This was a fun movie, quite creepy, had some very effective moments... but I do have one complaint. (By the way, I also have no idea how this compares to the book, since I haven't read it.) I think it tried to do too much. It tried to pack too many sideplots in there, and I don't think they complemented each other all that well.
(Slight spoilers ahead.) There was a little boy who sees things. Fine, that's a great plot, and done very effective when it was focused on that. And we also had the plot of the father going crazy. Fine, that's also a good plot, and that was also very well done. (Jack Nicholson = CREEPY even when playing a "nice guy.") But all the stuff with the ghosts of the people of the hotel... Hmm. It felt like overkill. It felt like they couldn't decide which of these to focus on, so they decided to go for ALL of them. Two of them could have worked together - the little boy seeing things works beautifully with either of those plots, and even the last two would work well together (the ghosts show up and drive him nuts). But all of them together ... didn't really connect. I would have been significantly happier if they had dropped at least one of those subplots and just chosen to focus the movie's energy and tension on the others. I liked this movie, but I think it could have been better. 4 stars.
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