The Shining

[CrockyBetter]

I watched The Shining today for the first time ever. I thought it was going to be scary, given that its a "psychological horror". I didn't find it at all scary! Thought it was a load of rubbish to be honest!

I’ve never seen it and still can’t walk down empty long hotel corridors feeling entirely comfortable I am a massive wuss

Oohh I thought it was scary!! I think I was 19 or so when I first watched it.
My mum said it was one of the scariest books she had read!

The scene in the ballroom and the doctored photo.of a 1920's ball with Jack Nicholson grinning in the crowd still give me the shivers..

It's a brilliant film.. There are 2 versions of it.

The book is so much better.
The film is eyrie, rather than scary in my opinion. The back story and the details Stephen King writes make it a lot more spooky than I feel the film managed to portray.

I watched fit wham in was about 19 on a dark winters night on the dark and was terrified but felt it a bit drawn out .
watched it again 34 years later last night and found it good but not scarey.

The book is very different to the film. It’s also very well written and utterly terrifying.

Yes it's eerier rather than full-on scary. The last time I watched it was on a tremendously turbulent night flight from Vancouver to London- the turbulence didn't stop until we reached Iceland. So between The Shining and the turbulence, I was pretty strung out by the time we started descending over Scotland. Why did I do it to myself?

The film hasn't aged well - the bit at the end with Jack Nicholson's frozen face made me laugh out loud and Wendy is awful. But being alone in a huge empty hotel, Danny turning blind corners with the camera at floor level, the murdered girls - it's terrifying! The end seemed a bit rushed which lets it down but it's a great film with so many conspiracy theories about it - the moon landings, Native Americans etc, it's fascinating.

I watched it a couple of weeks ago, hadn’t seen it for probably 20 years before. I found it terrifying! I thought it was fab.

We listened to the unabridged audio book. I highly recommend this as a way to enjoy the story! Pop it on at night and listen to it in the dark - brilliant!.

SPOILER: The film leaves out so much, the film makes you think Jack has just gone insane, but the book tells you that he is infact possessed by the hotel to kill Danny because he is so powerful with his psychic abilities, I feel the film skips over this loads but maybe I'm just a bit rubbish at picking stuff up?

Weren't you at least horrified by the hideous 1970s carpets?

I know they were probably really fashionable for the time it was set in, but watching it in the present day makes it even more horrendous.

It's on the BBC iPlayer at the moment if anyone's interested.

If you want scary, try Pet Sematary! I watched the film years ago as a teen and I maintain it's the scariest film I've ever seen. I plucked up the courage to read the book last month and I really enjoyed it - a good spooky story, but still terrifying!

I just couldn't understand why someone would build a hotel in the middle of nowhere.

Have to admit I'm not a king fan. He starts books well, but he is rubbish at endings.

The Stand was a brilliant build up, but a hopeless ending.

I think the film is of its time. The book is far scarier, I love it! And like most Stephen King adaptations the books are often better, in my opinion anyway

My DP bigged it up a lot so I think it was inevitable I’d be disappointed when I saw it!

I think the whole Redrum and “here’s Johnny!” thing has lost its shock value due to being a bit of a meme, and the special effects with the old lady and the blood etc were probably a lot more shocking back in the day before we were all subjected to gruesome images on TV/films all the time!

Even the spooky twins trope has been done to death now, so that wasn’t particular scary. I think it was very much ‘of its time’, but like many films, the book was probably better.

Love Wendy in the film, just amazing acting - she looks utterly terrified of him even early on when the audience is charmed by him

Through her eyes she sees how close he is to the edge, how much she dances on eggshells around him

I detest that film but love the book. 70% of that stupid film is the stupid wife looking at the camera wide eyes, screaming and running around. The book is excellent, really psychologically disturbing - love it

The book is great, I don't find horror scary but it's chilling from a psychological pov, a man descending to insanity rather than the focus on a haunted hotel like the film.

But however disappointing the film, it's worth watching for Jack Nicholson. I just think it's a shame he was wasted on a mainly ghost story adaptation when he did such a good job of the bit of insanity left in the plot. He even makes the feeble shrieking Wendy tolerable just for his demonic eyes.

And tbf, everyone should watch it once, it would be a severe loss to mankind if the line 'here's Johnny' and it's origin were lost in the depths of history.

This is what scared me

Yeah I agree, it’s more eerie than scary as I first said! It was one that sort of stayed with me in my mind for a week or so after if you know what I mean?!

I like the other version of The Shining. It's called a mini series with Rebecca de Mornay in

I loved the book! Also there was a made for tv series\movie that King was more involved in and happier with that stuck to the plot a little more.

The first time I watched it I was 12. I was absolutely terrified . Couldn’t sleep with the light off until I reached my twenties after it .

@tectonicplates slightly, but I'm 39 so when I first watched it sometime around 1990, the grandparents of several friends still had their 'good quality they don't make them like this anymore' 70's carpets. It's Wendy's white woolly tights that are the most horrifying sight.