VHS Review: Ghoulies (1985)

By Brian
5/5

Ghoulies, has a little bit of everything which adds up to make a near-perfect horror-fantasy-comedy:  Puppets, sorcery, midgets, cheesy '80s lightning effects, and terrible acting are all crammed into 82 minutes of pure awesomeness.  Ghoulies is about a young couple who move into a giant mansion.  The man is overcome by a desire to obtain and control the magic forces that he finds in a necromoniconic book he finds in the basement magic room.    Ghoulies is relatively light on the gore, but heavy on special effects, which kept me thoroughly entertained the entire hour and twenty minutes.  The Ghoulies themselves are the best part, little monsters who cause mischief all around the mansion. Whoever designed the puppets put a lot of hard work into designing and creating them, and it shows.  I loved how the main character gains more and more power, very Dungeons & Dragons like, gaining mastery over increasingly powerful spells as he slips deeper into his obsession.  Lots of lame jokes and cliche horror movie themes ("I have to go off alone and find a match to light my doobie.") keep this movie light and easy to watch.  Time to start collecting sequels, 5 evil baby puppets out of 5.

VHS Review: Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990)

By Brian
5/5


Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor is everything one could ask for in a science fiction horror.  Metamorphosis is about scientists working on a sample of an extraterrestrial life form handed down from the government to a private company.  At first the scientists create a couple of silly animatronic abominations by mixing the alien cells with common earth creatures, but then all hell brakes loose as one of the monsters bites a scientist, causing him to go through a grotesque, pink, bloody, squishy metamorphosis.  The scientist enclosed in his alien cocoon continuously writhes in pain and screams while his entire physical structure is changed down to the cellular level.  After a few weeks, a giant bloodthirsty alien penis dragon emerges from the former scientist and proceeds to brutalize everyone and everything it can get its penis mouth around.  The gore in this movie is fantastic, nothing can stop the dick dragon as it bites off heads, throws around sexy teenagers with its tendrils, and shoots spiky, poison laden projectiles.  If animatronics aren't your cup of tea, there is also some sweet claymation as the alien wiener monster shambles around on its four awkward legs.  Metamorphosis is written and directed by the same guy, Glenn Takakjian, who deserves the highest of fives for creating such a great horror scifi film.  I was also pleased that there was a character named Brian who didn't die in the film, even though I am pretty sure all the characters in the film died from cancer a few years later (watch the film to find out why!)  Finally, the movie was funny, featuring not one but TWO Star Trek references and the classic rambunctious teenagers with their awful dialogue: "It ate some guy!", there was even some mostly accurate hard science thrown in there.  Awesome. Fucking. Movie. 5 tendril flinging, poison spike pad launching, dripping uncircumcised toothed dong dragons out of 5!

This guy had it coming

VHS Review: The Lift (1983)

By Brian
2/5

I've seen a lot of horror movies about a wide variety of evil inanimate objects, but an elevator was a new one for me.  The Lift is about an elevator mechanic who is assigned to the task of finding out whats wrong with an elevator which is acting very evilly.  Fortunately for the characters and unfortunately for the viewer, the evil elevator totally sucks at killing people, sometimes I felt it wasn't even trying to murder.  The first 30 minutes of this movie is awesome, including a sweet decapitation (the highlight of the film) but then for 45 minutes or so, you are forced to sit through an entirely murderess investigation, where the antagonist goes around talking to scientists and college professors building up the entirely self-explanatory plot until I was ready to just fast forward through the talking parts..  Only about five or six people actually die in this movie, because you have to get pretty close to an elevator for it to actually get you, it can't exactly walk around and find its own victims.  Instead wasting your 90 minutes watching this whole tape, I would recommend watching of the decapitation part on youtube and then moving on with your life, 2 evil gooey microchips out of 5.

