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Gotta slightly disagree with you here, badmonkey. Damn, I have such conflicting feelings about this movie. Taken on its own, just as a horror movie, it's damn good. Not really scary, but definitely creepy and involving, with a lot of revolutionary new techniques.
But as a King adaption? Sorry, but Kubrick completely dropped the ball on that count. When viewed as an adaption, The Shining is simply unforgivable, mainly because of the ending.
Okay, what's the main focus of King's novel? Possession. Having your will slowly being taken away. Being forced to do terrible things, and absolutely helpless to prevent them. It's about being stripped of your humanity, and being used as a weapon against the people you love the most. Jack is possessed by the ghosts of the Overlook, and it's not until the very end that he can break free of their possession, sacrificing his own life to save his family. Pretty powerful, emotionally-resonant stuff.
Now, what's the main focus of Kubrick's movie? Going crazy. Jack sees ghosts, thus Jack goes bugfuck. It's about being reduced from a character into a cartoon. It's a cheap, shallow method of scaring the audience, and the absolute disregard for Jack's personality makes the transformation that much brutal. The movie spends two hours setting up Jack Torrance as a character, then spends twenty minutes treating him like a bad Scooby-Doo villain. Nicholson's kickass performance is the only thing that salvages the film and prevents it from turning into a parody.
Like I said--great movie, fuckin' terrible adaption.
Any thoughts?
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