My wifey had this major desire to watch a spooky movie last night, so I had no choice but to watch The Shining with her. Now I’ve never really liked The Shining much (I think Stanley Kubrick is an incredibly overrated director), mainly because those two spooky twins scare the crap out of me.
But last night, I realized that there were even more annoying things than the creepy little girls.
1. Jack Torrance’s Mace Windu-like character growth
“You’re referring to the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the Overlook Hotel. You believe it’s this boy?”
I’ve never read the book or anything, but I know that in the book, Jack was a regular guy with some issues, who gradually descends into madness at the hotel. Kinda sympathetic like that, really.
But noooooooo, you can’t have a sympathetic character in a Stanley Kubrick movie. That’s not how Kubrick rolls! In the movie, Jack was a crazy psycho who eventually becomes… more psychotic. Wow, what a great and unsuspected character arc!
Jack Torrance has about as much growth or development as Mace Windu, so that you half-expect him to try to kill his family with a purple lightsaber at the end of the movie. I’m not saying that you need some kinda M Night Shylamananlam plot twist at the end, but seriously, try not to reveal the rest of the movie in the first five minutes!
2. The soundtrack
Since it’s a movie that the wifey and I have both watched a few times before, we were actually Photoshopping while it was playing in the background. As such, the soundtrack hit me in a way I’ve never noticed before. It was loud, irritating, and just kinda stupid (kinda like Internet forum trolls).
You know that ringing sound that you hear when someone smacks the side of your head with a skateboard? Well, the soundtrack of this movie is like having someone repeatedly swing their skateboard into your ear for 2 hours. It’s just endless high-pitched ringing and sudden gongs and shit.
Scatman explaining the shining to Danny? Ringing sound. Walking around the hotel? Ringing sound. Always with the ringing sound!
And it’s not just the “creepy” parts either. That entire opening sequence where they drive up to the hotel? Loud irritating random sounds all the way. For this part, it’s like if Trent Reznor got incredibly doped up and went into convulsions on top of his synthesizer.
3. Danny’s Redrum voice
Wow. I mean, that part towards the end where he does the croaky voice and repeats “redrum” for about five minutes straight? That’s a small slice of Hell right there.
4. Shelley Duvall’s character
After watching this movie, you’d wanna take an axe to her too!
Okay, like seriously… how irritating was she? I mean she’s just so incredibly stupid. In most horror movies, she’d be the irritating character whose death you most want to see (except in this movie, she survives to the end).
She goes around the whole movie just saying dumb things and irritating not only Jack, but the viewer as well; you’d swear that it was Tom Greene in a wig.
And the worst part is towards the end – after Jack Nicholson goes apeshit and tries to kill everyone, she knocks him out with a baseball bat and locks him into the kitchen pantry. Smart move, but a regular person would then try to get the hell outta there, but not this woman. She goes back to her room and sleeps, waking up only when Jack comes back with an axe.
I looked it up, and it seemed like Duvall actually hated working with Kubrick and they frequently argued about her character and acting techniques. Hell, if someone wanted me to act like a complete dumbass, I’d kick up a fuss too.
5. People reading bullshit into the story
Look it up on the Internet and there’s a million different “explanations” on why the movie is all weird as it is, reading bullshit into the story as if it’s a freakin’ Shakespearean play. There’s theories that it’s based on the White Man beating down on Native Americans, that it’s based on the Holocaust, or Hansel and Gretel.
Just because Kubrick has the chef die over a rug that’s got an Indian motif, or that the hotel is built over an Indian burial ground, doesn’t mean he’s making some kinda social statement. He probably just thought it’d look cool… like blood pouring out of an elevator. You can imagine Kubrick standing at the set like Beavis going “Indian motifs and blood from an elevator are cool! Heh heh heh heh heh!”
“Heh heh heh… Indian motifs are cool!” “Yeah, and then blood pours out from the elevator. Huh huh huh!”
This doesn’t really have anything to do with the movie exactly, but it kinda just makes me dislike it more.
Random Fact: The Shining is the only Kubrick film since the mid 1950’s not to get a nomination for a Golden Globe or Oscar. Instead, it got nominated for Worst Director and Worst Actress at the Razzies. Yep, the same type of awards that Madonna and movies like Gigli repeatedly get nominated for.