$3 DVD Special - Manos: The Hands of Fate (1966)

by Ryan

Doesn't this movie look and sound awesome? The description on IMDB is, and I quote, "A family gets lost on the road and stumbles upon a hidden, underground, devil-worshiping cult led by the fearsome Master and his servant Torgo." Devil-worshipping cult, huh? What's not to like? Well, as it turns out, plenty. "Manos: The Hands of Fate" is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my entire life. Or at least in my entire life in recent memory. None of the things said on the poster happen in the movie. In fact, there isn't even any devil-worshipping. Master, as he is so aptly named, worships a different, unknown deity named Manos. It's never made clear who Manos is or what he represents, and therefore I don't give two shits about him. There is no real plot or reason for anything that happens in this movie. A couple goes on vacation and is forced to stay the night at this house. That's it. Meanwhile, there's another couple that the movie keeps cutting to that is continuously making out in places that they shouldn't be making out, forcing this super easy-going police officer to shoo them away. It's never explained who they are or why they love making out so much. The main couple, Margaret and Michael, soon discover that the house that they're staying in is owned by this weird guy and his servant, who is an even weirder guy. Also, in the basement there's like ten unconscious women just standing there for some reason. Apparently, they're the Master's wives but that's all that's ever really said about them. Eventually things start to happen and Margaret and Michael try to run away from those things but cannot. You know how the story goes. There is nothing enjoyable about this movie. It's horribly bad, but not even in a so-bad-it's-funny kind of way. There are no sacrifices, no boobs, no blood, and not one single murder. How do you make a fucking horror movie without any of those things?! The closest this movie comes to murdering someone is when the Master's wives begin to shake this one guy a lot. THEY SHAKE HIM. They don't even fucking strangle him! I'm angry just thinking about it. In conclusion, "Manos: The Hands of Fate" isn't worth the 69 minute runtime and certainly is not worth the $3 that I paid for it. If you're going to watch this movie, do yourself a favor and watch the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" version instead.


Rating: 1 out of 5 Torgos

The Woman in Black (2012)

by Ryan

Harry Potter's latest stint tells the tale of a young lawyer who travels to a creepy little town in hopes of selling this abandoned house out in the middle of nowhere for some reason. Whilst looking through the previous owner's belongings he stumbles upon a dark secret that involves a dead child and a really angry ghost lady. The movie opens on three little girls merrily playing with dolls in their room. Then all of a sudden, they stop playing and jump out the window. What we later find out is that the angry ghost lady is the reason for all of the child suicides in this creepy little town. Let me say that again. A fucking ghost is making all of the town's children kill themselves. Pretty messed up stuff. One kid drinks lye and starts puking blood until she dies. Another kid lights herself on fire. Shit's crazy! Overall, Woman in Black is a terrific horror movie. The film does a great job of building the scares until the climax, which literally sent a few chills down my spine. The only thing that bothered me was the fact that Harry Potter had a son. He still sounds and looks exactly like Harry Potter. It's hard for me to buy the fact that he has a little boy that is able to speak and walk already. Even though it makes perfect sense for a 20 something year old in the late 1800s to have a child. The ghost looked scary though. And that's all that really matters, isn't it?

Rating: 4 out of 5 dead children

VHS Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)

by Brian
5/5

After watching the dismal failure, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, I wondered if there were any good sequels in the Freddy franchise at all.  A.N.O.E.M.S.3:D.W.  is almost as good as the original.  This time, Freddy is going after a group of kids in a institution for sleep disorders, and its up to Nancy Thompson (the chick from the original film) to save them.  Unlike Nightmare 2, where Freddy just slashes everyone (booring), the murder scenes in this movie are actually creative and super fantastical.  In one scene, Freddy is a giant evil snake, then he's a TV monster, and then... well I don't want to give them all away.  The animatronics in this film are some of the best I have EVER seen.  As a special treat, instead of the kids being just scared wusses in their dreams, they get powers which they try and use to defeat the demon child-murderer.  Dream Warriors also reveals Freddy's super fucked up origin (*cough* nun-rape) as a male doctor in the hospital tries to set Freddy's soul to rest, skeleton fighting ensues.  This movie has delightfully bloody murder scenes, and does not hold back when it comes to brutality.

