The Final Weekend
I wasn't sure when to fit The Shining (1980) into my October schedule but at Midnight, Saturday, I decided to. The final five days I feel will continue to try and combat time constraints and viewer fatigue, sacrificing certain mainstays due to the closing window. I was fortunate to see this in the theater a few years ago, and anytime I watch it now just pales in comparison. The Steadicam scenes especially and helicopter opening with the eerie score are just visually incredible. I amusingly read comments on Facebook referencing the film, and to say feelings were mixed would be an understatement. With every "one of the greatest horror films of all time" followed "this movie is so overrated". Kubrick's film is polarizing to say the least.
Shelley Duvall alone parts opinion, with many quite critical of her while others (like me) can't see anyone else in the role of tormented and walking-on-eggshells anxious Wendy Torrance. The abuse victim is right there in every scene and her asshole, fragile ego, tempermental husband remains from the get-go the reason she is such a meek and cautious spouse, seemingly always nervous she'll say the wrong thing to set him off. The Overlook just enhances and encourages further instability and madness out of Jack's already simmering discontent and seething undercurrent of rage. A career that never took off, a child with specific "peculiarities", and a wife who watches too much television, perhaps responsible for her sons own attraction to the tube and its contents. There was a lot of books scattered about the Torrence residence in Boulder, but the TV is always on. 4.5 / 5
William Castles 13 Ghosts (1960) is by and large pure gimmick movie complete with needed available "color glasses" to see the titular ghosts. A dinosaur expert and his 50s nuclear family, complete with a kid named BUCK, inherit a haunted house, once owned by an eccentric murdered relative. The lawyer friend of the ghost collector isn't quite the squeaky clean, well-mannered, perfect gentleman he'd have the family believe, remaining around for his own interests while the suspicious maidservant, cleverly nicknamed witch because she's played by Margaret Hamilton, could very well be an ally instead of villain. When BUCK tells his mom he saw a lion and man without a head I laughed out loud because she just humors him. The colorful ghosts are introduced to us before the film really starts and Castle kicks things off from his office after one skeleton opens the door and another is stopped while dictating him.
I love Castle so this stuff is fun even though I'm the first to acknowledge this is all much hokum. The scenes involving the ghosts are not particularly extraordinary but the bed trap revealed offers an unpleasant fate for Zorba. Money in the house ultimately serves as motive for the killer, also the product of his undoing. The family financial situation produces a reason behind why staying in the house remains optional, and kitchen shenanigans offer poltergeist mischief. There is even a seance and use of a Ouija board. 3.5 / 5
Michael Landon starred as a young Rebel Without a Cause, unstable and prone to rage-filled outbursts, often violent towards friends, needing psychological help, betrayed by scientist Whit Bissell who uses hypnosis to induce lycantrophy. Bissell believes man must revert back to a more primative state and "start over" because mankind was doomed to destroy itself. Barney Phillips of The Twilght Zone is a detective trying to help Landon before he ends up in jail. Guy Williams of Lost in Space is a cop who disregards Sokoloff's claims that an animal attack on a student was done by a werewolf. Bissell's cold and dismissive rejection of his assistant's pleas to quit experimenting with Landon sentences the teenage troubled youth to a tragic end, not only murdering students unknowingly but doing so in the form of a hairy, savage beast! The dialogue is right out of the juvenile delinquent drive-in 50s film era, and Landon alternates between carefully anxious and out of control anger. Although recognized for its attention towards teenagers, this does have some great names in the cast. And the gnarly protruding teeth and fur give Landon a wonderfully ugly monster underneath the jacket and jeans. The end results aren't a surprise. I couldn't help think of The Werewolf (1956) while watching this. Ritch, like Landon, is betrayed by science, neglected by those who mishandled him. 3.5 / 5
Shelley Duvall alone parts opinion, with many quite critical of her while others (like me) can't see anyone else in the role of tormented and walking-on-eggshells anxious Wendy Torrance. The abuse victim is right there in every scene and her asshole, fragile ego, tempermental husband remains from the get-go the reason she is such a meek and cautious spouse, seemingly always nervous she'll say the wrong thing to set him off. The Overlook just enhances and encourages further instability and madness out of Jack's already simmering discontent and seething undercurrent of rage. A career that never took off, a child with specific "peculiarities", and a wife who watches too much television, perhaps responsible for her sons own attraction to the tube and its contents. There was a lot of books scattered about the Torrence residence in Boulder, but the TV is always on. 4.5 / 5
William Castles 13 Ghosts (1960) is by and large pure gimmick movie complete with needed available "color glasses" to see the titular ghosts. A dinosaur expert and his 50s nuclear family, complete with a kid named BUCK, inherit a haunted house, once owned by an eccentric murdered relative. The lawyer friend of the ghost collector isn't quite the squeaky clean, well-mannered, perfect gentleman he'd have the family believe, remaining around for his own interests while the suspicious maidservant, cleverly nicknamed witch because she's played by Margaret Hamilton, could very well be an ally instead of villain. When BUCK tells his mom he saw a lion and man without a head I laughed out loud because she just humors him. The colorful ghosts are introduced to us before the film really starts and Castle kicks things off from his office after one skeleton opens the door and another is stopped while dictating him.
I love Castle so this stuff is fun even though I'm the first to acknowledge this is all much hokum. The scenes involving the ghosts are not particularly extraordinary but the bed trap revealed offers an unpleasant fate for Zorba. Money in the house ultimately serves as motive for the killer, also the product of his undoing. The family financial situation produces a reason behind why staying in the house remains optional, and kitchen shenanigans offer poltergeist mischief. There is even a seance and use of a Ouija board. 3.5 / 5
Michael Landon starred as a young Rebel Without a Cause, unstable and prone to rage-filled outbursts, often violent towards friends, needing psychological help, betrayed by scientist Whit Bissell who uses hypnosis to induce lycantrophy. Bissell believes man must revert back to a more primative state and "start over" because mankind was doomed to destroy itself. Barney Phillips of The Twilght Zone is a detective trying to help Landon before he ends up in jail. Guy Williams of Lost in Space is a cop who disregards Sokoloff's claims that an animal attack on a student was done by a werewolf. Bissell's cold and dismissive rejection of his assistant's pleas to quit experimenting with Landon sentences the teenage troubled youth to a tragic end, not only murdering students unknowingly but doing so in the form of a hairy, savage beast! The dialogue is right out of the juvenile delinquent drive-in 50s film era, and Landon alternates between carefully anxious and out of control anger. Although recognized for its attention towards teenagers, this does have some great names in the cast. And the gnarly protruding teeth and fur give Landon a wonderfully ugly monster underneath the jacket and jeans. The end results aren't a surprise. I couldn't help think of The Werewolf (1956) while watching this. Ritch, like Landon, is betrayed by science, neglected by those who mishandled him. 3.5 / 5
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