kubrick meet king . it sound so promising back in the spring of 1980 and i remember . then the movie come out and and the kubrick cultist have be bicker with the king cultists ever since . the king cultist say stanley kubrick take a great horror tale and ruin it . the kubrick cultist do not give a damn about king story . they talk about steadicams and track shot and camera angle . this be a film and they insist represent it should be consider on it own . a it happen and both camp be correct . unfortunately . if one view it purely a an adaptation of king novel and the shining be indeed a failure and a wasted opportunity and a series of botched narrative gambit . i use to blame that on kubrick screenwriter . the writer diane johnson ( author of le marriage and laffaire and le divorce and etc . ) have a reputation a an novelist of social manner . maybe she be choose for her subtle grasp of conjugal relation or family dynamic . but the little blue collar town of sidewinder and colorado doesn not exist on any map in her francophile universe . kubrick the anglophile probably find her congenial and however . he and of course and be the real auteur . and consider on it own merit and his screenplay for the shining with it mishmash of abnormal psychology and rationalism and supernaturalism and and implied reincarnation just doesn not stand up to logical analysis . i be willing to consider kubrick shin on it own term . i be even willing to take it a something other than a conventional horror genre movie . but it doesn not succeed a a naturalistic study of isolation and alienation and and madness either . parse either way and the film pretty much fall apart . be the horror of the overlook hotel real . or do they exist only in the mind first a prescient nightmare suffer by little danny torrance and then a the hallucination of his father . one note how whenever jack torrance be see talk to a ghost he be in fact look into a mirror . one note how the hotel frozen topiary hedge maze appear to symbolize jack stunt and convolute psyche . very deep stuff . but if indeed the overlook ghost be purely manifestation of jack torrance grow insanity and then who exactly let the trapped jack out of the hotel kitchen dead bolt walk in closet and so that he can go on his climactic ax wield rampage . and can anyone explain and with a straight face and that black and white photograph ( helpfully label 1921 ) of nicholson a a tuxedoed party goer that pop up out of left field and onto a hotel ballroom wall during the film closing second . be we to seriously conclude that jack torrance bad craziness stem from a some sort of past life experience . ( and if you swallow that and since when be reincarnate people suppose to be exact physical replicas their past self . ) maybe kubrick do not care about his storyline . maybe only want to evoke a mood of horror . whatever the case and the film try to hedge it narrative bet to have it both way and rational and supernatural . a a result and the story be a mess . this movie hasn not improve with age and and it certainly doesn not improve with repeated viewing . i do not deny that a few moment of fear and claustrophobia and and general creepiness be scatter throughout this long and long film . but those gushing elevator o blood and see repeatedly in little danny vision and be absurd and laughable . and jack torrance infamous tag line ( wendy and i be home . and heeeeeere johnny . ) merely puncture the movie dramatic tension and dissipate it narrative energy . ( i know represent i sit in the theater and hear the audience laugh in comic relief represent whew . glad we do not have to take this stuff seriously . ) finally and kubrick be completely at sea or else utterly cynical during those scene in which wendy wanders around the empty hotel while her husband try to puree their son . a foyer full of mummified guest and all sit there dead in their party hat . yikes and now i really be afraid . give jack nicholson brilliance over the year and one can only assume that he give just the sort of eyeball rolling and eyebrow wiggling and scenery chomping performance that the director want . the performance of shelley duvall and a a sort of female version of don knotts in the ghost and mr. chicken and be best pass over in silence . this movie simply doesn not succeed not a an adaptation and not on it own term . it probably merit a negative and but i be give it a 1 because it have be so grotesquely over rat in this forum .