VHS Review: American Gothic (1988)

By Brian
4/5

American Gothic is great horror/ slasher movie about a bunch of youths who get stumble upon a conservative Christian family on a remote island.  The youths renounce their evil ways and become devout Christians who go to church and drink Jesus' blood and all that weird stuff Christians do.  Nope, just kidding, the crazy family is made up of Ma, Pa, and their three adult children who have been brain washed to believe they're still little kids, and the five of them attempt murder the sinners.  The first part of the movie is very Texas Chainsaw Masacre-esqe in that its about a murderous backwoods family, but unlike every other horror movie where a single chick barely escapes only to tell the tale, the survivor decides to take revenge by out-crazying the crazies and mercilessly killing the entire family.  Had to ruin the plot a little bit, but only in order to make the point that American Gothic is basically two horror movies in one.  If you were to only watch the second half, the film would be about a serial killer who murders two elderly parents taking care of their mentally disabled children.  American Gothic has good murders but no tits.  The creepiest part is when one of the adult children coddles a decomposed baby corpse, which she calls her child.  Watching adults talk in baby voices was a little obnoxious, but I was so pleasantly surprised by the way the survivor out-crazies the crazies, that I let it slide.  American Gothic is makes up for being not super brutal with its pure creepiness, 4 decomposing baby corpses out of 5. 

VHS Review: Hatchet for the Honeymoon (1970)

By Brian
4/5

Hatchet for the Honeymoon should have been called "Meat Cleaver for the Honeymoon", because there are no actual hatchets in the movie.  The film is about a rich and handsome fashion designer of wedding dresses, who kills babes in order to find out what happened to his murdered mother when he was a youth.  All John (the main character) wants to do is bang and murder hot chicks, but his bitch wife keeps bothering him.   An interesting twist to this film is the ghost wife aspect.  After John kills his bitch wife, she reverse haunts him, that is, everyone can see her ghost except John.  I had never seen a reverse haunting in a movie before, and it added a fantastical aspect to the movie which kept it interesting and separated it from your ever day thriller/slasher.  Although slow at times, the characters and plot in this film were unique and original.  The murders were not that brutal, but ever time John kills a nice broad, a little more of the mystery is unraveled.  When the big reveal happened, I have to say I was actually surprised.  Hatchet for the Honeymoon is a solid thriller, full of twists, turns, and complainey wives that wont even leave you alone after they've died, 4/5.

VHS Review: Clownhouse (1989)

by Brian
2/5

Clownhouse is about 3 brothers who have the misfortune of running into 3 escapees from the local mental hospital, who have dressed themselves up as circus clowns.  This film invoked in me the memory that clowns actually ARE disturbingly creepy, and there's no one on this planet that enjoys clowns anymore.  Anyway, these phycho clowns spend about half the movie sneaking around these little kids without actually trying to kill them, which was frustrating because I wanted to get to the actual clownhousing.  The phycho clowns turn out to be really easy kill, and are easily thwarted by the 3 young boys.  One thing that I noticed about Clownhouse is the 3 kids, Randy, Casey, and Geoffrey, say each others names about 20 times a minute, so much so that I remembered their names without looking it up.  Clownhouse does not score high on the brutality scale, the kills are mostly bloodless, and are few and far between. Watching this movie was a clownhousedly bad time,  I nearly clownhoused my pants when it was over, 2 whorebortions out of 5.

VHS Review: The Hunger (1983)

By Brian
3/5

The Hunger is a super-80's horror/romance film NOT staring David Bowie.  I love Bowie, his music is awesome, and his persona and mostly everything he does can only be described as the paramount of coolness.  Unfortunately, Bowie is only in a third of the movie, and after he dies, the movie gets dull.  The opening scene is a song performed by Bowie cut with people getting killed and sexy images.  After that it goes really down hill.  Everything else you need to know about this movie can be easily summed up in this graph I made:

 The Hunger is sexy, but not much else.  The ending spared this movie from a 2/5 score, too much romance, not enough horror, 3 references to Ludes out of 5.

