The Shining & The Lost Boys

January 20
When You’re Strange Faces Come Out of the Rain
The Shining 
(R, 1980, 142 min)
The Shining is Stanley Kubrick's intense, epic, gothic horror film and haunted house masterpiece about a writer who relocates his family to a cavernous, abandoned hotel resort for the winter…and succumbs to madness.  Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall reach new levels of hysteria in their performances, driven to extremes by the director's fanatical demands for take after take after take.

The Lost Boys
(R, 1987, 97 min)
Strange events threaten an entire family when two brothers, Mike and Sam, move with their divorced mother to a California town where the local teenage gang turns out to be a pack of vampires.  But after Mike meets a beautiful girl at the local amusement park, he begins to exhibit the classic signs of vampirism.  Fearing for his own safety, Sam recruits two young vampire hunters to save his brother.

What Jim says…
The Shining has become a must for any genre film series. If you were old enough to see The Shining in theatres in 1980, then you’ll probably remember that this film was not necessarily well-received.  In fact, readers of Fangoria in 1980 voted it as the worst horror film of the year.  No joke.  I have not a single memory of The Shining making much of an impact that year among my middle school classmates, unlike Friday the 13th that same year.  Strange how this particular film’s legacy has only gotten stronger whereas horror films such as Saturn 3 and He Knows You’re Alone (also released in 1980) have been nearly forgotten.  Do I like The Shining?  Sure, but I also like Saturn 3.  If The Shining was a non-event in 1980, the same cannot be said for 1987’s The Lost Boys.  When this film opened in theatres, every single person in my West Texas high school lost their minds. With the exception of Return of the Jedi and Footloose, I can’t recall another film that caused as much a ruckus among my classmates.

Special Thanks
Dennis Chong:  Universal Pictures Repertory
Christopher Lane: Sony Pictures Repertory
Judy Nicaud: Paramount Pictures Repertory
Marilee Womack: Warner Brother Repertory
Kent Youngblood: MGM Repertory

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