Just recently The Shining made its way to 4K blu-ray with a new remaster. The Shining
is considered today as one of most important and influential films of the horror genre and
with it being directed by Stanley Kubrick its considered one of Warner Bros most
popular films in their back catalogue and with a the sequel ‘Doctor Sleep’ arriving
this Halloween on the big screen, it seems perfectly timed for Warner Bros to put out
a new release to capitalise on the follow up despite next year being The Shining’s
40th Anniversary being a more appreciate time push out a remaster for its birthday.
With the films release in May of 1980 in the USA, the movie was a bit of a slow burner at the box
office, produced for $19 million it eventually turned a profit for Warner Bros bringing in
nearly $45 million worldwide, not huge numbers but this was probably a result of the reviews
at the time as critics weren’t particular kind on it which seems crazy now considering its now
regarded as an important film of cinema but back then people felt differently. The New York Times
said the supernatural story knows frustrating little rhyme or reason and even the films most
startling horrific images seem overbearing and even irrelevant. Roger Ebert felt he couldn’t
connect with the characters and Variety were pretty harsh saying that ‘Kubrick has teamed
with jumpy jack Nicolson to destroy all that was so terrify about Stephen Kings bestseller”.
What surprised me the most, was that it didn’t receive any nominations at the Oscars or Golden
Globes but got nominated for a worst director and worst actress award. Utter bonkers. Author
Stephen King pretty much sided with the critics and was very critical at the time,
this is of course common knowledge now and Ready Player One made a point of it as they enter the
movie in true Last Action Hero fashion. King felt Kubricks films was a poor adaptation but on a
positive note said that it had memorable imagery. King himself was suffering from alcoholism at the
time he wrote the novel, therefore giving a strong autobiographical element to the story.
He was disappointment that his novel's important themes, such as the disintegration of family and
the dangers of alcoholism, were less prevalent in the film. King also wasn’t keen on the casting
of Jack Nicolson, feeling Jack should’ve been a more "everyman"-like actors such as Jon Voight,
Michael Moriarty and even Christopher Reeve! Stephen King felt Jack's subsequent descent
into madness would be more unnerving. Chris Reeve would’ve been an interesting choice,
he in fact play a killer in Deathtrap two years later and showed a lot of anger come
Superman III when he turns evil. But its so hard now to think of anyone else to
play the character, as Jack Nicolson did such an incredible job with it.
Despite critics being less than kind at the time over the years and come the late 80s,
the movie started to be reappraised when it was shown on TV and made its way to VHS. People
looked past its failings at giving Stephen Kings work a faithful adaption and instead appreciated
what Kubrick was doing with the film and new audiences adored its visuals,
performances and haunting score by Wendy Carlos. Even critics who bashed it at the time changed
their minds on it and looked upon it more favourably. The films plot was not so cut and dry,
many people interpreted the motives of the characters in different ways and started
looking at the reasons why Kubrick did what he did with his adaptation of the novel. There has been
endless articles on the many theories behind the movie and even a documentary called Room
237 which delves deep into the many fan theories, it’s a fascinating documentary but also bad shit
crazy as some fans go a bit too far with their theories but it’s interesting none the less.
The Shinning has been treated relatively well with film transfers over the years, with it
being a Kubrick film, there is always extra care and attention put upon his of catalogue films,
his releases are never a quick job that you often find with many back catalogue titles from the film
studios which they slap out fast with no content and just your standard HD transfer. So I’ve been
perfectly happy with my standard bluray for a long time since it came out in 2007, but that was
12 years ago and this is 4K! This new 35mm scan was supervised by Steven Spielberg and Kubrick's
long-time personal assistant Leon Vitali. Now this remaster is not a 100% major improvement,
some people may not see much of difference at first glance, obviously watching it in 4K you will
have an increased resolution, finer detail and deep colours. As you can see from the comparison
pictures you can see the colours have been reduced in their intensity in some areas and in my opinion
seem far more balanced and natural than before. A lot of the exteriors shots have had their colours
changed for example The opening shots with Jack travelling to the hotel for his interview seemed
a bit washed out in the original bluray and the remaster appear a lot more vivid and one shot
has the grass looking totally different, so there has been a major colour shift in areas. Interiors
sequences seem similar to the original blu-ray with some finer adjustments here and there. The
scenes out in the snow in the original bluray had a more cyan look, the remaster reduces that colour
to a greyish white, the image appears more muted and less intense with its saturation. The remaster
has tastefully tweaked it subtly in areas, I’ve never seen this film projected in 35mm, but with
Spielberg involved for example he would’ve wanted it to remain faithful to its original colour
grading. The HDR colours appeared nicely balanced and skins tones remain natural throughout,
no one had the issue of being very orange which I’ve seen before on many other 4K titles.