Revo-Emag 
February 4th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
they killed Jazz in this movie too =(
February 5th, 2010 at 8:58 am
Yeah. I mean… Eyes Wide Shut, even Full Metal Jacket are just movies that bore me big time.
June 18th, 2013 at 4:19 am
Full Metal Jacket sucks, he has the pussiest character of the whole movie as the protagonist and at the very end when that pansy kills the sniper you have typical Kubrick shitty dialogue “Hard core man, hard core.”. Why people have to overanalyze every damn movie of his, sure the guy liked to read psychology books, doesn’t make him a genius.
April 16th, 2010 at 11:03 am
I’ve watched this movie for the first time today. And ever since, I’ve been googling for “the shining sucks”, to try and find posts like this, just to agree with them, and share my own thoughts:
THE SHINING SUCKS MONKEY ASS.
Alright, that felt good.
April 16th, 2010 at 11:32 am
Hahaha good for you! Fuck all those Kubrick bandwagon fanboys.
May 10th, 2010 at 2:41 pm
sorry i don’t have an avatar! just happened upon the site randomly. but i COMPLETELY agree. kubrick is as overrated as they come. while i did enjoy a clockwork orange, everything else he’s done has been utter shit. does he have absolutely no idea what a three-act structure is, or is he just trying to be “artsy” and buck the trends. either way, his story-telling technique, above all, drives me absolutely up the wall. props for standing up for the truth, drew.
May 10th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
That’s okay, Ben. You don’t need an avatar to rant about the Shining. You’ve got something better than a cool avatar: you’ve got valid points about how much this movie lacks a structure.
September 28th, 2010 at 9:55 am
You’re right Drew, there is no meaning to this movie. I actually asked Jan Harlan about if after a recent 35mm screening, and he said it was “nonsense and didn’t mean anything. It’s a fantasy, nothing more. Stanley and I always agreed that you should never try to explain a film that you don’t understand yourself: one of the reasons he never gave interviews”!!! That pretty much says it all. People who read things into this film and follow it like some kind of religion is fine, but I don’t agree, especially after hearing the above.
October 1st, 2010 at 10:10 am
I didn’t realize that Kubrick never gave interviews for this movie… I guess that anecdote sheds a whole lot of light on this matter!
July 11th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
I’m watching it for the first time right now, and yeah, the wife is intolerable. She’s a complete motor character, only there to drive the plot. And yeah, Jack’s character dev is totally lacking. There’s no illustration of him going mad..it’s all just rather sudden.
Meaning to the film? The film is based on a King novel. Any meaning it has would have to be found in the source material. I think King would say that it has no meaning other than to entertain.
July 12th, 2012 at 8:44 am
Well King hated the film, and the casting of Jack Nicholson. I think he mostly hated it cos the whole semi-autobiographical subplot of the main character’s alcoholism was downplayed in the film, and well… Jack was a psycho to begin with.
July 12th, 2012 at 9:06 am
Yeah. Personally, I think Nicholson is the only thing that saved the film. I can’t imagine anyone else in the role. I also think that the lady who played the wife did what she could with the material she was given. She did “terrified” very well, imo. It’s just a shame that her character was so 1dimensional and stupid.
Like most horror films, stupidity drives the plot here.
I also thought it crude of them to use the “n” word. I don’t know if it was just expected in 1980 (I was born in 84..so idk) or if they did it for shock value.
All in all, I don’t hate the film, but it could have been A LOT better.
July 12th, 2012 at 9:21 am
There has been a couple of remakes over the years, including one that King directed himself. I haven’t seen them, but I did read that they”re a lot worse than Kubrick’s version.
July 12th, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Interesting. I think I’ll find the one that King directed. I’m willing to bet that it’s better than this one. Movie critics are very hard to please, and if they already liked the first film, they would have even higher expectations.
I think I’ll read the novel now. I like King’s work, but for some reason I couldn’t get in to the novel when I tried it years ago. Regardless, it has to be many levels deeper than the film, and I’d like to know more about the protagonist’s character.
