Saturday 28th March

The Shining

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Year: 1980
Stars: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers

I managed to fall asleep during this. I have no idea how anybody manages to fall asleep during The Shining, even if they have seen it before (as I have, numerous times). Mind you, waking up and seeing a close up of Jack's face made me wake up pretty quickly.

The film is still excellent - I must just have been really tired. Although it is fair to say that either a) there is a LOT of added material in the uncut version of this, or b) it's been so long since I've watched the film that I'd forgotten a fair few of the scenes. I think a mixture of the two is probably most likely. Either way, I did find that the uncut version was slightly less "tight" than the cinematic release. Having said that, this is still one of the best horror movies out there and will give you nightmares for days if you've never seen it before. If you haven't ever watched it, go and find a copy now!

Just a quick plot summary for those (massive minority, I imagine) who don't know what's it all about: Jack (Jack Nicholson) takes on a job as caretaker over the winter in Overlook Hotel, which becomes incredibly isolated every year when it gets badly snowed in. He takes his wife and young son with him, and that's when things start to get really creepy (at the beginning of the film, really).... Don't watch it alone at night!

Rating: 4 out of 5 (the original gets 5, but this uncut version loses a star basically for taking a bit longer than it needs to to do some things).