Jack Torrence (played by Jack Nicholson) is hired to manage an isolated hotel over the winter and he brings his family along, as they'll be snowed in for the season. However, the hotel has a haunting presence that slowly corrupts Jack's mind, turning him on his family. Meanwhile, his young boy learns he has a psychic ability and uses it to see horrific visions of past and future events.
I'm actually posting this review before seeing the movie, as my wife and I are going to be seeing a very late-night screening of it at our local theatre and I didn't want to post tonight's review tomorrow morning. But I've seen it many times before, so if anything of interest happens that I didn't remember, I'll add it to the comments below.
This film was made by the insane director, Stanley Kubrick. The guy was so OCD, he would re-shoot scenes a hundred times over until he felt it was perfect. As such, a lot of his works are considered important pieces of art in the film industry. However, Stephen King didn't like this movie version of his book.
The Shining also introduces "shining," a trope in Stephen King novels that describes psychic abilities. It would be revealed in other novels of his that random characters also have the shining. And it would even play a part in his magnum opus work, The Dark Tower series, which is a collection of novels that tie the various works of his other novels together into one massive multiverse.
Personally, I'm with Stephen King on this movie. I'm not a huge fan. It takes forever to build up to anything, and it feels like little happens throughout most of the film. And when things do happen, it's confusing and not quite explained. If you know the source material, it's easier to understand what's going on. Kubrick was always more interested in the art of filmmaking than making a coherent plot.
Stephen King made his own version of The Shining in 1997 as a 3-part TV miniseries. It was more true to his book than the Stanley Kubrick version, and in my opinion, the better of the two. In 2020, a sequel to The Shining is due to be released, starting Ewan McGregor as an adult Danny Torrence, Jack's boy from this old movie. It will be called Doctor Sleep, based on the 2013 novel of the same name. I'm interested to see how it plays out on the big screen.
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