The Shining

THE SHINING, Stanley Kubrick’s spellbinding foray into the realm of the horror film, is at its most gloriously diabolical as Jack and Wendy Torrance take the grand tour. They are being shown through the Overlook, the cavernous, isolated hotel where they and their young son Danny will be spending the winter as caretakers, supposedly without any company. Jack pronounces the place “Cozy!” But still everything in the Overlook signals trouble, trouble that unfolds at a leisurely pace almost as playful as it is hair-raising. Meticulously detailed and never less than fascinating, THE SHINING may be the first movie that ever made its audience jump with a title that simply says “Tuesday”.
The Overlook is something far more fearsome than a haunted house – it’s a home. (Janet Maslin, “New York Times”, 1980)