The Shining (1980)

If you're looking for a film that recreates the Stephen King novel word for word, I will say you'll be sorely disappointed by this one. However, for fans of the book (like me) who can go into this one with an open mind, you'll discover a damn fine horror film in it's own right that was a nice change from the slasher crap that was filling these shores around this time. I read somewhere that director Stanley Kubrick was more interested in doing his vision of the book than redoing King's version shot by shot, and this definitely is on display.

Kubrick leaves many things out while changing certain things (room 237 instead of 217) for really no reason except to show that he can do so. The film focuses mainly on the mental decline of the Jack Torrance character, which, in the book was of course a key concept, but was really only one amongst many themes. Many of the supernatural happenings in the book are left out (the fire hose, the bee nest, etc.) but to be real it's awful damn hard to fit a novel into 2 hours of film. We still get Jack investigating 237, which is pretty damn creepy and some nice scenes of two 8 yr old twins haunting young Danny as he rides his big wheel through the Overlook's haunted halls. Loved the images of the twins hacked up bodies lying in the hallway. That was some spooky shit friends. Also, watch for the scene where the character of Wendy is running through the hotel in a panic and sees an image of a dude in a dog suit sitting with another guy on a bed. Weird, weird, weird. Jack Nicholson does great as the crazy as shit Jack, personal favorite scene was when Jack goes into the hotel bar and "falls off the wagon" so to speak. Classic dialogue in this scene."Say, Lloyd, how's my credit in this joint?" Many thought Nicholson's performance was to over the top (which it was), but I really enjoyed it. Yes, it's different than the book, but still a classic film.