November 17th, 2012 at 8:53 pm
I bought it on DVD, watched it and no doubt it was a put down, Jack Nicholson was the only good actor, it had irritating and awkward moments, it made no sense and it got boring after a while
November 18th, 2012 at 12:43 pm
I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels this way. The strongest memory I have (aside from the two creepy girls) is the irritating whining soundtrack.
May 9th, 2013 at 12:03 am
It’s not a spooky film, it’s not a horror film. It’s a Kubrick film playing w/ the genre of horror. It’s dated, yes, like most films from 30 years ago. Acting has also changed since 30 years ago. There’s no hidden meanings: it’s a visual experiment, somehow, following Kubrick’s obsession with ‘vision’ throughout all his films. Yes, it’s artsy. So what? Then it should be read as an ‘art film’ – not as a mainstream horror film. If you were looking for a mainstream horror film, you shouldn’t watch The Shining.
May 9th, 2013 at 4:17 pm
I think the point I was trying to make is more like “If I was looking for an enjoyable movie, then I shouldn’t watch The Shining.” I wasn’t disappointed in it as a mainstream horror movie, or a horror movie in general… I just feel it’s a highly overrated movie and well, I think it sucks.
October 30th, 2017 at 1:55 pm
That’s fine, but then The Shining shouldn’t be considered “horror”.
June 12th, 2018 at 7:53 am
Yes it should! it was based on a novel by Stephen King (A horror story) simple! I hate the way people try to make this boring film into something it wasn’t, it was pure, horror fantasy with over the top acting and score with a very boring middle section. It was well overrated and to think this film was voted the scariest movie ever made paha! what Utter codswallop.
May 12th, 2013 at 1:34 am
I agree. I watched it last night and I found it more like a comedy than a horror movie. I also found it a little boring. My friend who watched it with me fell asleep halfway through the movie 😛
February 22nd, 2014 at 2:11 am
I agree with many of the points made. I saw this in the theatre in ’80 and was very disappointed after reading the awesome King novel. Acting? Sucked (even Nicholson, seriously) and the wife and kid? There’s the true horror. The music? Just useless and distracting. Direction? It appeared to be auto-directed. The actors appeared to be working their lines from the script with no one saying, “OK, Jack, let’s bring that down just a little bit and try it again.” I laughed whenever Torrence would have a kiss or conversation with a dead person and he’d just roll with it with a big smile like it was some kind of joke. I suppose we are supposed to realize that he is now insane and under complete control of the spirits of the Overlook but the movie never brought us there. Soooooooo funny when Dick Halloran travels from Miami to Denver, then 5 hours in a rental car to Sidewinder in a blizzard at night and then in the Snow Track from SIdewinder to the hotel in the same blizzard in ten feet of snow only to be killed after being in the hotel for five minutes! Thanks, for the heads up Danny. Way to use that gift of telepathy. Too funny. Sad, pathetic movie. Also, you know this film comes up on top ten lists all the time for horror films? I bought the DVD for 4.99 yesterday because I really wanted to try it again and, yeah, it still sucks. (Thanks for the forum!)
February 23rd, 2014 at 11:02 pm
I heard Kubrick made Crothers shoot that death scene again and again until he almost died of a heart attack!
May 6th, 2014 at 10:52 am
Totally agree. Don’t really know a huge about Kubricka films (only seen 3 or 4 others), so not gonna comment on the director, but this was such an underwhelming film. I read the book first and loved that, so assumed a film as widely loved as The Shining would be decent. Dead wrong. I didn’t get invested in any of the characters and not one was sympathetic. As stated above in the book qith Jack for example they fleshed out his backstory and character enough for you to feel for him in the leadup to his mental break – in the film he was a dick to begin with and it only got worse. Wendy is ridiculously irritating the whole way through and Danny is just weird. In the books he came across more as scared and confused about Tony and the shining and what was happening to him; but in the film he seems to go about like he’s in a trance.
And don’t get me started on the sound / music. High pitch squealing, random crashing and gongs…and not in that standard horror was of using it sparingly to ramp up the tension but all. the. time. Same with when he’s on his tricycle and they’ve amplified the sound of the wheels to about 20x the volume of everything else. Just why??
