"A masterpiece."
— Ben Walters, Time Out
"Deeply scary and strange."
— Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
"Essential viewing. Prepare to be disturbed."
— Ashley Clark, Little White Lies
"Kubrick has made a movie that will have to be reckoned with on the highest level."
— Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine
"The supernatural joins forces with psychosis in Stanley Kubrick’s superb adaptation of a Stephen King bestseller."
— Wendy Ide, Times (UK)
"Shelley Duvall, as Jack Nicholson's wife, gives a naturally frightened and increasingly desperate performance that grounds the film's horror in a chilling reality."
— Janet Maslin, The New York Times
"Ostensibly a haunted house story, it manages to traverse a complex world of incipient madness, spectral murder and supernatural visions... and also makes you jump."
— Ian Nathan, Empire Magazine
"Shelley Duvall's portrayal of Wendy Torrance stands out as a beacon of realism in the film, with her ability to convey genuine fear making the horror elements all the more impactful."
— Ian Nathan, Empire Magazine
"Duvall's commitment to her role is evident in every scene, as she immerses herself in Wendy's escalating terror and desperation, significantly contributing to the film's tense atmosphere."
— Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out
"One of Kubrick's wiliest moves may have been to suggest Torrance's lurking anger and unsatisfactory home life made him receptive to possession. The pure genius, though, lay in how _visual_ that psychological exploration was. Style, not substance, was the director's strong suit, which made him a perfect foil for King, whose themes of the supernatural lurking in the banal (and the banal in the supernatural) were often eclipsed by the breathless redundancy of his prose."
— Lisa Rosman, Signs & Sirens