The Shinning (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) USA

Reviewed By Tobias Luvenberg. Reviewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013.

Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), a recovering alcoholic and failed writer, takes a job as caretaker at a remote hotel in the Rocky Mountains over the winter months, partly to get away from his recently completed recovery from alcoholism, and to begin a new book project. He hopes that the seclusion offered by the hotel, shall give him the rest he needs to write his book. To the hotel, he brings his wife Wendy (Shelley Duvall) and yhrit six year old son Danny (Danny Lloyd).

The hotel possesses evil powers, which Danny has the ability to see (this is called “shining” according to the hotel’s chef Dick Halloran (Scatman Crothers), who shares Danny’s ability).  Danny’s visions passed through his imaginary friend ‘Tony’ which Danny describes as “the little boy who lives in my mouth” to Halloran in a confidential conversation between the two. Well snowed and residents at the hotel Danny is plagued by visions after the murders committed by the previous winter caretaker Delbert Grady on his wife and two daughters, but says nothing to her family for the sake of her father.

Eventually goes Jacks frustration, writer’s block and bitterness towards his family into pure insanity, and when Wendy expresses his desire to leave the hotel asked him to “correct” their family of Delbert Grady ghost. Danny, whose perception ability predicted that evil would eventually overpower his father, contact Halloran by their ability when Jack sat the hotel radio sidelined.

Meanwhile Hallorann realize that something is wrong (by notice) and fly back to Colorado. By that time Danny starts screaming “Redrum” (which becomes “murder” spelled backwards) and starts calling himself “Tony”. When Wendy looking for Jack, she finds Jack’s typewriter and discovers that everything he wrote is “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” She confronts Jack, who then threatens her. She manages to knock him unconscious with a baseball bat and drag him to the kitchen large pantry and locks him inside. She discovers that she and Danny are prisoners at the hotel where Jack has sabotaged the radio. Jack talks through the door with Grady that unlocks the door and release him.

Danny writes “REDRUM” in lipstick on the bathroom door. When Wendy sees it in the mirror, she realizes that he has written “Murder”. Jack begins to break through the door with a fire axe into the family’s living room. Wendy and Danny locks herself in the bathroom. Wendy pushes Danny out through the bathroom window but could not get out by herslef. Jack then starts chopping down the bathroom door and creates a hole where he sticks his head and shouting “Here’s Johnny” but recoils when Wendy stabs him in the hand with a knife.

Jack kills Halloran in the lobby and starts chasing Danny in the hotel’s maze of clipped hedges. Wendy running around and looking for Danny, encountering a number of ghosts and lots of blood. Meanwhile, lurking Danny Jack in the maze by going backwards in their own footprints in the snow. Danny runs back to her mother and then they run away together and Jack freezes to death in the maze.

The restoration of The Shining was good because it made the movie much cleaner.

 

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Published:
02.11.13 / 9pm
Category:
Films, Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013