"There's no one in here, Mr. Balowksi! We're all holograms!!"

(aka a minute-by-minute review of The Shining, using the format pioneered by Jared "No Nickname" Hansen. Ah, poor Jared. I wonder whatever became of him?)


0:03 - ah tedious, tedious longshots with pretentious tuba music. You know, take these away and 2001: A Space Oddessy runs slightly longer than a funeral insurance infomercial on daytime TV.

1:09 - oops. We see the shadow of the helicopter the cameraman is in. And they call Kubrick a perfectionist. What? Was Jack Nicholson's character being stalked by the Channel 9 copter or something.

1:119 - what a ghastly font. Neon blue block capital Arial? It's not just 80s, it's cheap as shit!

1:25 - ooh, nearly collided with the love bug.

1:45 - Scatman Crothers. The lamest supervillain ever.

1:50 - this is all supposed to emphasize how alone and isolated this love bug is, but it's passed no less than three other cars in the last ten seconds and one of them was highway patrol. Not really giving the air of totally being cut off from civilization, is it?

2:08 - how unstuble is the music with banshees going "brrrrr!" and "hahahaha!" and "oooooh!" It sounds like clowns being sexually molested.

2:45 - holy shit, what maniac would commute here? I guess in the 70s the prices of petrol allowed such gargantuan indulgence.

3:16 - did Jack Nicholsen ever NOT look like a hairtrigger psycho? He's like a thin American version of Bill Filer only with a worse combover. And does he ever play characters not called Jack? Dear me.

3:44 - for such a huge hotel, the manager's office is tiny. Is that so he can "accidentally" grope his secretary without having to take a run-up?

4:02 - so Jack did an eight-hour round trip for a job interview? Man, I'm reluctant change trains at Central. I hope he got it or his ride home's going to be even more depressing and tedious than the one out.

4:18 - and you can tell this is the family the other people in the apartment block avoid like the plague at a glance. I mean, seriously, just a snapshot of this moment and you'd instantly go "they're the ones that'll go apeshit." Like the mum who never takes off her ghastly apron or the son who munches his sandwich staring blankly in the empty wall. I bet if this was on BlueRay I could see how many first editions of Stephen King are on that shelf. These people own way too many books and not enough shelves. Bound to get mouldy...

4:25 - dear god, boy, swallow your food before gratuitously expositing over the place. Why are you asking questions now in the middle of a roadrunner cartoon?

4:57 - did she get anorexic between camera shots.

5:00 - you couldn't do this in a film nowadays. Whether it's smoking in front of child actors or not putting that kid on a course of ritalin and electroshock therapy. How irritating is the wiggly finger? And yet it's a better actor than the child it's attached to.

5:34 - wow, people felt uncomfortable with a school teacher who looks like Jack Nicholson. Hold the freaking front page, people.

5:52 - so, who are these assholes in Denver who suggested this creepy-faced monotone psycho was good for the position. And even if I were desperate for a job, being told "Normally I fundamentally disagree with everyone who supports you on principle, but this time..." I would be a tad suspicious. Especially when said assholes told me nothing about the job they were putting me forward. They're screwing with you, Jack!

7:32 - wow, Jack wants isolation so he's going for the one job where you're warned about the dangers of cabin fever. What could possibly go wrong?

8:08 - wait, so mum and son are geared up for this and he hasn't even got the job yet? Must be 1980s confidence in the job market.

8:42 - "Oh yeah, last guy who did this job went psycho crazy and murdered his entire family with an axe. Let's repeat the exact same experimental conditions and hope you don't do the exact same thing..."

10:00 - so, in the nine winters since Grady's psycho killing, absolutely nothing has happened? Does that mean the evil forces of the hotel who also do absolutely fuck all seven months a year were on strike or something? If nothing bad happened, why haven't other caretakers stayed in the job?

10:31 - a "confirmed horror addict" marries Jack Nicholson. Oh the inevitability of it all!

