Clockwork Orange”, he proved that he could manage an X-rating to analyze the obsessive honesty Alex DeLarge responds to women. However, with 1980’s “The Shining”, he can just manage to explode blood out of a wooden door with slow-motion effect.

The family dynamic in this film is for sure unsettling leaving blind brains for viewers into what can endure next for the Torrance Family. There are so many intriguing elements in this family which can go in different perspectives that it can conclude as demoralizing for them. This element also works in some titular revenge films (now I don’t mean recent films like this year’s “Peppermint”) like Scorsese’s brilliant remake of “Cape Fear” where Nick Nolte’s and Jessica Lange’s characters have to drown Robert De Niro’s character to death while on a boat. Truth be told, this film also has a vital family dynamic encountering a severe problem. However, the difference between this and “The Shining” is that “Cape Fear’s” antagonist is not revolving around a family member. It is instead revolving around a vile psychopath who is known for being a cynical rapist.

The acting in this film is complete perfection with every character having a sense of realism, which that is another aspect I admire from Kubrick as well. Scatman Crothers as the hotel cook has such a very haunting appearance where he experiences telepathic emotions by pure facial expression. The child who plays Danny performs such an superior effect on the audience in terms of how the plot will intertwine during each scene. Shelley Duvall’s performance especially during the final act is highly shriek and gallant when he encounters a livid Jack Torrance the first time. It is misunderstood to me that some people to this actually despise her performance by her shimmering body language. Coincidentally, Stanley Kubrick and Duvall both hated each other on set while filming the movie in general where temper arguments came to place. Other than “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”, I consider Jack Nicholson in this film to be the most alive and out-of-character he has been in a motion picture yet as Jack Torrance. He is one of these characters that just progress in each scientific stage and just speak in your mind, “What a nutcase!”  The emotions he develops during them when he banters out, “Here’s Johnny!” is just a real, nightmarish theatrical experience you will never omit.

Stanley Kubrick is my favorite director (and also to me, the greatest director) of all time and I am glad he has made one horror film that will truly collect thoughts in your immune system. While horror films from the 1970’s locate the anatomy extremely deep to the thick tissues like Carrie, Halloween, and The Exorcist, I think horror movies from the 1980’s like The Shining, An American Werewolf in London, and The Evil Dead will give you a cautionary nightmare in the very aftermath of your watching. In this stand-alone, created trilogy I made up of ’80’s horror masterpieces, The Shining will for sure occupy with strong willpower.

Grade: 10/10