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The Shining (2 Disc Special Edition) [1980]


RRP: £16.00
Our Price: £4.98 (subject to change)

A Bit Disappointing
Review date: 2008-11-01 Rating: 6 out of 10

I always enjoyed Stephen Kings Novels especially The Shining but the film that is celebrated as the best horror movie is not as good as it could have been.Had Copolla spent more attention to some of the creepier elements of the book ie the topiary animals rather than making Shelley Duvall do a certain scene 20 or so times he could have included so many more images in this film.Jack Nicholsons character goes way over the top and the classic bathroom scene is about the only terrifying scene.After injuring his foot the image of him being a sort of hobgoblin weilding a axe chasing his son didn't cut it for me and the ending was just awful.THe book will always remain a classic but the film could have been so much better.

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Reviews


Amazing Film Ruined By Stupid Cuts
Review date: 2008-09-13 Rating: 6 out of 10

If you have seen the original version before watching this before getting this dvd then you with be surpised with the things they cut for this version. They completely ruin the flow of the film and leave certain questions unanswered because of the cut. This version is cut about 5 minutes from the original and the pace and story of the film is ruined. The most necessary scenes are cut. The film is a masterpiece however and if you can get past the stupid editing then you should learn to love this film but I highly recommend you find a version with a longer running time than this version. If it wasn't for the cuts this film would have easily got 5 stars in my opinion

Fantastic Horror
Review date: 2008-09-01 Rating: 10 out of 10

The Shining is an amazing film, great acting from Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duvall, creepy atmosphere, evil ghosts and who can forget the famous bathroom scene (Heree's Johnny!). Great scary film that can be watched again and again.

Not a film for King fans
Review date: 2008-07-12 Rating: 2 out of 10

The Shining is my favourite of Stephen King's books, and I have to say, this is a truely aweful vertion of it.
Kubick once said that he thought The Shining was about "A man who went mad in the mountains and blamed it on ghosts"
This is not what The Shining is about at all, as any fan of the book will know. This focuses on how Jack Torrence looses his mind, rather than on the personal struggle he faces to save his wife and son.
This is a good suspence film, but it's not The Shining.
To a fan of the book I recomend this version: Stephen King's The Shining [1997] it is much more faithful to King's masterpiece, and the "true Shining"

CUT DOWN FULL SCREEN VERSION -- you really want it?
Review date: 2008-06-28 Rating: 2 out of 10

Most people who want a copy of "The Shining" will find that the previous DVD release, released in 2001 (which comes in a white cover rather than this black one), is the one to get. There is very little reason to want to buy this version -- and no reason at all to upgrade. Arguably, this is an INFERIOR release, and you'd be foolish to buy it. Let me explain why.

Kubrick shot "The Shining" in "full frame", which means that the material shot would fit a standard 4.3 TV screen. This footage was NOT masked down to cinemascope by Kubrick but was distributed to cinemas as full frame. It was up to the cinema to mask it down in the projector. This was actually a pretty standard practice, and many movies, particularly before the 1960s, were released as full frame. Many DVDs of these movies have been released with the full frame, too. You get the full width of the cinemascope picture, but you also get the extra footage above and below it that was not masked off.

Having the "full frame" version does have advantages -- it fills your screen if you've got a standard 4.3 TV, and of course you're getting extra footage. What's more, if you have a widescreen TV, you can just use your zoom controls to make the picture fill your screen without distortion, cropping off the top and bottom, hence getting an approximation of the cinemascope version.

The previous white cover DVD of "The Shining" presented the entire, full frame version of the movie EXACTLY AS IT WAS SHOT. This new version gives you ONLY a masked-down version. You're not getting the true cinemascope version of the movie, however, you're getting one masked-down so that it fills a typical widescreen TV screen without letterboxing. It's neither one thing nor the other -- not the full screen movie as it was shot, and not a true cinema version either.

This would be fine if the picture quality was improved over the white cover version. But it's not. Nor is the sound any different. Having studied both, my feeling is that this is exactly the same version that was used in the white cover DVD release, but cropped down to "widescreen". It actually looks like it's more fiercely compressed, losing a little definition over what you see if you zoom up the previous full screen version to fill your widescreen TV. (If you want better definition, of course, you should get the Blueray version.) What's more, this version is plumped up to a 2DVD set by a superfluous commentary and some new featurettes, but the only extra you need is the "making of" which was also in the previous version.

The bottom line is, in this black cover version you get exactly the same movie as in the previous white cover DVD, running the same length, but with LESS actual footage! That makes it a no-brainer for most purchasers -- if you've got a widescreen TV, get the PREVIOUS white cover version, and you can zoom in to see the "widescreen" version EXACTLY as you get it on the black cover release, but also zoom out and see the WHOLE movie as it was shot. Buy this masked-down version, and you don't get the choice. (If you've only got a standard 4.3 TV, get the previous version, of course.) For that reason, this has got to be a one-star don't buy. Grab the previous version while you can.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Jack Nicholson
Shelley Duvall

Creators:
Jack Nicholson (Primary Contributor)
Shelley Duvall (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

Recording label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
EAN: 7321900722100
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: PAL,
Release date: 2008-03-03
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 114 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1980
Language: English (Unknown)
Language: English (Subtitled)

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