The Shining (1980)

The book The Shining by Stephen King didn't make much sense, and the film doesn't make much sense, either. 

A Vermont writer named Jack Torrence (Nicholson), his wife Wendy (Duvall) and his son Danny (Danny Lloyd) go to stay at the Overlook Hotel (a Colorado mountain resort), during the closed season. Jack is to be the caretaker for the place while it is closed for winter.

There's talk of a former winter caretaker who went mad and murdered his entire family with an axe, and the minute Jack Torrance arrives he rolls his eyes like Bela Lugosi and says he feels like he's been there before.

The Torrence child is already flaky before he gets to the Overlook. 

He has conversations with his finger, a friend who lives in his mouth named Tony, and the supernatural ability to communicate without words the visions he sees, a trait shared by the hotel cook (Scatman Crothers) and called "shining."

Before long, the evil history of the place slowly takes over Jack's body and turns him into a homicidal madman: 

"I'm not gonna hurt you . . . You didn't let me finish my sentence. I said I'm not gonna hurt ya, I'm just gonna bash your brains in. I'm gonna bash 'em right the fuck in!". 

Wendy and Danny must then flee from Jack as he slowly loses his mind. All kudos must go to young Danny for his ingenious way of getting away from his axe-wielding daddy. 

By the time Jack crashes through Shelley Duvall's bathroom door with his hatchet, he's narrowing his eyes into Wolf Man slits, crinkling his forehead, jutting out his unshaven chin, ripping his hair, flashing his molars, and cackling, "Heeeeeeere's Johnny!"

There are some silly nightmare sequences, and one haunted ballroom scene that looks like an outtake from The Great Gatsby. 

At one point, a rotting naked corpse rises from a bathtub and it isn't even remotely frightening, only repellent and senseless.

Almost certainly the 'daddy' of psychological horror movies, The Shining is one of Kubrick's finest. 

It also did nothing to hinder Kubrick's reputation as a difficult director - according to legend he demanded 127 takes of one scene from Shelley Duvall. 

Still, his persistence paid off, as we are drawn into the bizarre hidden secrets of the hotel and Jack's insanity.

Hotel room 217 in King's novel was renumbered 237 (a non-existent room) by Kubrick for the movie because the hotel owners were concerned that nobody would ever rent out 217 again.