2nd Personal Film Review

Film title: The shining

Year of production: 1980

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Genre: Horror

A man, his son and wife become the winter caretakers of an isolated hotel where Danny (the son) see’s disturbing visions of the hotels past using a telepathic gift known as the shining. The father Jack Torrance is underway writing project when he slowly slips into insanity, as a result of cabin fever and the help of the former guest of the hotels ghosts. After being convinced to “correct” his family, jack goes completely insane. The only thing that can save Danny is ‘the shining’. 

The two scenes which impressed me most were Jack visits “room 237”. I thought it was especially creepy and how even though he was chased by a laughing corpse, he won’t admit it to Wendy (his wife) as maybe he doesn't want to sound disturbed or he still loves her enough to not say anything about kissing the woman. This scene was eerie and showing jacks decent into madness. Another scene I loved was when Wendy finds Jack’s work “All work and no play, makes jack a dull boy” it was when Jack became totally insane and Wendy defending herself but at the same time so scared and not wanting to hurt him. It was such a scary scene for the fear of the unknown and witnessing Jacks decent into madness.

This film has made me understand that using parallel music can really put you on edge even though nothing is happening at that moment. For example, the title sequence when the car is driving along the road. It has many items from the genre checklist such as Psycho killer (Jack), body horror-the twins as well as this: floor of blood, the parallel music and the creepy enclosed locations such as the overlook of the hotel and the maze. Furthermore I learnt from the film that it uses  a lot of tracking shots which adds creepiness to the film as you don’t know what is around the corner for example when Danny is on his tricycle going around the hotel, this also uses the often use of parallel music.

I would love to include the creepiness to it, the slow build up which Kubrick constantly did in films I would love to add flash of clips of dead bodies which supposed to be in the film. Or even normal flash backs. I would also like to include the simplicity to my trailer which Kubrick includes so it doesn't hide behind the creepy story. Furthermore insanity aspect of cabin fever, which is quite tempting as it, can happen to anyone.

I would like to avoid the creepy children, as it would be much harder to do this as we are teenagers, as well as this it would be very clichéd. The supernatural aspect with ghosts is a bit overplayed in my opinion so I would avoid this in my own trailer. I will also not make my trailer not so long i.e. 2 hours lie the shining. I will aim for 2 minutes instead.

I think the best aspect of the film was the fast paced scenes in the ending, where jack goes insane. It was building up for an hour and a half which makes it even scarier. My favourite scene and the most famous is when jack is axing down the door as that’s jacks tip of madness- trying to kill Wendy.

Finally Kubrick’s style is slow, eerie, dark and simple which makes it very scary to watch, i.e. an instant classics Film like 2001:A space Odyssey is the same as “The shining” as in being dark and simple while having a very dark and slow aspect to it. The beginning sequence of the car journey is very creepy as the music is never ending and the credits themselves are a very simple animation font, which is his style. Another scene is the ending where Jack is frozen in the snow, it is as terrifying as you don’t know if he is still alive or not. Finally the part where jack talks to the ghost bartender and it shows the decent into madness- you have to guess if they are real ghosts or just in his head. In my opinion these are the scenes which show Kubrick’s style as a Auteur as he leaves you guessing throughout the film so he doesn't spoon feed you. 

The shining (1980) trailer