The Shining

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy... This is the greatest horror film ever made. Nuff said This was the very first time watching this absolute masterpiece, and the fact that I watched it in IMAX was unbelievable. All horror movies that I'm gonna watch after this are gonna pale in comparison to this one. My god where do I start. The overall world building was done so fucking well. The way the setting was set was so smooth and clean. We got established to all of the characters motives and flaws right away, which only slowly descended into madness. The hotel itself looked so beautiful as well. Honestly the writing room reminded me so much of Zimmerman library at UNM 💀💀💀 I mean the Navajo art hanging and the big white curved pillars. Am I the only one? Anyway for this being such a big hotel, it feels so claustrophobic with the fact that it's sitting on a secluded mountain. You can feel the air is less abundant which only makes you feel more anxious with the setting. My god this film had my attention from beginning to end, I didn't think about anything else besides what was being presented in front of me. The pacing and the editing of this film was just absolutely flawless. It flowed perfectly, and there were no points where it felt like it dragged on or felt too fast. Holy shit the sound design is really what made the mood of this film. Holy shit it was probably the best use of sound I've ever heard on a film ever. The way it slowly builds horror and paranoia in the audience and the characters was phenomenal. I think IMAX had a huge boost in this factor so I can't speak for the at home version. The best part of this film however is easily the acting, from everybody, but one stands amongst the others. Wendy's actress did such a amazing job slowly driving into paranoia as the "most normal" out of everybody as she is the definition of you turn into the people that you are around. It was only a matter of time until she went crazy being around her husband and child that kept spouting absolute nonsense. The child actor for Danny was unbelievable. Holy shit did I really think he got possessed by a little kid that lived inside him. The way he'd say "red rum" too was so fucking eerie. This is absolutely perfect direction from Kubrick, I want to know exactly what he told the child actor and how to act and portray it. Then we get to the King of the show, Jack Nicholson. Holy shit this might have been one of the greatest acting performances I have ever seen in a film ever. The way that you can sort of tell there's something weird about him at the very beginning, to him getting stressed out and suffering writer's block, to starting to get a little more deranged and weird, to just an absolute murderous psycho, was just absolutely flawless in every single way. The way that Jack would speak, his facial expressions, physical acting with the way that he would move his body and the ticks that he would do, was just such a perfect example of perfect acting, and in my opinion, is the real horror of this film. The fact that he portrayed someone going crazy so well is the scariest part of this film because this can happen to actual people and tragedies like this happen from time to time. The fact that someone is actually capable of doing this is the true horror of this film, and it was portrayed and done absolutely perfectly.