The Shining Reviews
Quickflix
The first time I saw Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, I had to turn it off during three key moments... Perhaps this time, I prayed, [it] would seem almost comically silly. Yeah, not so much.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
LarsenOnFilm
...above all a movie about spaces, and how few things are more frightening than not knowing which way to go.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Flix Capacitor
A feeling of deep-rooted evil runs through every frame in mesmerising fashion. Hell, even the dizzyingly-patterned carpets are somewhat hypnotic.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4.5/5
Radio Times
The technique is as overpowering as Nicholson's performance, which is both hammy and deeply disturbing.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Scotsman
Kubrick's compositions and Jack Nicholson going kill-crazy with an axe remain hard to beat on the big screen.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Observer [UK]
It's all in the build-up: Kubrick sets the scene for the horror with meticulous care.
Digital Spy
Re-cut or not, The Shining remains one of the most viscerally disturbing films ever made.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Guardian [UK]
Deeply scary and strange.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Little White Lies
Essential viewing. Prepare to be disturbed.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
Total Film
Its artful ambiguities are immersive. Check in.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
The Nation
As in 2001, Kubrick likes ghost stories more than I do. And he gives me enough else, in the way of acting and bizarrely beautiful surroundings, to keep me happy.
Cinema Crazed
Stanley Kubrick's film is a work of art that will continue to be broken down and explored for decades to come...
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
Film Threat
Kubrick doesn't dumb it down or anything, but he's not actively trying to appeal only to film connoisseurs either. If any of his movies could be called mainstream, it's this one.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Top CriticKubrick has made a movie that will have to be reckoned with on the highest level.
eFilmCritic.com
The Shining is an intense and not always ingratiating experience, a natural bookend to 2001...
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/5
As a ghost story and adaptation of the Stephen King novel, it's largely a failure. On the other hand, as an example of directorial bravura and as a study of madness and the unreliable narrator, it's a brilliant success.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
ESplatter
The result may not quite match Kubrick's greatest films, but it is enthralling and hypnotic - a brilliant, ambitious attempt to shoot a horror film without the Gothic trappings.
tonymacklin.net
The Shining met the fate of several other Stanley Kubrick films when it came out; most viewers did not like it, so they rejected it. Most importantly, they did not understand it in any way which allowed them to deal with it constructively.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5.0/5
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
It's arguably the talented director's least appealing film, as it feels empty and soulless.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
