@StudiocanalUK 

UK DVD Release March 26th 2012

Utterly confused at the end. Are my critical faculties on the wane? Or maybe the final reveal didn’t quite live up to the promise of the rest of the film. Not knowing the equilibrium doesn’t detract from what is a well performed and thoroughly enjoyable old-fashioned ghost story. 

The cast are superb, and the script has a nice frisson to it in the relationships that keep you guessing throughout. Beautifully shot in perfect locations it’s classically restrained and all the better for it. I just wish the end was better.

On the surface it might seem like the film ticks boxes of what British cinema does at its most pedestrian but sewn into its fabric are flourishes of dialogue and banter, subtext and Spanish horror stylings that lift it way above this. A very promising feature debut, although don’t watch the special features because the self same director doesn’t come across well, getting Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys title wrong and saying some utterly ludicrous things about filmmaking, whilst going for exactly what Kubrick went for with The Shining, but somehow suggesting it’s all his idea. 

Whilst this is an enjoyable film, with much to commend it, The Shining it is not.