"The Shining" by Stanley Kubrick is a psychological horror film starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd. The film is very loosely based on the novel by Stephen King.
Portraying a writer, Jack takes a job as a caretaker at a snowbound and isolated hotel that is closed for its off-season.
His son Danny possesses a psychic ability that lets him see visions from the past and future, none of them good. Jack, too seems to share Danny's psychic abilities.
Jack gradually becomes influenced by the supernatural presence, or possibly his past life self. He descends into madness and attempts to murder his wife and son, just as a caretaker before him had done.
Does the past and the present exist at once? Is the hotel doomed because it was built on an indian burial ground? Is this horror film really an optimistic film with a happy ending because, if it is about ghosts, as it suggests, then anything that purports there to be life after death is optimistic, that is, unless one believes in hell.
I saw this film on opening weekend and loved it! I still very much enjoy it, watching it again on DVD, as part of The Stanley Kubrick Collection that was my Christmas gift from my wife, who had never seen it before.
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