10:47 - so spooky Tony can see the future!!! But as mom and son already thought the job was a done deal, it's not that impressive, is it?

11:32 - "Cause the hotel is evil and turns people psychotic!" See, Invisible Tony, NOT THAT FUCKING HARD TO EXPLAIN!

11:48 - "Odd, the blood normally gets off on the third floor..." Yes, I nicked that gag, because it's the fakest blood you'll see outside of the Goodies' bunfight at the OK Tearrooms.

12:10 - hah. You can't find that frightening. The Olsen Twins stare, bored, at a tidal wave of red cordial while that kid who saw Bernard Black shit on a wicker chair gawps in terror. Playing some violins makes it no less hilarious.

13:06 - so, does she think he had an aneurysm? If so, why did she take his trousers off? How does that help?

13:38 - yeah, and no one's ever once before thought this kid was wierd. I mean, most serial killers act more normal than this freak.

14:25 - no wonder the kid went crazy in this empty white house.

14:51 - actually, kids having near epileptic fits and ranting about an invisible parasite that climbs out of his stomach and predits the future IS something that probably merits further investigation.

15:37 - light up another cigarette in front of the doc, that makes you look rational and in control. (Yes, I know, ethnographic differences but still it looks like both mum and visiting GP know 9/10ths of fuck all about the whole thing).

16:55 - shit, woman, use an ashtray!

17:30 - so... Jack accidentally dislocated the kid's shoulder and he immediately develops this invisible friendship just five months ago and no one actually thought it worth mentioning before now? Christ. Americans, idiots! Didn't the doctors at the time notice?

17:42 - that was a natural edit if ever I saw one.

18:20 - Jack might be a bit terse in this scene, but look at that kid who obviously trying to piss him off. Why they don't play some music or listen to a radio or something escapes me. They barely cope a four-hour drive, how are they going to cope with five months?

18:39 - oh, so we're blaming this place for the Donner Party too? Except the Donner Party suffered a huge and explicable trauma before survival drove them to cannibalism. It's not like they all went psycho one afternoon...

19:27 - well, at least the little bastard didn't watch Cannibal Holocaust.

20:23 - yeah, wait until the last second before giving the new caretaker a tour and run down of his duties before catching a plane out of town. That's bound to cover every possible contingency, that is.

21:17 - what possible use could that giant fireplace be apart from burning human corpses en masse?

22:10 - yes, they're not actually identical twins, are they? And their evil modus operandi is... to walk out of the room. Not even vanish creepily. To be honest, Parkinsons-suffering-emo-kid seems to have freaked out the ghosts.

22:39 - I think Spaced took the piss out of this bit, but seriously, that hotel bedroom is way better for a kid than the isolation tank he has at home.

23:09 - Monsieur Nicholson, can you deliver any lines without seeming eye-rollingly sarcastic. You're supposed to actually be happy about this!

24:43 - why would you build on an Indian burial ground? It's just asking for trouble of the non-supernatural kind, what with plague-ridden corpses, subsidence, unstable foundations not to mention insuring every Native American is out for vengeance to this impossible-to-reach half-a-year shithole which is clearly barely making enough cash to survive...

24:05 - "Yes, we paid someone to hang up gold curtains and a sign saying "You are now in the gold room if you ignore all the red furniture, pink walls, white ceiling and brown floor. This is why we don't make much cash here."

25:06 - given the provisions in the game room consist of a pool table with no balls and a dart board, it seems unsurprising any kid would get bored there. Was there originally some pinball arcade where Danny could "bomb the universe"?

25:44 - this guy was obviously the inspiration for the melted head black guy in Time Hiest. It's like someone slammed an anvil into his forehead and his jaw extended like an opening cash register drawer. He's pretty sarcastic, too. "Oh, so you're going to be the helpless murder victims this year? Yay!"

26:56 - "Doc?" or "Duck?" Either way, this guy seems to be possess with the spirit of Bill Crosby. That's nasty nowadays, but even at the time it must have been as irritating as fuck.

