Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) becomes winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado, hoping to cure his writer's block. He settles in along with his wife, Wendy (Shelley Duvall), and his son, Danny, who is plagued by psychic premonitions. As Jack's writing goes nowhere and Danny's visions become more disturbing, Jack discovers the hotel's dark secrets and begins to unravel into a homicidal maniac hell-bent on terrorizing his family.
'When the material is as unusual as The Shining, dealing with ghosts and spirits, the acting has to be larger than life,” he said in an interview shortly after the film’s release, and whether the scene called for him to swing an axe or chat up a spectral bartender, it’s a notion he took to heart. But it’s less of a 0-to-160-mph ramp-up than you might think, and there are a lot more subtle shadings leading up to that manic last half hour. On repeat viewings, you can appreciate how the actor plants seeds in earlier sequences that will slowly bloom into insanity. Indeed, some of the most chilling moments in this haunted-hotel nightmare literally involve little more than Nicholson staring silently ahead, his head tilted down in signature Kubrick-protagonist fashion'. - David Fear, Rolling Stone
