10 Days to Halloween - The Shining (1980) - 26th October 2012

Welcome back to '10 Days to Halloween'. Today we are going to talk about one of my all time favorite films. That being Stephen Kings The Shining. Now I wont go too much into this one because I am very biased towards this film and I wouldn't want anyone to be disappointed when they finally watch it and my ravings have put this film onto a pedestal. Now shall we talk about the madness that is The Shining? I think we shall.

This film has a great atmosphere to it, it was one of the first films to really use music to build suspense and it does a really good job of doing just that. Kubrick was the master of creating suspense and it shows in this film. The music tends to reflect Jack Nicholson's decent into madness, the music doing a lesser job of that than the hallucination scenes. Talking about atmosphere just look at how well it is set in this scene.

Jack Nicholson does a very good job of portraying the insanity of his character in this film and really shows his acting potential. Going from a mild mannered janitor, who sometimes argues with his wife, to a deranged lunatic who speaks in riddles and actually tries to kill his wife.

Shelley Duvall is not a particularly amazing actress in this film but does know how to scream at the top of her lungs when Nicholson tries to axe the bathroom door down.

Now, let's talk about Danny Lloyd shall we? Danny Lloyd, considering how young he was during filming, is a very good addition to the cast of this film and even shows his acting potential when talking to his finger... yes his finger.


So how does it compare to the source material? Well I think that Kubrick did a very good job of sticking to the book, of the same name, when directing this film.

There are even parts of this film that shouldn't have made it onto the screen, due to the nature of the content, but Kubrick pulled it off. I do believe that this film is true to the source material and does it a great justice.




                                                                    All photos and video belong to Warner Bros