The Shining

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The Shining ★★½ 1980 (R)

Very loose adaptation of the Stephen King horror novel about a writer and his family, snowbound in a huge hotel, who experience various hauntings caused by either the hotel itself or the writer's dementia. Technically stunning, and pretty dang scary, but too long, pretentious and implausible. Nicholson is excellent as the failed writer gone off the deep end. 143m/C VHS, DVD, Bluray Disc, HD DVD . Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Joe Turkel, Barry Nelson, Philip Stone, Lia Beldam, Billie Gibson, Barry Dennen, David Baxt, Lisa Burns, Alison Coleridge, Kate Phelps, Anne Jackson, Tony Burton; D: Stanley Kubrick; W: Stanley Kubrick, Diane Johnson; C: John Alcott; M: Walter (Wendy) Carlos, Rachel Elkind.