27:57 - is he telepathic? Austistic? Tinitus sufferer? Or all three. Man, this kid makes Romulus and Remus look like the cast of Outnumbered! EMOTE, DAMN YOU!

29:10 - the point of a ghost ship is you DO know people were there, you dim tart.

29:46 - communicating without speaking a word? Yeah, we do it nowadays with texting. Isn't it fortunate a little telepath happens to bump into another telepath at the haunted hotel? Why people aren't claiming this as canon for the The Tomorrow People, totally escapes me.

33:05 - Yes, you telepaths sure are clever to sense some bag vojoo in this hotel after the highly-publicized massacre a decade ago. God damn it, this stuff isn't exactly hidden. HOW DUMB ARE YOU AMERICANS? You could look it up in a library and find out more than Bill Crosby the Psychic Pratt!

33:28 - a young Steven Moffat finds that dialogue worthy of giving to Peter Capaldi when he wants some characterization. Oh let joy be unconfined.

34:09 - yeah, act cryptic and spooky, that'll work. The kid thinks an invisible man lives in his mouth! Just tell him there's a monster in room 237 and the credulous cretin will believe you! These idiots are jumping through hoops to avoid doing something sensible like saying "get the hell out of here while you can!"

34:23 - well, evil has had free reign for twenty-eight days and done absolutely sod all. It seems while everyone bends over backwards to provide victims, the hotel bends over backwards not to do a damn thing - as it has for the last nine years straight. It seems ancient Indian vengeance is a once-a-decade thing.

34:49 - didn't they do this shit with the kid on a trike in The Omen?

35:16 - wow, this hotel is so huge! The kid is just going in circles as a metaphor and not because we've only got one set, no siree. Any kid would go stircrazy in this place. He should be the one with the freaking fireaxe...

35:24 - odd, that dispensing machine has Gallifreyan heiroglyphs on it...

36:46 - she's right, you know. Write down the crap ideas, get them out of your head. And it's not like she isn't being supportive of her slacker husband, is it?

37:25 - and yet none of this psychic precognition would be a good idea for a book? Gimme strength.

37:55 - Christ, doesn't anyone have a record player? And yes, instant confirmation Jack is a slacker who couldn't write a letter let alone a book. Reinacting Cool Hand Luke is lame by any standards...

38:23 - yeah, run into the maze. Without a map. Despite the map being on open display. Yeesh.

38:33 - ooh, more evidence Kubrick nicked ideas off Douglas Camfield, including the soundtrack to The Web of Fear. Except Camfield had it over a the revivification of a robot Yeti that ripped an annoying git's head from his shoulders and here... some characters fail to get lost in a maze. But in both balls are thrown at windows. I could probably get rich with a thematic link like that - The Shining ripped off The Web of Fear. Badly.

40:29 - I flinched, I admit it, because I expected a Yeti killing spree. And now I'm expecting Flacco to say "Tuesday... 4am..." in his private eye voice. I mean, the last forty minutes can be summed up with "Ah, this is a cushy job up here in the mountains." "What about the last guy who went crazy?" "Tch! What are the odds of that happening twice?"

42:00 - hang on, that's exact same bit of music! It might as well be on a loop! How can I be frightened of something that sounds like a ringtone repeating? And only 42 minutes into 143 minute film? Like anything nasty is going to be behind that door anyway...

43:08 - what a waste of time. Kid finds spooky room, tries door handle, thinks of a threesome with some retarded twins, then heads off. I'm tempted to rescore this with some more interesting lift muzak.

43:53 - mein gott, thrill to man at typewriter! God damn it, this is boring. And if he is typing out the words "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy" over and over, surely the ABCDEJKLMNOPRW buttons should be worn clean?

