I've always enjoyed The Shining.
Finally rewatched it a few weeks ago, after years and years of not.
(I watched the Room 237 documentary around the same time as well; it might still be on NetFlix.)
My basic observations:
1. It's not nearly as faithful an adaptation in tone to King's book as the later TV series, which actually makes Jack a sympathetic character.
2. That aside, taken as a standalone, it's a
really good movie. And everything is so stark, and controlled; anything in that movie is there because Kubrick wanted it to be, down to the pictures on the wall and the arrangement of the cannisters in the walk-in. Even the hotel layout is designed to disorient; there are one-take scenes where Danny is traveling on his Big Wheel and the layout is wrong and doesn't overlap where it should, and there are scenes where they walk out of the same door they entered a minute earlier and the hallway outside is different. Just crazy stuff.
Bah. Most current Netflix options are either too obvious (like the Hellraiser series), too mediocre, or not truly horror movies....mostly the second option.
I agree.
Oh, there's also "Yellow Brick Road" on netFlix. Great, low-budget movie for the first 80% of the movie (really unsettling with the most basic of scenarios); then it goes to hell IMO. But Marm liked it and felt like the ending had significance.
Also -- I don't remember if "Let Me In" is there, but "Let the Right One In" is on Netflix. The latter is the original adaptation (to Swedish film) of the book, and the former is the American adaptation from a year or two ago. Overall, I prefer the Swedish one, although I think the American version opens better and the scene with the vampire in the hospital bed was better than the corresponding "cat" scene in the Swedish version.
One big issue: The lead kid is actually kind of a psychopath in the book (he's detached from all relationships) and this comes through better in the Swedish version; the American version makes him more normal and emotionally accessible.
Too bad we can't mix and match scenes.