The Shining (1980)

The Shining is regarded as a classic which makes the fact that I haven’t seen it before today even more baffling. I saw the documentary ‘Room 237’ which basically that The Shining could be anything including Kubrick announcing that he faked the moon landing. To be honest it took me an awfully long time before I started to get into it. Another thing to note is that there is very little of Stephen King’s novel in this movie apart from the setting and the characters name. The movie sees Jack Nicholson play Jack Torrance who takes on a job as a caretaker of the Overlook Hotel during the winter months so that he can write his novel. Things seem to go strange quite quickly though to be honest with Jack Nicholson, its hard to tell when he’s being himself or being the character.

As the movie progresses things get very bleak and one of the things that I do like about this film is that it’s very well shot. From the flying over the lake to the constantly following Danny around on his little bike, there are some good shots which help add to the tension that was in the film. To be honest though Danny Lloyd who played Danny Torrance out acted Shelley Duvall who played Wendy. I have to say that I could have done without Wendy because even though she’s suppose to be in terror at what her husband has turned into I just found myself being slightly bored by her. She didn’t seem to really contribute and was out performed by both Danny Lloyd and Jack Nicholson. Nicholson is on fine form here and pretty much steals the film. Every time he was on screen he was in complete control and every time he wasn’t on screen, I took this as an opportunity to take a mental breather and wait for the next time and that was probably a wise thing to do. The infamous ‘here’s Johnny’ line was exactly as good as I hoped it would be when seen in the context of the film.

As a movie, I thought that it was rather good. It’s very tense and very well acted (apart from Duvall) and also I liked the story but I’m going to read the novel and see a) how different it is to the movie and b) whether its as good as the movie. Only time will tell but I think that as a horror film it does what its does very well and despite the rather reduced cast and characters that are in the vast majority of the movie, it kept my attention from the very beginning and I like this movie.

REC3 - Genesis (2012)

REC 3 is a film that mixes the found footage genre with Zombie genre. Now I am not a gore fan and I had not seen the previous two REC films and the film starts off with a wedding and things seem to be moving along normally and on a side note it must be about ten minutes before we get the title card before returning to the action. The thing that strikes me about film is that it seems like they have gone down the comedic road which is a bit of a surprise. Not as much of a surprise when at one point they seem to ditch the hand held camera style and just go for a generic horror film.

Not being a gore fan as I mentioned I thought that the gore was rather tame and I thought that this was going to be perfectly fine until the last quarter when it gets really gorey and I had to look away because I am a bit of a wuss. It does seem a bit odd when they decided to just go mad with the gore and I wonder why they didn’t do this sooner but I suppose that would have undermined the comedy tone that they were so desperately going for. I thought the idea that the zombies are stopped in their tracks because the vicar is talking about Genesis was a clever idea and this led to another good idea where the grandfather who has a hearing aid wasn’t affected because his hearing aid was turned off so was continuing with his normal behaviour thus leading to the demise of Clara.

The performances were as you would expect and with the film being set at a wedding the loving couple decided that instead of getting out they would find one another and both Leticia Dolera (Clara) and Diego Martin (Koldo) do their best with what are quite frankly rather standard characters. I did find the John Sponge character to be quite funny because it seemed to stupid and yet funny so I didn’t mind that particular character. Quite why Clara decided to go all from being a normal bride to being like Alice from the Resident Evil films is a bit of a mystery. They even go to the trouble of cutting her wedding dress so that it looks like Milla Jovovich in those films.

I’m not quite sure about REC 3 because I think that the comedy part of the film was slightly disjointed and compared to the other REC films I’m told that this is the weakest but I doubt that I will watch them. As a standalone film, I’ve seen far worse and I thought that there were some good performances and some good moments though having seen ‘The Walking Dead’ TV series, it seems that this is a little behind the times in terms of storytelling.

Room 237 (2012)

Room 237 is a movie about how a bunch over people who have obsessed over the movie ‘The Shining’ talk about the various things and messages that are littered throughout the film. I have never seen ‘The Shining’ before watching this film but to be honest I don’t think that I have missed anything but I will see the movie at some point. The thing that I’ve been told about Stanley Kubrick is that he was a perfectionist and so nothing went into his movie that he didn’t obsess about so that is the one thing that you have to keep in mind when listening to these theories. On the subject of theories, some make sense such as the window in the managers office when the layout would contradict that. Then there is the theory about Kubrick faking the moon landing and you just end up thinking that its another wacky idea but then when the kid stands up and you see him wearing the Apollo 11 jumper then you start thinking that there might be some credit given to this. Another thing is where Kubrick is suppose to be giving a big FU to Stephen King when there is a shot of the car that King has in his novel being crushed in the movie.

There were several moments when watching the movie when I just thought that this was the stupidest thing I had ever seen. There were theories where you just think “nope”. The moment is where apparently Kubrick has his face superimposed on the clouds. Now with the best will in the will there is no face in those clouds and no face of Kubrick. Sometimes the voice would say “Now I’m taking a leap” in which I would respond by saying “You haven’t taken a leap so far?”. My favourite BS moment was when one person said that a ski poster which was clearly a ski poster was in the eyes of this person a minator. Then there was the idea that when the manager goes to shake Jack Nicholson’s hand he stands at the end of the desk and it looks like an erection. As the film progresses it seems that the outlandish ideas take centre stage.

There are so many theories and BS that go through the film that its amazing that Kubrick was able to make anything at all. That said I think that there might be some foundation in the theories about genocide and the Indians but other things such as the geography (except for the office) of the corridors are more a continuity error that Kubrick couldn’t do much about. At the end of the day he was a director working for a major movie studio and would only be given so much room for moving. Even the great Stanley Kubrick wouldn’t be able to dictate to the studios.

As a movie I think that providing you leave your senses at the door and are willing to accept some of the more barmier ideas that get voiced in the movie I think that it’s a fun movie but my ultimate feeling when the movie finished was that I am glad that I don’t obsess over movies like these people and I think that the people that participated in this movie need serious help. Go out and have a long walk in the countryside or read a non-scary book. Do something because its not healthy to obsess over a film this much.