45:21 - sarcastic bastard. Why does he have to write in a damn foyer - bit selfish him claiming it as his own. People need that part of the hotel to get to the damn front door! And why doesn't he use a pen and fucking paper instead of typing? I'll tell you why, he's a cunt. This movie would be better if the wife just biffed him in face with a frying pan at this point... it would certainly be more surprising than creepy, twitchy aggressive character acts in a creepy, twitchy and aggressive manner. I mean, Ren Hoek's nervous breakdowns are more unpredictable than this. Look, sod it I'm going to wait for something scary to happen. Or something interesting. Or, you know, something at all.

50:20 - okay it's the twins. But this admittedly tense moment is ruined by the fact their "play with us forever" stuff is too obviously menacing. I mean, no one would ever hear that and think "cool, I'm up for that". And the ghosts wait nearly two months before picking on the telepathic defenseless kid? Why?

And also, to be honest, I've seen it piss-taken and better. Stewie Griffin immediately using the girls as target practise is precisely what this loser Danny should have done. Or that episode of Rocko's Modern Life tackles it better while likeable Heffer - having already chucked out a real employe of the place he's a security guard of - meets an identical pair of accountants who are much creepier because they're genuinely friendly and not so obviously ghosts. "We work here, Heffer. We've always worked here." And then they fade away. It's subtle compared to this which is basically a neon sign flashing screaming "FEEL FEAR, MORTAL!!!"

Fact is, the twins are just a trick of the light and can't effect anything. Who gives a shit if they want to play forever? Even the invisible psycho finger is unimpressed. And you'd think the kid would mention this to his paranormal-investigating mother...

55:24 - oh, christ, not this music again! Are you so damn cheap, Kubrick?! Oh, and why is even an insane Jack confused at the idea his son would be worried about being hurt? You dislocated his fucking shoulder six months ago!

58:29 - stop playing around room 237 if you don't want its evil escaping! Goddamn it, this isn't rocket science which (judging by your appalling jumper) is clearly something of an obsession! I bet he runs with scissors, too!

1:00:29 - yeah, "cut you up to little pieces with an axe" is not really as scary as it once was. The axe is simply not a precision instrument. Now, if it was the mum that had that nightmare, it would be worrying...

1:01:55 - see, it's impossible to tell if he's catatonic or traumatized. He's always like that. Frankly, whoever tried to strangle him shoulda worked harder.

1:02:31 - if you're so damn convinced he'd try to throttle his own son, fail and then fall asleep before having a screaming nightmare as an alibi, tie him up and get the hell out of the hotel. You have a snow-durable transport and a radio link to civilization. There is really no excuse for this stupidity.

11:03:11 - so someone tried to throttle your child. Your wife thinks you did it. Reasonable you'd be pissed off, but wouldn't you be more concerned about the infanticidal maniac hiding in the hotel? But does Jack try to do anything? No, he goes around fighting off the invisible bats and screaming misogynistic abuse. WHEN THIS WOULD BE THE PERFECT MATERIAL FOR A BOOK! FOR FUCK'S SAKE!

1:04:47 - seriously, who the hell offers their soul for random goods? That's just stupid. "I'd sell my chance for spiritual enlightenment for a new iPhone!" "I'd trade my ennui for an Opal Card!" Who says things like that? Really? At least in RML, Heffer's offer made sense. The one time he met Satan he was stupid enough to abandon heaven for a chicken drumstick. And Floyd/Lloyd was actually charming and friendly, not this version who might as well have been dissecting live puppies for all the good will he shows. Forget his mysterious appearance, Jack would have to be totally insane to think this guy was in the mood to talk about Jack's day!

1:06:15 - you've been on the wagon for seven months, you retard, not five. Did they change the captions at the last minute. Also, Jack is a total wanker even if you take away his insanity. He gave up drinking because it lead to him harming his son so... he's going back to drinking because someone else is? Seriously, that's the most pissweak excuse for falling off the wagon ever! It would be more effective if Lloyd was the one pushing Jack to have a drink.

1:08:35 - wait, your drunken antics nearly crippled your son but it took three years before you took the pledge? Christ, this guy has less get up and go than Ben Chatham. Who is presumably further along the bar drinking absinthe and trying to seduce the waiting staff with his degree from Cambridge.