VHS Review: I Spit on Your Grave (1978)

By Brian
3/5

This is another movie that would make my mom cry.  I had no idea that when I slipped this greasy pig into my VCR, I would be thrown into an hour long rape scene.  I Spit on Your Grave is about a city slicker lady writer who goes into the country to get some work done on her novel.  Even though she is really nice to everyone in town, four dudes, including one half retarded gentleman, decide to capture and rape poor Ms. Hills just for some action.  The fully graphic rape, double-rape, triple-rape, and quadrupal-rape (in three different scenes) are really hard to watch, even for someone as desensitized as me.  When all the rape is finally over (a little more than half way through the movie) Ms. Hills decides its time for revenge.  This movie has a lot of rape and not enough murder.  I'm hypothesizing that the directer really wanted to drive home the fact the 4 men were awful human beings but I think someone holding you down so someone else can rape you is reason enough for murdering them, they ALL didn't have to go for it.  The half-retarded, goofy, nerdy guy in the movie is supposed to provide comedic relief, but its hard to make someone laugh in the middle of their third graphic full-bush rape scene of the movie. Ms. Hills also feigns niceness before she murders all her victims, which added suspense and some positive weirdness to the movie.  Her behavior also led me to the conclusion: "Never trust someone after you have raped them."  Too much gang rape, not enough murder 3 out of 5 inappropriate comic relief characters.

VHS Review: Alice Sweet Alice (1976)

By Brian
3/5

Alice Sweet Alice was lent to me by fellow horror VHS enthusiast Chi, who usually has great taste, but this movie was only good, not great.  Alice Sweet Alice starts out with a little girl getting brutally strangled and then set on fire, all in a church during her first communion.  The victim's sister, Alice, is immediately blamed for the murder.  Alice is a creepy, deranged 12 year old who collects huge water bugs and tortures the morbidly obese landlord downstairs, who she calls Fatso.  The first half of this movie is great, Alice looks and acts like the kind of child who grows up to be a serial killer, she even kills a poor little kitty cat.  However, about half of the way through the movie, Alice is all but completely cut out of the movie, and there's just a lot of the dad, the detective, and the priest, who all look exactly the same.  The second half of the movie is really boring, and mostly just women crying and a superfluous romance that I didn't care about whatsoever.  The murder scenes and the creepy little child actress who plays Alice keep this movie above the 2 star line, but just barely.  This is one of those movies without any main characters and its super confusing, you're better off just watching Friday the 13th Part 2 again.

Download Special: Re-Animator (1985)

By Brian
5/5

Re-Animator is another Lovecraft inspired movie about two medical students and a hot chick who once again learn that the dead should stay dead.  It all starts when a transfer student from Switzerland who had previously studied under Hans Gruber, (yes that's the same name as the bad guy in Die Hard) comes to Arkham, Massachusetts to continue his studies.  I knew from the beginning this movie was going to be a real winner because it had a brain explosion within the first 2 minutes and tits before the 11 minute mark.  I loved how the setting of this film is no other than Miskatonic Medical University, staying true to the Lovecraft setting.  At first this seems like the average Frankensteinesqe movie; the students reanimate the buffest dude they can find and he immediately starts tearing up lab equipment, which leads to the first life lesson I learned from this movie: Never resurrect anyone who looks like they could beat you up.  If I was experimenting with glow in the dark "reagent" I would definitely start with a little kid or a chick, so I knew I could put them back down if I had to, which leads me to the second thing I learned: Always keep a bone saw handy when reanimating people.  After the initial human reanimation, a creepy doctor named Hill catches wind of the serum and decides he wants the credit for the discovery.  The student decapitates Hill, but then reanimates both his dismembered head and his body (for science!).  This leads to lots of hilarious headless body and bodyless head gags including a grotesque bloody titty sucking scene.  The climax of the movie is amazing and somewhat of a twist, but of course I'm not going to ruin it for you here.  This movie is fantastic non-zombie living dead movie with great ultra bloody and gory special effects and a story that flows and makes sense without taking itself too seriously.
5 decapitated heads sucking titties out of 5!

