{"id":30307,"date":"2026-08-28T16:39:01","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T15:39:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=30307"},"modified":"2026-08-28T16:39:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T15:39:01","slug":"a-review-of-the-classic-1980-film-the-shining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=30307","title":{"rendered":"A review of the classic 1980 film &#8220;The Shining&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Confession time: it took me 46 years to see this movie. I&#8217;m a massive fan of Stanley Kubrick, who produced, directed and co-wrote it, but I don&#8217;t like horror and I&#8217;m adverse to the supernatural. Although it initially had mixed reviews,\u00a0<em>The Shining<\/em>\u00a0has come to be regarded as one of the greatest horror movies ever made and there have been endless interpretations of the characters and action, so I felt that I had to see it for inclusion in my next book. I viewed it on the big screen and saw the extended version of 144 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The film is an adaptation of a Stephen King novel, but King was very unhappy with Kubrick&#8217;s version. Set at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado&#8217;s Rocky Mountains (but shot largely on studios in England), it concerns the experience of the Torrance family who spend the winter looking after the deserted and snow-bound venue: Jack, former alcoholic, child abuser and aspirant writer (brilliantly played by Jack Nicholson), his son Danny, who has an imaginary friend and psychic abilities referred to as &#8216;the shining&#8217; (eerie Danny Loyd), and Wendy, a simple-minded woman caught between her husband&#8217;s descent into madness and her son&#8217;s increasing weirdness (odd-looking Shelly Duvall).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is not my kind of movie, but I have to admire it on a technical level: atmospheric use of sound from the off, striking imagery with much use of blood and bodies, and innovative use of the newly-available Steadicam. Even if you&#8217;ve never seen the movie, you&#8217;ll probably be aware of some of its many iconic moments, such as two blue-skirted girls in the hallway, the word &#8216;Redrum&#8217; scrawled in lipstick, blood pouring out of the elevator doors, and Jack sticking his head through the smashed hole in the bathroom door, shrieking,&nbsp;<em>&#8220;Here&#8217;s Johnny&#8221;<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Confession time: it took me 46 years to see this movie. I&#8217;m a massive fan of Stanley Kubrick, who produced, directed and co-wrote it, but I don&#8217;t like horror and I&#8217;m adverse to the supernatural. Although it initially had mixed reviews,\u00a0The Shining\u00a0has come to be regarded as one of the greatest horror movies ever made [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30308,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30307\/revisions\/30308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}