1:09:50 - fair dos, you could apologize for accusing him of child abuse at least.

1:10:33 - he's a black man, of course his apartment is covered with porno portraits of black chicks with giant affros and full-frontal nudity! Thanks, Stan, for helping demolish stereotypes.

1:13:08 - of course, if his wife came into the room with him to investigate this apparent psychotic child-harming intruder, this seduction routine would be rather less successful and a tad more interesting. Go on, make out with the zombie while your wife is in the room. I dare you! But no, please, do leer at the woman who tried to kill your son because she's got her norks out...

1:14:49 - and of course this is the moment my mum comes in to see what I'm watching. This just proves you're not only molesting one zombie but all the other zombies they've been with. And I'd say the view of a drooling kid apparently arroused by this JUST edges it over the Xtro sex scenes of inappropriate naughtiness. Plus Xtro had more likable characters.

1:16:13 - the implication that decomposing zombie old woman is standing naked by the door to her room for the rest of the film laughing uncontrollably. She's not even on facebook or anything. And how was this supposed to aide the evil spirits - all they've done is alert the family to their presence, but them on the defensive. I mean, why the hell do they attack the one person they're trying to corrupt? This plan has more holes than a Kaldor City credibility test!

1:16:57 - is Hallowran is a psychic, why did he try ringing the hotel? Shouldn't he have known the lines were down?

1:18:00 - oh, so now Jack has either gone more mental or lost his memory. How convenient. That explains the whole gratuitous nudity sequence as justifiable. It'd be more enigmatic if we hadn't seen what was in the room, but no, Kubrick wants a sagging-boobed zombie granny, the dirty bastard. And also, despite apparently being a big believer in the supernatural, the wife never considers the place might be haunted. Or suggest that Jack stays in the fucking place if he likes it so much while she takes the son to recieve the medical attention Jack himself has all but stated the boy needs. OK, he's getting irrational, but come on! It's like they made this out of sequence...

1:20:00 - OK, he's evil, we get it. Mute screaming kid and the oceans of blood are just boring now. And isn't it good Jack's wife is such a spineless wimp she doesn't use a shard of logic to get through to him that she isn't asking him to leave. Fucking idiot. Nowadays, she'd have pepper-maced him and got the hell out.

1:24:34 - what an idiot. Even by the logic he's just used, he's a moron.

1:27:22 - is Jack SUPPOSED to be creepier than the ghosts? Including the ghost of the actual homicidal axe-wielding maniac? And why does Jack recognize Grady from the papers when he'd never heard of him before? Hah? Answer me that!

1:31:38 - the actor playing Grady's very good. Rather than acting batshit crazy all the time like Jack Nicholson, he hints at rage under a placid surface. But again, this is surprisingly low key and subtle.

1:32:43 - OK. You're a young scared boy/schizophrenic telepath and you've worked out that your father is going to slaughter you with an axe. Do you run away? Barricade yourself in a place of safety? Go on the attack? Or chant the word "murder" backwards randomly in the hope your hysterical mother might at somepoint work out the palindrome of "redrum" before it's too late? Jeez, this family are more determined to get killed than chronically-depressed lemmings.

1:33:57 - no joke, Timmy the finger monster is a better actor than the actual kid. You think I'm joking but I'm not.

1:35:19 - god damn, is Halloran still by the phone? What a shitty psychic.

1:36:40 - what a slacker Jack is. Pure evil enlists him to slaughter his family and the first thing he does is... cut and fricken paste his one sentence novel again. Homer was more motivated in the Simpsons version...

1:38:24 - wow, Halloran must be psychic to know the Torrences are totally unreliable assholes. Or, you know, he's just met them.

1:29:00 - Wolf Creek?!? Now THAT is foreshadowing...

1:40:09 - yeah, don't warn her she's walking to her death. It's much more sensible to write REDRUM on the wall like some dyslexic Russian doomsayer.