VHS Review: The Blob (1958)

By Brian

3/5

The Blob is a classic horror film starring the coolest guy ever, Steve McQueen.  In The Blob a meteor containing a big old booger lands on Earth in a small town and proceeds the start consuming people.  The best part of this movie is the stop motion jello that they push around to represent the alien being.  The problem with this movie is that there just isn't enough blob in it.  Most of the movie is about Steve running around town trying to convince people the blob is a threat but he keeps getting laughed at, getting caught up with the law, etc.  Also Steve McQueen is supposed to be 17 in the movie, but he was actually 28 when it was filmed, and it is really fucking obvious this dude is waaaay to old to be in high school.  He so old that when he says things like "Please officer no need to get the dads involved" its just plain ridiculous.  Other than those flaws, the movie was generally entertaining.  When the blob gets big and starts really absorbing people on a large scale, it gets interesting and exciting.  The Blob is also delightfully 50's, the characters saying things like "Shucks!" and "healthfully", and the stop motion special effects have low-budget charm that new movies don't, not to mention the bad ass cars.  I liked this movie but it was a little too much Steve running around town, and not enough blob blobbing it up.

VHS Review: Stage Fright (1987)

By Brian
3/5

Stage Fright is a horror film about a troupe of actors who face a world of trouble when one of them accidentally takes a deranged psychopath back to her theater.  What stands out the most in this movie is how the psychopath wears a creepy giant owl mask the whole time, never talking or revealing his face. The murders in Stage Fright are brutal, yet not original.  The killer uses your usual power drill, chainsaw, knife, etc. to kill his victims; some solid murders being a chainsaw bifurcation and an axe-to-mouth (yeah, I really wanted to write that.)   Personally, my favorite murder was when the psycho kills a chick on stage, right in front of all the other actors, who merely look on thinking it's part of the "intellectual musical" they are performing.  Other than that, the movie was almost entirely made of horror movie cliches, including: bad omen cat, raining really hard the ENTIRE time, oblivious cops, "Killer-Vision", super 80's soundtrack, and of course, the one chick who ACTUALLY manages to fend off the killer for longer than two seconds.  While these cliches don't necessarily take away from the film, they don't add and extra bonus points either.  The boob action in Stage Fright is also weak, only a couple pairs and shot from weird angles.  This movie lost another point for a crappy ending, which lasted way too long and didn't make a lot of sense. For being a solid, yet a little too cliche horror film, Stage Fright gets an admirable 3 oblivious cops parked right outside out of 5.

Why is it always raining in horror movies but never windy?

Netflix Movie Review: Red State (2011)

by Ryan

Upon first glance, it's hard to say exactly what type of movie Red State is. While it is fundamentally based in the horror genre, the story itself is ripe with satire making it somewhat reminiscent of a dark comedy. But not quite. In fact, there were barely any jokes in this entire movie. Normally, when I think of Kevin Smith I think of "snoochie boochies" and chocolate covered pretzels. However, in Smith's latest that is not the case at all. Red State tells the tale of three young men that stumble upon this internet sex ad, pursue said sex, and then end up being tortured to death by a group of super crazy fundamentalists smack dab in the middle of God's country. Also, John Goodman is in it. Red State marks a drastic change in style and aesthetics for Kevin Smith, making this piece his first truly serious film. If you don't count fucking Jersey Girl that is; which I don't. Overall, I thought this movie was pretty good. There are a lot of dull moments in the middle and in the beginning, but the end of the second act and all of the third act are phenomenal. Especially the part when John Goodman is yelling at people and shooting things. There were some genuinely terrifying moments in this movie, which is pretty surprising to me being as it's a Kevin Smith film. Who knew the guy could do horror? Also, the acting was fantastic. When those three heathen boys are being tortured to death, you'd think that they were being tortured to death for real! However, this film suffers from being way too full of itself. While I get the whole poking fun at the Westboro Baptist Church thing and the other ATF agents thing, it still feels a little too preachy to me. Pun intended.

