The Frame

One of my friends was totally flabbergasted when I told her I hadn’t seen The Shining. So she made me watch it, despite the fact that I a) don’t like horror movies and b) don’t like eighties movies. And you know, she was right. How Kubrick manages to take a movie with acting this bad (sorry Shelley Duvall) and so many cheesy moments and yet make it work really well. But he does. My friend suggested that it was because “he’s Kubrick,” which is circular reasoning, but she may be right. In any case, the pacing is perfect (slower than you’d expect at first, but it builds very nicely), the atmosphere is creepy, and Kubrick shows just the right amount of scary stuff. And I honestly don’t know how much of the laughing I was doing was because of the cheesy acting, or because I needed to break the tension.
Well Above Average