The Shining

Taking it back to the 80's with this horror classic. Or was it just a cult classic?

The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson, is a movie about a family who stays in this isolated pre-Kobe raping Colorado hotel.

Jack's a former teacher/present author who gets a hotel job partly 'cause he got fired from his former profession and was a little desperate for work, and fittingly, because it offers him some money, time, and solitude to work on his new novel. His son, Danny, is clairvoyant. He has the "shine," and can talk to others with this shine, hence, the movie title, The Shining. Danny sees bad things happening in the hotel that freak out his mom and 'causes her to accuse Jack of some past sins. Jack's wife/Danny's mom, Wendy, is just a terrible, whiny, no-name actress whose job is to provoke Jack to act all crazy throughout the movie.

Jack's job is to take care of the hotel during the vacant months when winter is so bad, no one can get to and from the hotel. His family is along for the ride. No one else is there. Their isolation provides the perfect setting for this weird movie.

Before I go on, let me just say that I liked Jack as usual, but didn't really get the movie. I mean, it was definitely creepy primarily 'cause of the irritating soundtrack and the robotic acting, but it was also a bit confusing.

I couldn't tell throughout the movie if Jack was in real life, flashbacks, or just dreaming. Then, when I thought he was just hallucinating, something would happen to him physically that would change my mind. Can ghosts physically harm people? Is the story about him or someone else? It also didn't help that the kid was communicating with every little creepy thing in the movie and saying, "Red rum! Red rum!!" a million times in that "I see dead people" voice. He was actually the scariest character in the movie to me. More so than Jack.

Again, maybe somebody can explain the movie to me 'cause I just kept trying to make sense of it and came up empty every time. Felt like I was watching Vanilla Sky and Mulholland Drive simultaneously while suffering a migraine. Nah, not that bad, but we were both pretty confused. I know this movie is supposed to be good, and it has a lot of quotable dialogue, but I thought it was alright. It did set the mood in terms of being scary-creepy and all, but I guess when you watch an 80's movie now, some stuff are going to seem cheesy. Deena was scared $hitless. I just wanted the movie to speed up and get scarier.

If you want to be semi-creeped-out and need a dose of Jack, then this movie might be right up your alley. If not, watch something else. If you can recommend a great horror movie to us, better yet. We really like spooky movies, but can never find one that makes us Hershey squirt in our shorts nowadays...