Rating: 3 out of 5 snoochie boochies

Special Recommendation Review: Chillerama (2011) by Ryan

It's been a while since I've seen a really good, low-budget, cheese fest of a horror movie. Chillerama came highly recommended to me by my friend Mike, who stumbled upon it at the movie theater in which he is currently employed. So naturally, once I found it on Netflix I watched the shit out of it. Like George A. Romero's Creepshow and Michael Dougherty's Trick r' Treat, this movie is a compilation of shorts tied together by one overarching story. The main plot of Chillerama revolves around the last drive-in theater in America. The proprietor of said drive-in, that one old dude from Office Space, decides to screen the ultimate compilation of lost horror film prints for one last hurrah. These films include the likes of Wadzilla, I Was A Teenage Werebear, Deathication, and my personal favorite, The Diary of Anne Frankenstein. Each of these shorts were directed by a different person, yet they all share a similar sense of humor and tone. Wadzilla is about this guy that has an abnormally low sperm count, which leads him to take this experimental medication that ultimately causes his one sperm cell to grow to monstrous proportions and wreak havoc on the entire city. I Was A Teenage Werebear is a pseudo-musical about a boy that falls in love with the mysterious leader of this rebellious homosexual gang and the repercussions that he faces for getting close to them. The Diary of Anne Frankenstein tells the tale of Adolf Hitler's discovery of the fabled Frankenstein diary and his subsequent creation of a large Jewish monster pieced together from dead Jews. And Deathication is a poop pun. Meanwhile in the main story, the patrons of the drive-in are all slowly turning into mindless sex zombies because of this blue goo secreted by this one dude that tried to get a blowjob from a corpse in the beginning of the film. Clearly, this movie is awesome. It's always a real treat when the cheesy B-movie that you're watching is aware of how cheesy it is and embraces that cheesiness to its full potential. The only thing that bothered me about this movie was its ending. After all of the sex zombie madness is said and done, we join four middle-aged men watching the movie in a crowded theater. These four men, the directors of the films in the movie, do not add anything to the film and are completely unnecessary. My guess is that they just wanted some screen time. Also, there's a point towards the end of the film when everyone just starts saying really famous movie quotes for some reason. It was kinda funny at first, but after a while it just gets annoying. It makes me think that they were at a loss for their own clever one-liners and so they decided to borrow some pre-existing ones. But other than those few minor issues, I can honestly say that I really enjoyed Chillerama. If you're looking for a good, mildly scary, funny, and kind of disgusting movie to watch, then Chillerama is the movie for you!

Rating: 4 out of 5 mindless sex zombies

VHS Review: "The Black Cat" (1934)

by Brian
4 pajama suits out of 5

This classic horror film harkens from a simpler time, when people were classier, and movie soundtracks didn't include hip-hop.  The Black Cat is about two young lovers who find themselves trapped in a struggle between good and evil.  When their hilariously old timey bus flips over, the young couple, along with a mysterious dark stranger and his servant, find themselves in the house of a super creepy looking satanist who built his house on the site of a bloody World War One battle just because he's THAT brutal.  This movie was certainly a classic, the characters are deep and interesting, and there's plot twists every five minute.  Every dude in The Black Cat wears suits everywhere and fights old timey style...by wrestling and trying to dramatically strangle each other with their bare hands.  One comical aspect relating to when this film was made is how all the chicks in the movie keep screaming and fainting whenever something scary happens.  More funny still is how one of the main characters, Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a big, brooding, not-taking-nothing-from-nobody dude has a "Intense and absolute all consuming horror....of cats!" Werdegast looses his shit every time he sees a little kitty cat, and hes always breaking stuff in his fits of terror.  I enjoyed this movie because even though it is super old, its totally about Satan and the supernatural, which must have been pretty controversial at the time.

