Any serious horror movie fan usually ranks “The Shining” near the top of their all-time best list.

In 1980, Jack Nicholson was nearly a decade out from the start of his current self-parody spree, unless one views every performance of his career as self-parody. Nicholson steals the show, whether simmering with barely caged fury or hacking through the door with an axe, trumpeting a Nicholsonian blast on Ed McMahon’s iconic introduction for Johnny Carson.

Director Stanley Kubrick delved into his darker side, scratching at the scab of every author’s worst nightmare: writer’s block. One of the best adaptations of a Stephen King story, “The Shining” has novelist Nicholson escaping with his family to the isolated Overlook Hotel as caretaker for the off-season.

The potent mixture of visual poetry (from sweeping natural vistas to intense focus upon an elevator slowly disgorging its sanguine contents), high tension and comedic outbursts continues to draw new and returning admirers.