Argh rant over. I genuinely believe this is one of the most disappointing films i’ve ever seen
August 19th, 2014 at 12:35 pm
Just saw it for a 2nd time (in Central Park in NYC, no less) and it was so bad as to be irritating. VERY slow – plodding, and NO surprises. You basically knew the story from the first 15 minutes. The casting was awful – the wife, the kid, even Scatman – jeeze – painful to watch. Even Nicholson – good, but no surprises. And the audience at the end – where he’s hacking at bathroom door – is laughing and cheering – is that what the director wanted?? And why are we rooting for the caretaker, exactly? Or even the wife – she’s incredibly stupid and annoying. And that incessant “red rom” chanting – annoying and WAY overdone. And there was NO scary part! Almost the entire movie irritated me, including that so many young people in the audience seemed to think it was wonderful. Maybe “The Shining” is an exercise in mass mind control…
November 9th, 2014 at 8:16 am
I just watched the Shining again after having first seen it when it came out in 1980 and it was just as bad as I remember. Boring, lame, slow, and disjointed are a few words that don’t do it justice. Characters that you don’t care about didn’t help either. And a soundtrack that seemed like it was stolen right out of a Paris Hilton porn flick. For any person that thought that this movie had any scary moments in it they should never watch an episode of the Munsters because they will never be the same again.
November 11th, 2014 at 7:02 pm
Do you ever wonder if we’re somehow watching a different version of the movie from all the fans?
June 12th, 2018 at 7:57 am
Yes! I really don’t get this fanboy obsession with ut at all, its so easy to pull apart I fell asleep halfway through it my mate had to wake me up, or was it that loud overpowering score
April 13th, 2017 at 5:08 am
I agree with you there. I’d also say that Jack Nicholson was hammy as ever, except that is was more annoying here. Maybe it was because it was graced with some of Kubrick’s characteristically terrible direction.
December 27th, 2018 at 2:41 am
Totally agree with you! Watched it after so much of hype n I didn’t feel engrossed a bit – just plain bored n irritated of the wife’s mousy dumb character n ugly looking ghosts! Only plus I could see was jack Nicholson’s brilliant acting – if I were his wife in real life I would think twice about sleeping in a room with him after watching this movie😅😅 he looked so looney!!
January 16th, 2019 at 10:48 pm
Exactly! Though on hindsight, there is a silver lining to come out of The Shining and that is the Overlook Hotel sequence in Ready Player One.
July 8th, 2019 at 11:07 am
“…Stanley Kubrick is an incredibly overrated director”
You should have saved that for the end of the article. As it stands, I stopped there.
July 8th, 2019 at 11:17 am
I guess I saved you some time then. There’s the silver lining.
April 13th, 2021 at 10:44 am
It’s piss-poor, sub-par storytelling. Apart from some nice aesthetics, and cinematography, it’s horribly overrated, and I’ve disliked it since the first time I saw it. A lot of people that rave about it seem to fabricate the things which make it ‘so good’, rather than admit that it is very dull, has very unlikable characters with absolutely no developemental arcs, and it’s just very uninteresting in the end. As a film buff, I’ve watched it several times thinking that I’m missing something, only to have the same experience- being bored, and disliking what the fans claim makes it good in thier eyes. Which is mostly unsubstantiated nonsense with zero context, weight or consequence. The book was vastly superior, as was Doctor Sleep, which I really enjoyed.
April 13th, 2021 at 10:50 am
Wow I’m glad to meet someone that dislikes it as much as I do! I wrote this post a looooong time ago and I can’t imagine that I can’t imagine I did a decent job of it, but your comment… It’s got substance!
February 4th, 2022 at 11:14 pm
I watched it for the first time today and… Wow… From what I’ve heard about the movie I was SO disappointed. This got to be the most boring ‘Horror’ movie I’ve ever seen.
The characters are bland, the scenes that don’t progress the story at all are unnecessarily long and I’m honestly just sorry for the kid because this movie must’ve been terrible for his vocal chords.
I also absolutely agree on your issue with the soundtrack. It felt like whoever did the sound for this movie not only had no idea what they were doing but they were also doing it in a very weird aggressive way.
What a mess.
February 5th, 2022 at 11:43 am
Hey thanks for the comment! That soundtrack is definitely a low point of this movie. The visual image of the Twins standing in the hallway is the only scary thing in the entire movie. But in itself is not worth the price of admission.