Just saw The Shining for the first time

The hotel and the ghosts within are all gaining power from Jack's insanity. By the end, Jack's gone way off the deep end, the ghosts have near full reign over the hotel again, hence, now they're visible. (and audible: probably the thing that creeps me out the most of those scenes when Wendy's wandering the halls is hearing them chant in the background)

Hilarious random act. Moving on.

Oh, Jack's still crazy. The ghosts are just feeding off of that.

See two questions up. They don't have that much power yet. Think about Ghost, and how much effort it took Patrick Swayze to affect the real world. If it took all that to move a penny up a wall, actually murdering someone is probably a Herculean endurance trial.

Nothing except for the fact that she's a ghost, and another sign of the hotel's evil getting stronger and taunting Jack.

Everyone in that picture is someone who died on the Overlook's premises (Indians notwithstanding). Jack helped to feed the restless spirits for a short time, hence he gets a special place of honor (if one can call it that) among them after he dies.

Every guy that manically laughs and tries to chop their beloved ones into small pieces with a broad axe can be considered "crazy", won't you agree?

The problem is that Kubrick adapted Stephen King's The Shining and it is essentially now Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. But he forgot to put in VERY IMPORTANT plot points. Still, it works as a horror movie due to the incessant oppressive tone and eerie quality that Kubrick brings to the hotel. Those twins still freak me the fuck out.
The kid has the Shining BIG-TIME. The hotel draws on Danny's power, using him as a battery - the ghosts have always sorta been there, but by using Danny, they get a big jump-start. Hence, Danny can see them, then they use what power they have to make Jack crazy because he's the weak link, and eventually, they reach they point where they start becoming corporeal, and Wendy can see them.
Meaningful in the book - it's an "echo" of an intense experience that occurred previously in the hotel; in the movie, it's just random weirdness.
They didn't have that much power. Or at least, it's more effective to use their power to have Jack do the heavy lifting as opposed to doing it themselves. Part of the effectiveness of the film is that for a long time, you aren't sure if the hotel is evil or if Jack is just fucking batshit. The unlocking of the door ends that ambiguity - and an evil hotel out to kill you is WAY scarier than your garden variety lunatic, IMO.
Again, an "echo" of a suicide that occurred in that room. Plays the plot point of the woman attacking Danny turns Wendy against Jack, and drives him further into craziness - in the book there's a child abuse angle that isn't there in the film.
That, I'm not sure about. If the hotel is sort of a reservoir of "echoes" maybe those who have been there in previous lives are drawn back. Since Jack is central in the photo, one could assume he was a bigwig there in a prior life, and was STRONGLY drawn back. The hotels machinations to kill Danny and Wendy were part of a desire to keep Danny's power present on-site.

I hope that helps. IMO, The Shining is an example of why Kubrick as a filmmaker is overrated - ambiguity and such is fine, but he fails to provide necessary plot points to give a REAL understanding of what's happening. Certainly he excels at mood and tension, and the look of the film is great, along with a few amazing setpieces, but as a whole, the film almost utterly fails as an adaptation of King's book. Though one might look at it as a precursor to the similarly inscrutable J-horror genre.

This the one classic that just flat out loathe. I'm a huge, huge fan of King's Shining. Kubrick's Shining bored me, and missed out on some great opportunities. The moving bush sculptures from the book were awesome. I actually appreciated the Stephen Weber TV movie more.

To be fair, I don't really know that the moving bush sculptures were necessarily possible at that time. Maybe with Harryhausen stop-motion it would've been cool...

...but that aside, I agree that as an adaptation of King's book (which IMO is his best) Kubrick's film was for the most part a failure. Best to view it as a stand-alone ghost story.

I concur with Chavez. It's one of those films that you think is really really good, until you read the material it was adapted from and you realize, "Oh my god, they fucked it all up!"

I'm the complete opposite.

And Kubrick was only out to take small fragments of the original elements to tell his version of the story.

I've always disliked the movie ending. Redemtion was a big part of the novel. Jack was trying to be a better dad than he had.

Watch it again. There's a previous a mention about Jack hurting Danny's arm, Danny discussing with Jack that "He would never hurt him", and Wendy tripping out when Danny had marks, in a direct allussion to the fact that Jack as an alcoholic hurt Danny before.

Apparently, you need things spelled out for you, which means you should avoid ALL of Kurbrick's films. There is an intent to leave things deliberatly ambiguous so the movie becomes something different for each individual watching it. That doesn't make Kubrick overrated, it sets him above and beyond most writer/directors.