1:41:46 - oh yeah, babe, you'll really encourage rational behavior wandering around with a baseball bat. How could you possibly go wrong?

1:42:41 - he can't even type that properly! LOSER!

1:43:23 - yes, I think we can all safely guess what the next 927 pages will feature. You can stop now.... OOh, that triangular one is clever. That would have been murder to format that on a typewriter...

1:44:11 - this has been OVER FOUR MINUTES of someone looking at the same pages. I dare say even the most nervously-disposed of viewers will have got bored by now.

1:45:09 - "What do you want to talk about?" "Let's start with the way you've taken three months to write one sentence a billion times and think it's novel material. Are you Chris Lilly, perchance?"

1:45:33 - mein gott, this kid is useless. The baby in Look Who's Talking had more an engaging plotline. OK, you've got a psychic kid... let's have him deny being a psychic and sit upstairs catatonic and not doing anything. Was Eric Saward involved with plotting this?

1:46:03 - give Mr. Nicholson his due, he's much more convincing playing a wisecracking criminally insane killing machine than an ordinary, likeable person. I'm getting a real honesty vibe from him now. In fact, this is very much like Yana stalking Chantho in "Utopia", even down to her being armed and him screaming if she ever thought to do something. That said, Wendy should be able to say "What about your responsibilities as a father, you stupid drunk fucker? I'M the one actually doing the work while you type one sentence over and over again!" And then break his legs with her baseball bat instead of snivelling like a drowned rat. Because she actually looks like a drowned rat, it's uncanny.

1:49:00 - "Give me the bat." Tch. Beat him down, dammit! FINISH HIM OFF!!!

1:50:23 - yes, darling, we've established the door is locked.

1:50:56 - Hah! Jack Nicholson sprained his ankle! MWAHAHA!

1:51:22 - see, he's just not convincing as a normal human being, is he?

1:56:12 - Yeah, a REAL man kills people and then kills himself pointlessly. Life is just for losers who can't handle death, amirite?

1:57:49 - Some viewers argue that the fact Jack escapes from the pantry the only real evidence of supernatural influence in the movie as the rest could all just be some random guy going crazy. Apart from the fact his son and the cook are telepaths and ghosts have been strangling people, of course. Morons.

2:00:26 - yes, this is very helpful behavior. Thank god you wrote REDRUM in lipstick on the door AFTER Jack went mad and was subdued. And wandering around with a knife squawking "Redrum" really got Wendy in the mood to deal with that axe-weilding nutter for the three seconds' warning she had. For fuck's sake.

2:01:49 - god damn that is a convenient snowdrift.

2:02:28 - yeah, let's pad out the scene. That'll add some tension, cause cripe knows people are blaise about being hacked to death by an insane loved one. So let's see Wendy try and fail to get out of the window FOUR TIMES. I thought she would be waiting to stab Jack in the head the moment he got through the door.

2:04:23 - "Here's Johnny!" has, of course, totally lost any credibility from countless mockeries and misquotes. In fact, I think the only one to give it any gravity was Alexei Sayle's "Here's Jerzei!" tribute in the Young Ones (in fact, he's arguably playing the part straighter than JN, given Balowski was a far more sympathetic character). It's a pity, since it's the culmination of twenty minutes of film. And to his credit, Jack really does look like he wants to kill someone.

2:06:03 - so he's got a skull fracture, a broken ankle, a slashed up hand and is presumably suffering from malnutrition and dehydration. He's like Rob Stitch in Shitscared or that accident prone Kenny Everett character. Or, to put it another way, he's well on his way to becoming the Black Knight from Monty Python.

2:06:28 - OK, she's traumatized but it takes a mother six minutes to remember she's sent her son out into a subzero wasteland? And then tries to open a door smashed apart by an axe with a carving knife? This is not an approach that wins.