Download Special: Castle Freak (1995)

by Brian

Jailbait and I just can't wait

Ryan recommended this movie to me because he knows how Lovecraft crazy I am .  Castle Freak is a lowish budget horror film about (surprise!) a horrible hideous freak who gets loose in a castle after years of torture and neglect.  The setting of this film is a huge Italian castle where it is always raining, but I doubt they actually filmed in one because they only show like four different rooms.  The film follows the worst dad ever and his family who inherit a castle after the old duchess dies off.  The family is haunted by the memory of a car accident which killed their five year old son and blinded their jail bait daughter.  The accident is of course the result of the fathers drinking problem, which of course reemerges in the movie and causes even more hardship.  This movie gets good when the freak gets loose (after biting his own thumb off) and proceeds to bite titties off and reduce people to mush with the chains he's always jangling around.  The most disturbing part of the freak was his grotesque shriveled balls which he kept waving around at everyone.  Castle Freak is a solid horror film with a smooth flowing plot, perfectly grotesque murder scenes, and laughably horrible parenting skills.

Rating: 4/5 shriveled monster ball sacks

VHS Review: Classics I Should Have Seen Before: The Shining (1980) By Jelani

Jelani is Late to the Party:
Hey folks! I have a little confession to make. For some reason, I have huge, gaping chasms in my movie repertoire. I must admit, that I am always that guy; the one who has not seen "that movie." ("like, really? you've never seen The Godfather!?! WTF?" *SLAP!*) I have missed many great classic films throughout my life. I am rectifying this obvious character flaw by the most obvious of means, and I plan to let you know exactly what my impressions on these classic films are! So, without further adieu,

THE SHINIG IS AWESOME. (But you knew that already didn't you?) This horror/thriller is the pinnacle of greatness when it comes to the medium of motion pictures. Kubrick creates a masterful collage using every aspect of filmmaking. The result is an eerie horror thriller that could not possibly be presented in any other form. The eerie and foreboding soundtrack, the meticulous attention to detail in camera angles and lighting, the superb acting, and the immaculate location and setting all add up to a rollicking, suspenseful masterpiece. The cabin fever horror with a twist approach is the perfect way to tell this story; the sickening spiral into madness that none other than Jack Nicholson delivers. He is a fucking nut! As seen in his entire career, good ol' Jack plays one hell of an insane bad-guy. He really shines in this one though, as his vivid hallucinations and twisted rationale make for an almost relatable character, regardless of the fact that he is totally batshit fucking crazy. As far as child actors go, the kid was a treat to behold as well. His acting was spot on. Hell, the entire four-man main cast was spectacular. The crazy scenes of horrific hallucinations were great as well, adding to the overall demented package that is shoves through your face holes. This is a classic for a reason; it rules. I really should have seen it earlier. It is rare these days that there is a perfect marriage between all of the aspects of production, resulting in nothing less than movie magic. The story of a small family being driven insane in a big hotel could not be told as effectively in any other medium than on the silver screen, and it  is because of this that The Shining really shines as movie gold. The entire experience is cinematic in every way, shape, and form.. Every scene has class and style and intrigue, and the simplicity of it all is astounding. It is creepy as hell too. The only thing I can say to every character though, is: "what the fuck? have you never seen a single episode of Scooby Doo!? Don't build on fucking indian burial grounds! They will obviously haunt the shit out of you!" *Face Palm* Way to go though. You used the most cliche'd plot device to enormous effect. I tip my hat to you. 5 stars.