Reviews

The very first scene is very interesting, and the first episode manages to keep viewers entertained but then... it seems to spiral out of control as uninteresting characters keep hogging the screen and mostly nothing happens. The horror elements fail to scare or to entice the viewer. Rosa seems interesting at first but then you lose empathy for her as she dives deep into a society she knows absolutely nothing about, sacrificing all she was and all she has for no discernible reason.

Regardless of what Stephen King thinks about the Kubrick adaptation of The Shining, it is still fondly remembered by movie lovers everywhere. This new movie, however praised by King as being a worthy adaptation of his novel, manages to fail where Kubrick succeeded. It's more of a slightly serious take on a superhero movie than a horror movie.

There is absolutely nothing scary about this movie, not even the few jumpscares it tries to pull are successful, and worst of all: everything that seemed enigmatic or mysterious in Kubrick's The Shining is quickly explained away and dealt with.

In the end, it's a very in-your-face movie about learning to deal with your own fears, traumas and even issues inherited/caused by one's family, rather than a horror movie that will leave you puzzling over the meaning of things or human nature. Every single horror element is fully explained, every mystery is revealed, every (simple) analogy is spelled out for you. Nothing is left to the imagination. Even the very "Shining" from the first movie, an otherworldly awareness that very few people had, is turned into X-men mutant-superhero-like powers in this one. And, oh, the reason that some people have the Shining? TO FIGHT EVIL. The whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing. Again. It's laughable. American culture is completely obsessed with the superhero narrative as of late, and it's seeping into what some deem to be psychological horror, yet it seems people are too dazzled by the state of things to notice and choose instead to just take it and perceive it as fine.

I couldn't believe how they wasted the talent of some good actresses and actors in this movie. Even if you write it off as "It's just supposed to be a funny movie, it's not supposed to make sense", this movie fails miserably in every regard. It's unfunny all the while except for maybe one or two scenes with Vanessa Bayer (whose capacity at being funny is overshadowed by the terrible script, horrible dialogues and unlikable characters).

The protagonist acts like a complete child the whole movie and is rewarded for doing so in the end, seemingly because her shunning of her responsibilities and unreliable nature was a good thing all along. Her shallow personality is only matched by that of her romantic interest, who - SPOILERS - she ends up with by the movie's end, which was unpredictable given how boring both of these characters are as well as the fact that a minor romantic interest shows up twice during the story, manages to be much more likable and interesting, but is somehow completely forgotten by the time the credits roll.

This film is currently being sued for not having been filmed in Ibiza. So it doesn't even deliver on the location the movie takes its title from. I've never felt exposed to such utter waste of time. I can only hope the people responsible for this disaster never try their hand at writing or producing anything else, and I dearly hope the cast of this movie learns to not sign up for productions with baffling scripts like this one in the future.