There's certainly a case to be made that "The Shining" fails as an adaptation of the original novel. Kubrick himself admitted to taking the original story, and instead telling the story he wanted. Kubrick negated things in the novel (the hedges almost certainly because of technical limitations) and replaced the obvious horror with subtler atmospheric horror. King is a bit of hack, so I really didn't have a problem with that.

I always felt that the movie version and the T.V. miniseries were both half decent/ half-botched adaptations of a masterful book.

The Kubrick film nails the creepy ghost and isolation aspect of the book . . . but totally whiffs on the "imploding family" story. Jack is clearly crazy from the first scene and Wendy is a fucking sobbing doormat, so there is no sense of a troubled, but loving family being destroyed. They were already dysfunctional.

The miniseries gets that part right. Weber does a good job at playing Jack as an Everyman with demons being slowly driven insane and Rebecca De Mornay is a far more realistic and credible Wendy. However, the miniseries is completely not spooky and has lame CGI "ghosts" (including a jarring King cameo).

If only there was a way to smoosh these two movies together . . .

I've watched the film NUMEROUS times and must have always been going to the bathroom at some point; the alcoholism and injury are EXPLICIT in the book, and barely, if at all, mentioned in the film. Since that was the main subtext of King's novel, I think the failure/unwillingness to get it into the film is a bad thing.

Hey, if you want to hump Kubrick's leg, god bless ya; but to assume that because I dislike Kubrick as a director (with immense respect to his choice of material and abilities as a scenarist) I need my pablum spoon-fed to me is a tad insulting. Kubrick's films, almost without fail (except for maybe his early work like Paths of Glory) suffer from problems with pacing, story, and character. I think he was probably a genius behind the camera but a hack in editing room and never seemed to coax any particularly great performance out of an actor.

Malcolm McDowell and Peter Sellers being the immediate two that come to mind that he failed with...

Were they performing at a level above what their normally excellent work?

I didn't think so.

With Malcolm I'd say "absolutely!"

McDowell can play a psychopath in his sleep.

I'm in agreement with you, Chavez with respect to "The Shining." It is Kubrick's, not King's. The film and Nicholson's performance remove any ambiguity with respect to external/internal forces, something that the novel balances expertly.

And usually does.

His early work contained nuance. None to be found now. He was a perfect 1-dimensional Star Trek villain.

Compare the book to the miniseries. I've never considered Kubrick's Shining even part of the same universe.

All three have their merits, far as I'm concerned.

I'd agree.

I've seen the miniseries. It suffers from being overly long, from DeMornay and from that annoying kid.

...and from being a Stephen King television miniseries.

...directed by Mick Garris.

I watched parts of The Shining by accident when I was about 5 or 6 years old. For years, I always thought of a movie about blood spitting from an elevator, and could never pin point it. Also, the bear-dog fellatio was well remembered, even though I was oblivious to the fellatio. Anyways, this movie can fuck up a kid pretty good.

Watching it the first time as a consenting adult, it is still unnerving as hell. At first viewing, the ambience is so fucking evil, I had to leave the room a couple of times. Watching more than once, is probrably too many. This movie, like staying in the Overlook for a winter, can get pretty tedious fast. Doesn't take away from it being a great horror movie, though. The scene were Danny rides his big wheel around the hotel is the freakiest part in the movie.

Scariest part of the movie, for me, is also one of the simplest.

About a quarter of the way in, the first big blizzard hits the hotel, Danny and Wendy are outside playing in it, the scene cuts to Jack, this look of just pure, unfiltered, unblinking, demonic, evil HATE on his face. It's one of those scenes (along with the infamous piano wire scene in Audition) that's just impossible for me to watch all the way through without turning away from the TV every few seconds....

Say what you want about its differences to the book... I can think of no other King adaption that has disturbed me as much and no other horror film that has stayed with me over the years as such a pure terrifying experience.
I had some serious trouble sleeping after seeing this movie for the 1st time (consecutive viewings as well...). King is nearly impossible to capture on film literally (between the inner monologues and random tangent detailing). You have to change the material to tell the story on the screen...

Tim Curry's Pennywise is 2nd place in my book (as far as King villains on the screen)...

Now where the hell are my adaptations of Talisman & Eyes of the Dragon?

It's always weird to me that people prefer the book - which ends with the fucking hotel blowing up - to the very wonderful, actually scary movie.

I read the book after seeing the movie. They both have their place. The hotel blowing up is pretty fucking ridiculous.

Hopefully in a vault, buried out in the middle of the Arizona desert.

