Eparlarua

The Shining

(1980)

Hey, I lived with a writer for many years, and she may have gotten cranky sometimes, but she never came after me with an axe. Well, OK, once, but in her defense, I had been hogging the computer playing Civilization for five hours when she needed to make revisions.

This is another of those films I used to love and then suddenly didn't anymore, so I wanted to give it another chance. Fact is, it's just not very good. Yes, it has one of the most fantastically creepy evil-of-banality scenes in horror film history, when Wendy finds Jack's manuscript, and Shelley Duvall's performance throughout makes you wish she'd been in more horror flicks, but mostly it seems labored and trite. And LOUD. And PORTENTOUS. In case you're too dim to figure it out yourself, we'll crank up the MUSIC and the SOUND EFFECTS so you'll know that SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT. Jesus! Give us some fucking credit!

And another thing: twice Jack asks the ghost bartender for bourbon, and twice he's served Jack Daniel's. C'mon--was there no one on the set who could set the Limey director straight on this misconception?