The Shining Poster
So far, we looked at everything from the very first horror film to silent ghosts, haunted houses, flying skeletons and funky glasses in our voyage through cinema’s greatest ever ghosts. Now we come to the 1980s, a decade that saw horror movies boom and flourish like never before. With the birth of the slasher genre and the huge amount of zombie flicks churned out after Dawn Of The Dead and Zombie Flesh Eaters made their mark, horror was at its golden age! Blood, tits and lots and lots of face melting!
Easing us into the decade of shoulder pads, is another classic ghost film. Stanley Kubrick s unmistakable The Shining. We all know the story. We all love it. From the very first shot to the very last, this movie oozes a unique, eerie atmosphere. The flying shots following the vehical seem ominous and evil for instance.
Jack Nicholson turns in a different performance compared to his other films in The Shining. Here, he plays a crazy madman. Oh, wait, he plays a crazy madman in every film he’s in! Well, this one tops them all when it comes to Nicholson-craziness. It’s an 11, even on his scale of 10!
Stephen King, notoriously hated this adaptation. Whilst it’s true that the film isn’t particularly loyal to the books (some of the best movie adaptations aren’t!), it still appears on possibly every list of the top horror films of all time. King decided he could do a much better job at directing than the king of cinema, so set about making a TV movie of The Shining himself. It turned out to be a complete disaster.
Whether this is a ghost film is open for debate and left for you to decide. Maybe Jack simply is going insane. Or maybe this is one of the single greatest ghost movies of all time? Spooky twins to a sinister butler and an evil old lady ghost, if this doesn’t send you screaming, nothing will. And the least said about that dog/bear, the better!
For a modern masterclass of ghostly tension and haunted house horror, be sure to watch The Pact!
Break-out horror movie smash of the year that has been electrifying hardened genre fans and non-horror fans alike, “The Pact” combines the supernatural terrors of “Paranormal Activity” with the tense atmospherics of a serial killer thriller to create a unique, modern-day take on the classic ghost story.
And it’s out on October 1st! Pre-order yours here.
Previous Parts:
- Part I: Things That Stay Silent In The Night!
- Part II: The Terrifying Twenties
- Part III: The Uninvited
- Part IV: House On Haunted Hill
- Part V: Ghoulish Gimmicks & Shocking Spookshows
- Part VI: The Innocents – Classic British Chills
- Part VII: The Haunting
- Part VIII: Low Budget Terrors – Let’s Scare Jessica To Death!
- Part IX: The Amityville Horror
- Part X: There’s Something In The Fog!
- Part XI: The Shining
- Part XII: The Changeling