The disc comes with a DTS Master Audio mix, an upgrade over its previous lossless PCM
5.1 track. The film was originally presented in mono, during a time when many movies were
taking advantage of Dolby Stereo, im guessing the cost of encoding the audio in Dolby may
have been an issue or perhaps a creative choice on Kubrick’s behalf. This release
like the previous bluray doesn’t include the original mono track which may disappointment
some of the hardcore fans who are desperate to have the original audio in place. 4K discs have
so much storage space I don’t see why Warner’s couldn’t have include it for completion sake?
The DTS track is pretty front heavy, with Wendy Carlos’ score taking advantage of the surround
speakers when it kicks in, there are moments where the music appears to be mixed a bit too loud,
often being a bit overbearing in areas especially when there is dialogue but the majority of the
time it really gives your a speakers a good work out and sounds glorious, her score really adds
to the atmosphere and works extremely by itself If you intend to grab the soundtrack on CD. The
remaster of the audio is pretty solid throughout with clear dialogue, it tries to stay respectful
to how it would’ve sounded at the time if it so happened to be a given a 70mm 6 track mix and
doesn’t sound like a modernised beefed up score which can happen to some of these old classics.
This new release includes the US extended cut which 25mins longer than the international
cut. I’ve always known the US version was longer but never got round to seeing it,
it was always on my to do list. So watching this 4K disc was the first time I got to
see it in its longer form. When ‘Shining’ was getting ready for release outside of the USA,
Kubrick used the chance to change the movie quite a bit. The whole plot around Jack’s
alcohol problems and his physical brawl with Danny, Jack getting deja vu like he had been
to the hotel before and Dick Hallorann making his long journey to the hotel,
Tony taking over Danny were all deleted plus a few extra scenes of dialogue.
I quite liked seeing the new scenes, the extended interview with the hotel manager, Danny getting
a visit from the doctor and then Wendy discussing Tony and when he started communicating with Danny,
this was some interesting backstory to the characters but the majority of the others
scenes which were welcome did drag the film a little, it did slow its pace down and with
Dick’s journey to the hotel being extended it did reduce its sense of urgency and tension.
If you’re a fan of The Shining then this new 4K is certainly worth picking up,
the disc sadly doesn’t come with any new special features and ports over everything
from the previous release but thankfully Warner Bros has also provided the same remaster on the
regular bluray so if you haven’t upgraded to 4K yet you can enjoy this new transfer but bare in
mind you can only get this regular bluray with this 4K release, you can’t buy it separately.
The Shining is movie I watch probably once a year, I never got bored of it. I always
find a little bit I didn’t notice before and whoever you’re watching it always creates a
fun discussion to try and pick apart some of the scenes, there always something new
to discover hence why its been talked about to death and analysed so much over the years.
I do plan to cover this film in more depth in future to discuss more of my favourite
moments and own theories but I just want to give you my general thoughts on it for now.
In terms of horror and how it effective it is, I’ve never found it particularly scary even as
a young teenager when I saw it for the first time, its certainly creepy and works well as a haunted
house feature. I wouldn’t fault it however for not being scary for me personally because it’s story,
despite the changes from the novel, is fantastic, its wonderfully shot like all of Kubricks films
the guy had one of the best eyes in industry, the performances are superb with Jack Nicolson
being the obvious highlight seeing his decent into madness is chilling but also very amusing at the
same time, making me think the movie plays out as a dark comedy in places. One of my favourite
moments is when he is in the bathroom with Mr Grady and they talk about correcting Jacks family,
Nicolson’s performance is comical despite the very dark nature of their conversation.
What it excels at is its atmosphere that you totally get drawn into, it just oozes so much rich
visuals, it’s a work of art in that regard and Wendy Carlos score just compliments every scene
to really delivery the perfect tone and sense of dread looming over the hotel. Its highly deserving
of the praise it gets and a great start to 1980s cinema, just a shame the critics gave it a
drubbing at the time but hey that doesn’t matter anymore, its now a stone cold classic.