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Hello, Danny. Come and play with us. Come and play with us, Danny. Forever... and ever... and ever.
I watched The Shining last night, and I really enjoyed it. Yet, I can't help but think that there is no way that it would ever be made today.
Imagine you load up Netflix, and you see a new horror film advertised that you had never heard of - The Shining. That sounds interesting, you think, so you start watching. I think it's unlikely that most people would last ten minutes through the film.
This isn't to say that the film is bad or dull - quite the contrary - but it's a completely different offering to a modern horror movie. In a modern horror movie you would expect a sudden and terrifying start: a random janitor investigates strange noises just to be swallowed up by an alien, a hitchhiker is picked up by a serial killer etc. The horror aspect of the film is expected to be introduced immediately. The Shining doesn't do this, however. Really, apart from a few unsettling visions, the first hour or so of the film is completely void of horrific action. There are practically no jump scares in the entire movie.
So how is this film celebrated as one of the scariest and genre-defining horror films ever made? It's because it thrives off of a slow, tension-building start, making the viewer feel more and more unsettled as the film goes on. Without giving away any spoilers, all of this builds into a final 30 minutes of action and fear. The film's unnerving soundtrack plays well into the atmosphere, with loud, high-pitched strings and low, throbbing drums heightening your emotions.
This film was genre-defining because it didn't need to fully engage the viewer in the first half. Kubrick isn't scared that his audience will walk out if they don't see a teenager get decapitated by a rampaging axe-murderer in the first twenty seconds. The film leaves such a lasting and memorable impression in those who watch it because of its methodical and layered approach to the horror genre.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons that people say modern cinema is dying. It's no longer about having a good reputation, and selling as many DVDs as possible, many films are built and funded around the sole purpose of engagement and retention rates. The longer a Netflix viewer spends on the platform, the more data Netflix can gather, allowing them to produce films tailored to bring in as many people to the platform as possible. So streaming companies produce these kind of attention grabbing films. They have no incentive to try to create films thinking outside of the box, trying new techniques and pushing the boundaries of what we would expect from film, like they did in the '70s and '80s.
Overall, I would strongly recommend watching The Shining. I'm not a big horror fan, and was a bit nervous that I wouldn't sleep after watching the alleged "Scariest film of all time". But that didn't happen, and instead I'm writing this gemlog not after a night of nightmares, but with fond memories of an incredibly memorable and influential masterpiece in horror.