Skip to main content

31 Days of Horror Movies: The Shining


With the possible exception of Suspiria, all of the films I've written about this month have been personal favorites. It's my blog, so that makes sense. But if one is doing an overview of a particular subject, there are some entries that must be made which may be admired, rather then liked, by the person doing the write-up. And that brings us to today's horror film...

The Shining

Y'all know the drill with this one. Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall as husband & wife Jack and Wendy Torrance, and Danny Lloyd as their strange son Danny, who talks to his fingers. Oh, and the woefully under-used and too-easily dispatched Scatman Crothers as a chef with special powers.

Anyway, the Torrance family arrives at the isolated Overlook Hotel so they can look after the place while it's closed during the winter. Some weird stuff begins to happen: Jack writes a very simple book. Wendy walks around looking goofy and concerned. Danny generally acts creepy, except he's little, so it's not so bad. Odd bartenders and freaky twin girls show up, and some blood gushes down the hallways.

If it comes across as though I dislike The Shining, that isn't the case. It's just that I view its sums to be better than its whole. It certainly has some wonderfully horrific moments: the 'Redrum' bit, the aforementioned creepy characters and bloody hallway, the mental deterioration of Jack Torrance and, of course, the maze behind the hotel. But as an overall movie, The Shining has always seemed a bit lacking.

I do think it possible to appreciate something while not really enjoying it. Thus we have my view of The Shining. It has riveting performances by the three leads (Duvall, Lloyd and Nicholson), and features a pretty nifty melding of Kubrick & King (even if the latter has issues with it). It should definitely be included in a month of horror films, but more out of respect than anything else.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Yesterday's Restaurants

The local newspaper has a feature from one of Champaign-Urbana's most legendary restaurateur's, John Katsinas, on what his favorite area restaurants were that have now since closed (or will soon be closing).  It's a nice little read, and has made me stop and think about the restaurants that have come and gone that have left an indelible (and edible) impression on me throughout the years. Here we go....
Post a Comment
Read more

Watching The Hours

A Twitter friend named Paula has asked for folks to submit ideas for a blog-a-thon about what we think will be the classic films of the future. In other words, what relatively recent movies (namely, from the 21st century), do we think will be considered classics in the decades to come, possibly airing on such venerable stations as Turner Classic Movies ? While a number of films come to mind for such a category, one in particular stood out from the rest, and thus is my entry for Paula's blog-a-thon.
5 comments
Read more

She's Madonna

Today we're going to talk about something very important. We're going to talk about Madonna. "Madge," as she's affectionately known around the gay scene, has been making music for over thirty years. I grew up with her songs, many of them pop classics. In recent years, it can be arguably said that her popularity has waned a bit. During the past decade, Madonna has put out seventeen singles. Of those, three have charted in the US Top 40. Ten Failed to chart at all on the Billboard Hot 100. We now have at least one possibility offered as to why Madge's chart power is waning: Ageism. At least, that's what Diplo (just, Diplo), a producer of some of the tracks off her latest album, thinks . I know it's difficult to be objective about something you've worked on -- whether you were the producer or the artist -- but, as a listener/fan, I have to say that Madonna's most recent work has simply not been that good. Still, we'll hear what
Post a Comment
Read more