Like all of Stanley Kubrick‘s films, The Shining gets better with age and repeated viewings.
Despite the popular perception that Kubrick was fiercely independent, and a Hollywood outsider (he had made England his home since the 1960s) he really had a warm relationship with Warner Brothers. After 2001: A Space Odyssey they signed a unique contract with him to finance anything he wanted, and he could take as long as he needed. No pressure. In return Kubrick kept his budgets tight, and always aimed to return them a profit.
With the misfire of his previous film Barry Lyndon (though it, too, has aged well) he therefore kept an open mind when a Warner executive suggested he read Stephen King’s novel The Shining. It was about a winter caretaker at a posh mountaintop hotel who slowly goes murderously crazy because of the ghostly forces within.
In King’s book Kubrick saw the opportunity to devise a unique horror film, and a definitive one too. It seems he pulled it off as, thirty years later, it still reigns as one of the most popular horror films of all time.
One of the things that make the film fascinating is that it abandons many of the clichés of the genre. There are very few “Boo!” moments. Kubrick consistently maintained an elegant visual style, thanks to a then-new invention known as the Steadicam. But the real fun is in watching Jack Nicholson becoming more-and-more demented. Generally horror filmmakers opt for one of two types of acting styles — realism or camp. Nicholson’s Jack Torrence is neither. It’s more classically theatrical, like the characters of Hollywood legend James Cagney.
Personally, the whole thing never scared me. It’s hard to if you don’t believe in ghosts. But I never get tired of how wonderful and captivating it all looks.