G
Gimlet
Guest
Have you ever watched cult-status movies and been left wondered what all the fuss was about?
Last night I watched The Shining for the first time. How I've managed to miss this film all these years I've no idea, but it was on terrestrial TV and bigged up in the reviews as you'd expect so I settled down and gave it a go and I'm afraid to say I found the whole thing distinctly meh..
It's a pretty conventional isolation movie where the characters are trapped in a situation they can't escape and begin to turn on each other. But I found it completely devoid of dramatic tension. The scenario is more or less spelled out right at the beginning when the black guy who is the hotel chef explains to the kid what the "Shining" means and relates the tale of a previous caretaker who went mad at the hotel and massacred his family. That same character then vanishes from the narrative, only to reappear at the end to get murdered. You can see the story unfolding a mile off with no twists or surprises and the viewer feels no particular empathy with any one character, except possibly the poor wife, but she isn't driving the narrative.
There were lots of threads that were picked up and then dropped again. The chef who seems to know what is likely to happen but does nothing about it except to tell the kid a creepy story. The ghostly twins who keep popping up for no real purpose. The woman in the bath in room 237. The repeated maze scene. Jack's book consisting of a single endlessly repeating sentence the reason for which and his growing antipathy towards his family goes unexplored.
There were lots of arty motifs, like the repeated following shot of the kid driving round empty corridors in his pedal car, which added nothing to the story except to remind us that the place is deserted. I didn't find it in the least creepy or particularly atmospheric, just predictable.
The only tension came from Jack Nicholson's performance with his seamless slow-motion portrayal of developing madness.
Did I miss something here?
Anyone else similarly underwhelmed by a cult movie?
Last night I watched The Shining for the first time. How I've managed to miss this film all these years I've no idea, but it was on terrestrial TV and bigged up in the reviews as you'd expect so I settled down and gave it a go and I'm afraid to say I found the whole thing distinctly meh..
It's a pretty conventional isolation movie where the characters are trapped in a situation they can't escape and begin to turn on each other. But I found it completely devoid of dramatic tension. The scenario is more or less spelled out right at the beginning when the black guy who is the hotel chef explains to the kid what the "Shining" means and relates the tale of a previous caretaker who went mad at the hotel and massacred his family. That same character then vanishes from the narrative, only to reappear at the end to get murdered. You can see the story unfolding a mile off with no twists or surprises and the viewer feels no particular empathy with any one character, except possibly the poor wife, but she isn't driving the narrative.
There were lots of threads that were picked up and then dropped again. The chef who seems to know what is likely to happen but does nothing about it except to tell the kid a creepy story. The ghostly twins who keep popping up for no real purpose. The woman in the bath in room 237. The repeated maze scene. Jack's book consisting of a single endlessly repeating sentence the reason for which and his growing antipathy towards his family goes unexplored.
There were lots of arty motifs, like the repeated following shot of the kid driving round empty corridors in his pedal car, which added nothing to the story except to remind us that the place is deserted. I didn't find it in the least creepy or particularly atmospheric, just predictable.
The only tension came from Jack Nicholson's performance with his seamless slow-motion portrayal of developing madness.
Did I miss something here?
Anyone else similarly underwhelmed by a cult movie?
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