The only reason I did this whole Kubrick marathon was so that I could shame myself into watching The Shining despite my intense hatred of being scared. I'm an idiot. This scared the shit out of me. Originally I wasn't going to rate this because it would fly in the face of the subjective rating system I set up for myself… but I gave it a 9/10 anyway.

Because I'm such a good sport, I'll talk about how great this film is. Despite how much I hate it... it's really fucking great. I haven't read the original Steven King novel it's based on, but I've read enough about The Shining to know that Kubrick's film is very different. I like it when filmmakers change the source material in order to make it more cinematic, so The Shining wins points there. The dialogue in the beginning before shit got crazy was pretty perfect. You get all these hints that this is a film simply about the pressures of economic hardship and how a man who wants to his family in a traditional way is slowly being edged out of his last remaining options. As you get deeper into the mysteries of the outlook hotel, you descend deeper into Jack's madness and you realize all he needs is an occupation to feel proud of.

So what scared me so much about it? That fucking house, man…. It's oppressive. It's huge, but the walls just feel like they're caving in inch by inch. I probably should've watched this on my laptop instead of on my TV, because I was really sucked in by those amazing wide shots of the huge (and gorgeous) set and the expanse of that chilling snow-covered maze. Jack's mood swings were probably the parts of the film that scared me the most. Of course there's also lots of other terrifying and horrific images that are obviously scary, but the parts that got under my skin were more subtle. For example, there's this scene with no dialogue: Jack is just watching from a window as his wife and kid play in the snow below. The look on his face was startlingly violent! When something was just slightly off, that's when I was most suspicious.

The only reason why I can't give this a perfect score in my one-time-only objective rating system is because I couldn't stand Shelley Duvall's performance as Jack's wife Wendy. At first I thought it was just because of how naïve her character was, but no, it was her presence and her acting. Everyone else involved gave fantastic performances that felt very much like they belonged in a Kubrick film. Slow, deliberate, and subdued. The kid was great, very convincing. Jack Nicolson was fantastic. When he had to do crazy, he committed 100%. When he was just a normal guy, he was perfect as well.

So yeah, I'll it The Shining is a great film. But that doesn't mean I don't hate it with every fiber of my being for scaring me half to death.