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THE SHINING REVIEW
Time to review my favorite horror movie of all time.
THE SHINING (1980)
The Shining is the complete package and sets the standard for horror movies very high for me. Everything, from the cinematography to the creepy setting and tension throughout the movie, is perfect. It gives you an overwhelming sense of dread.
The Shining, based on Stephen King’s novel with the same title, follows the story of Jack Torrence, a novelist who takes up an offer to work at The Overlook Hotel. His son, Danny is psychic (has an ability called “the shining”, hence the name of the movie) which leads to him foreshadowing the terrible things that are about to ensue in the hotel. The hotel eventually affects Jack’s sanity, leading to him trying to murder his wife and son.
I can’t write the review without praising Jack Nicholson (the actor who played Jack Torrence). His expressions throughout the movie help portray his emotions effectively. His saw-through-the-door scene is still remembered while reminiscing iconic horror scenes.
My criticism of the movie is that it is fairly long-drawn and slow-paced. This
may be due to my short attention span, but it takes a very long time to establish the actual plot. And when the scary scenes take place, most of the audience would have stopped watching the movie.
(I personally don’t mind long-drawn out movies but this review needs to be objective lol)
Another thing that could be more adequately done was adapting the book better. I have not read the book but it had several themes that were left out in the movie (according to the readers), which would've helped the audience understand Jack’s motives and why he acted the way he did.
THE BOOK ORIGIN
This is a little off-topic, but I find the origin of The Shining very interesting. Stephen King is said to have gotten the idea for this novel when he was staying in room no 217 at the Stanley Hotel, hence the constant reference to room 237 in the book as well as the movie. Stephen King had a nightmare while in the hotel, hence the novella was born.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, people in the horror community have the most polarising views of this movie. For me, The Shining provides a nostalgia twinge and creates a spooky atmosphere, making us viewers uncomfortable. However, it is not everyone’s cup of tea and that’s fine as well. Enjoy what you want to enjoy. Toodles!
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SAW FRANCHISE REVIEW?
My journey with Saw began when I decided to watch Saw 4 (2007). I did not understand the plotline (duh) and, thoroughly intrigued, I started watching more movies from the series. This made me more confused about the plot than I was initially. It was a very underwhelming experience, to say the least. The more you think about it, the weirder the series gets.
I can’t talk about all 9 movies (the 10th one is coming out this year apparently) but the main plot of all movies is the same so it really doesn’t matter. In the first one, we are introduced to Adam (played by Leigh Wannell) and Lawrence (played by Cary Elwes) chained up in a bathroom from which they have to escape or else they die. Jigsaw (the antagonist) has kept Lawrence’s family hostage, and he is faced with the dilemma of either killing Adam or having his family die.
It was a pretty decent movie because its main focus was to provide a good story along with some gory scenes. However, as the franchise progresses, we start to see that the main focus has shifted towards gore completely rather than developing an actual plotline. If you just want to see people mutilating themselves, I would definitely recommend these movies.
Before anything else, I want to point out the flawed and twisted morals of the movies that the producers were trying to portray. The main focus of the franchise is to make people appreciate life. How is putting people in life-threatening traps going to achieve that? It would rather do the opposite and give people lifelong trauma. Jigsaw is supposed to be the antagonist, and yet the movies tried to paint him as this person who has a reason and is doing good for the world by…. Killing people? I am well aware he doesn’t kill people himself, but setting up elaborate traps that are almost impossible to escape unscathed is essentially killing them.
I cannot go on without talking about the acting in these movies. Tobin Bell was an adequately good actor (and Chester Bennington of course ). But who even thought about casting Betsy Russell for the role of Jill Tuck? It seemed like a thoughtless casting decision. Her expressions remain the same in all the Saw movies she appeared in, no matter what the situation is.
Another extremely annoying trope followed throughout the franchise is the plot twist at the very end of each movie, the twist being a random character working under Jigsaw (how shocking). It gets old very quickly, even if we ignore the fact that the story is not very consistent. The timeline of the events is very confusing and they are interconnected in a very substandard way. A lot of the things rely on plot convenience, like how did John Kramer know he was going to die in Saw 3 and swallow tape recordings, and when did he have the time to instruct his successor to carry out his work? Well, at least the story is consistently bad throughout all 9 movies.
In conclusion, it would have been better if no other movie except the first installment of Saw was made. The idea was decent, but the execution was very subpar and it is a very long drawn-out series.
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SCARY MOVIE REVIEW IG??
This is a futile attempt to review horror movies as a teenager with negligible comprehension abilities. Here we go lol.
The first movie I want to review is the one that was acquainted with me as the ‘scariest movie of all time’. Any guesses? For anyone saying The Exorcist, you’re correct!!
THE EXORCIST(1973): A MESSY REVIEW
First things first, let’s get this out of the way: I’m not a fan of this movie.
It was definitely underwhelming, to say the least. Maybe because I went into it with the expectation of a great cinematic experience, and ended up getting cheap jumpscares and gore. It was a fairly good movie for its time, but it has more than run its course.
The Exorcist follows the story of a 12 year-old girl named Regan Macneil, who gets possessed by a demon and starts talking in different voices and starts talking in an entirely different language, which concerns her mother (obviously), and she has an exorcism performed on her daughter.
My main critique of this movie is the fact that it lacks the main element needed in a horror movie: the SCARE FACTOR. It failed to achieve what other classic horror movies like Halloween(1978) could achieve. It mainly relied on shock factor, for example, Possessed Linda puking on the priest who was exorcising her, or her walking down the stairs in a creepy fashion.
Another reason why I don’t think this movie works in today’s time is that the ‘Girl possessed, Call the priest, Demon go bye-bye’ has become an old cliche at this point. Every popular franchise such as “The Conjuring” (which I am definitely going to trash-talk about later), has used this trope. It was definitely good for its time since it was a fairly new concept, but calling it “the scariest movie” even now undermines good horror movies made fairly recently, like the Fear Street trilogy, which I really enjoy.
This review is in no way an attempt to undermine the actors in this movie. Linda Blair (the actress who played Regan Macneil) did justice to her role. She did a really good job of convincing the audience that she was possessed. Ellen Burstyn (the actress playing Chris Macneil, Regan’s mother)
did an exceptional job herself. Furthermore, the director, William Friedkin, employed pretty good cinematic effects (considering it was the 70s) such as the infamous bed-shaking scene or the head-spinning scene.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, Even if you enjoy the movie even now, good for you, everyone has different tastes and cinema is subjective. But in my opinion, it’s time we move on from a movie with characters having zero depth and tons of cliches now, and try to find better movies to call “the scariest movie of all time”. It had its time to shine, but with all due respect, the spotlight shall fade now.
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