2:08:05 - I suppose Halloran's death was very shocking at the time; this character basically designated as the cavalry rushes to the rescue and then is instantly killed. But, seriously, who thought he'd be much of a help? I mean, he's a fucking psychic and he didn't notice a limping, drooling growling axe-weilding nutter screaming to himself as he dragged himself across the corridor. And he was EXPECTING trouble already! You are as useful as a eunuch's posing pouch, Dick! Mind you, the kid's not better. Macauly Caulkin retains more dignity from this gurning screaming business...

2:09:15 - this kid is too stupid to live. Seriously. Arthur McArthur (aka the Little Fat Kid from Hey Dad) merits oxygen more than this. When your psycho dad murders someone right in front of you and then calls for you to emerge from hiding so he can kill you... don't. But that's too complicated for Danny.

2:10:03 - meh. Probably the least scariest bit of the film. The red-eyed knife-wielding mentiad Wendy has become is scarier and, hey, if you don't want to be watched dressed as an arseless bear giving blowjobs to aristocrats then CLOSE THE FUCKING DOOR! Is this saying alternative sexual practises are now part of dark and evil corruptions? Sanctimonious bastard, Kubrick.

2:11:01 - christ, Danny does it again! He must want to die! Wile E Coyote has a better survival instinct than this loser!

2:11:41 - skull fracture, broken ankle, slashed hand, starvation, exhaustion and now he's limping through a blizzard. Obviously this suicidal behavior is genetic.

2:12:42 - maybe it's realistic acting. Maybe it's bad acting. But it looks like Wendy's doing a half-hearted minstril hand jive with a knife when she finds a bloody corpse. I mean, Ellen Ripley hit the cinema only the year before.

2:12:56 - yeah, he seems pretty happy for a damned soul of a murdered man. Still, he's more endearing than those twins. I bet there's a funny story behind that head wound.

2:13:42 - that skeleton in the phone booth looks hilarious. I bet he's on hold. But seriously, evil hotel, this is the best you can do? Some cobwebs and skeletons? It's not really going to do much bar scare our fey, limp-wristing heroine and surely Halloran's bloody corpse is more likely to get fear out of her than these incredible hallucinations. Even if they're somehow trying to slow her down, wouldn't it be cheaper to rearrange the architecture?

2:14:03 - sweet zarathustra! A glimmering of intelligence!

2:14:51 - and blood out of the elevator. What is up with that? Seriously? Are we supposed to think in some decadent past they filled the lift shaft with blood? Apart from get Wendy sticky, it's not going to do anything, is it? Plus, having seen this scene about five times in the last two hours, it's lost some spontenaity if you ask me.

2:17:27 - and she throws away that knife with the same care and attention she's been carrying it. Danny's lucky he was skewered in the head. Really, the evil spirits aren't really helping Jack, are they? They've got no one else to blame, really. They won't even guide him out of the maze...

2:18:30 - just stop yodelling and use your axe to cut through the hedges, you moron! This lackadasical dearth of initiative sums you up to a T, Torrance.

2:19:33 - eww. I bet that's his sex face.

2:21:23 - So, what does Jack appearing in the photos mean? Is he some identical grandson summoned back to Overlook after 59 years? Has his spirit been absorbed into a Fendahl-like gestalt? But why? He failed to kill his family, and all he's achieved is to draw attention to the mess. Even those not of a supernatural disposition will realize that the caretaker job is asking for trouble. I have to ask myself... why? I mean, whether it's down to Indian burial curses or an evil hotel, I'm not getting any understanding of what the dark forces get out of this. They only got four souls last time and at best get two here. They don't cause much pain and destruction for 3/4s of the year or no one would work there. They could have killed the whole family right away. They clearly have a way of nullifying telepaths, so that can't be a reason. They can cause much more carnage than they do, but instead they draw out this situation pointlessly for as long as possible and end up with nothing. Rather like the director and producer, really.

2:22:45 - what do you think is the moral of the story? Stupid people deserve to die seems to be the main theme. Oh, and everyone does it better than Kubrick.