The Shining (1980)

This is a solid and suspenseful movie. Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) is a teacher, but dreams of being a successful writer. He is offered the chance to be the caretaker of the isolated Overlook Hotel in Colorado during the off-season winter. He brings along his wife (Shelley Duvall) and young son (Danny Lloyd) and looks forward to the isolation and time for writing. His son has a psychic gift known as the shining. Jack starts to see ghosts and is slowly driven into a vengeful insanity.

It is based on the 1977 novel by Stephen King. The European release was almost half an hour shorter. In 1997 Stephen King remade the film in a 4 1/2 hour television miniseries starring Steven Weber. The Timberline Lodge in Mount Hood, Oregon, was used for the exterior shots. The opening scene was shot by a helicopter on the Going-to-the-Sun Road at Glacier National Park in Montana. Every time Jack sees a ghost there is a mirror present. The hedge animals appear in the book, but a maze was used instead for the film.