I've never liked the movie much. Granted, there are some ridiculous things in the novel, but the movie to me suffers a lot by casting Jack "You just know I'm going to go bugfuck nuts, right?" Nicholson as Jack Torrance. It's not supposed to be obvious that Jack goes insane, which is a big part of the terror of the novel. I always thought they should have cast Jeff Bridges.

You know whoever they cast as Jack is gonna go bugfuck nuts anyway. Why not cast someone who's proven to be GOOD at going bugfuck nuts?

I don't think you can fairly view Nicholson's performance then based on his persona now. He was amazing in the role.

I'm not. I saw THE SHINING after I saw ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, so I can see the attraction for casting him in this part. But it's obvious on the car ride up to the hotel that there's something off about his character. It's not exactly normal to talk to your seven-year old son about the Donner Party. It just doesn't play like the Everyman dad that Jack is supposed to be, his inner demons notwithstanding.

How about Jeff Daniels?

That's a big gripe to have when the scariest parts of the movie don't even have Jack as the main agitator. The HOTEL is the scary part. The hotel makes the shit the hit the fan. Casting would not have made a lick of difference. Kubrick's genius was not to make Jack the scariest part. That would of made it the run of the mill slasher. But The Shining isn't your run of the mill slasher. It's a fucked up experience I can only go through a couple of minutes without wincing. That's genius.

Excellent point. The psycho casting of him that followed were primarily because of this film and Cuckoo's Nest.

You've never met my relatives.

But it is fair to add..Nicholson is the king and I am biased. He is and was a great actor.

The Kubrick films I love are DR. STRANGELOVE and 2001. But he's always been a very hot and cold director for me. I consider THE SHINING one of his off moments, but I love FULL METAL JACKET. I respect A CLOCKWORK ORANGE but it's not one I watch often, but I can sit and look at the beautiful photography of BARRY LYNDON all day. Kubrick isn't a director I embrace unconditionally.

I love the Kubrick film. Never read the book, but if the TV movie is supposed to be lavishly faithful the book, I definitely prefer the stripped away, ambiguous nature of the Kubrick film, as far as any filmed adaptation goes. The themes of the breakdown of the nuclear family, alcoholism, etc are still strongly present in the movie.

The book is hamfisted and childish compared to the movie.

Seems like the movie's ending in the frozen labyrinth is better than blowing up the hotel.

That would be because it is.

The film's one great failing is casting Shelly Duvall in the role of Wendy or, in the contrary, her performance therein. Let's face it, by the last reel, we're so sick of her gibbering and whining that we're rooting for Jack to get her... or at least, I was. And as such, it ruins her character arc and suppresses the tragedy of the situation. Rather than sympathizing with a woman watching as her family disintegrates or a man slowly losing ground to the demons and sins of his past, we're thinking, "Damn, if I had to spend all winter alone with her, I'd be drunk and homicidal, too."

"Darling. Light, of my life. I'm not gonna hurt ya. You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said, I'm not gonna hurt ya. I'm just gonna bash your brains in. I'm gonna bash 'em right the fuck in. Ha, ha."

Indeed.

The book is broad and fairly silly pulp. Kubrick took that and turned it into a subtle and still-vibrant work of art. I'm actually glad they made the TV mini-series, because it proved once and for all just how fucking ridiculous a literal adaptation of King's prose would be.

I don't understand how anyone can find perambulating shrubbery more terrifying than Torrance's own ambiguous capacity for violence and hatred.

See, I actually quite liked Shelley Duvall in the movie. It was scarier for me to see this pathetic, helpless, unattractive female character stalked and threatened, rather than the typical blonde bimbo (cue another comparison to the made-for-TV miniseries).

When Shelley Duvall sees what Jack's actually been writing for months and months is one of the best "Oh shit!" moments ever put to film.

That's why I think casting Duvall was a stroke of genius. Because from the moment she walks on-screen, you're torn between feeling sorry for her and being irritated by her. Torrance has clearly been battling with those feelings for many years. He's trapped because of some sympathy fuck years ago, and that resentment has been eating away at him for years like some emotional cancer.

They're not supposed to be a blissful couple pulled apart by malevolent ghosts - they're a mismatched couple who were always going to end badly. It's just that, because the hotel is the catalyst, Jack tries to end it with a hatchet rather than, say, an affair with a waitress.

If you cast someone attractive in the role - both in looks and personality - you lose that complicity in Jack's actions.

I agree with all of this, but still think that "The Shining" is probably Kubrick's weakest film. Which, you know, is not a huge knock, given the man's filmography. But it's not a movie that inspires me to jump to its defense every time a King fan slams it.

It's Kubrick's most mainstream film. I wouldn't call it weak...better word might be "his easiest".