"Room 237," or "The Shining: A Didn't-Really-Go-to-Space Odyssey"

You know that feeling you get - that sort of tickle in your throat, the chills down the back of your neck, the sudden surge of energy deep in your gut - when you've just spent an hour or two learning about a conspiracy that has managed to shake you to your very core and rip open your eyes, forcing you to see some brand new, previously-unbelieved truth? It's the sensation many of us felt while researching the JFK assassination, or the existence of extra-terrestrials. It's that feeling that crumbles the very fabric of the reality with which you've grown and thrusts you into a frightening, arousing new world filled with the temptation - and shocking validity - of conspiracy.

This movie will not give you that feeling.

What it will do, however, is show you that although recently-leaked information involving the NSA may suggest that the tin-foil-hat donning conspiracy nuts of old weren't entirely wrong after all, some of those nuts still remain critically misinformed.

The interviewees in the documentary Room 237 have their hearts set in the right direction. It's the inevitable gullibility in their tedious search for the truth that holds them back and prevents them from reaching any semblance of sensibility. Listening to them ramble on about these absurd, substance-lacking ideas behind the supposed secrets of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is not unlike watching an argument unfold between an atheist and a theist. The truth is, you can't know for certain who is right and who is wrong, but the ensuing spat is usually at least mildly entertaining. In the case of Room 237, the promise of entertainment does not disappoint.

While it's true that the interviewees throughout the film (whose faces we never actually see as the documentary consists almost entirely of footage from The Shining) spout increasingly kooky crackpot conspiracies, the passion each of them exudes is easy to get caught in. No, you won't finish this movie believing Stanley Kubrick filmed the fake moon landing. No, you won't start telling your friends that The Shining is actually about the holocaust. But Room 237 isn't about brainwashing or persuading its viewers into believing the theories laid out. Room 237 is merely a glimpse - a hotel room keyhole, if you'll pardon the cheesy metaphor - looking into the sometimes naive but always amusing minds of folks who have taken up Stanley Kubrick's The Shining as a personal religion. And like any religion worth its salt, this one teems with contradictions, unintelligible gibberish, hokey coincidences, and a big fat helping of passionate, unstirring, almost inspiring devotion.

You do not watch Room 237 in order to become a believer. You watch Room 237 because you are a lover of The Shining, or Stanley Kubrick, or Stephen King, or all of the above, and you're curious enough to listen to the admittedly screwball theories surrounding that wonderful staple of horror and general classic cinema.

So no, you probably won't hear anything worth changing your perspective over. What you will do, though, is laugh a little, do a facepalm or four, and applaud in awe at the endless world of fascination Stanley Kubrick has created.

And then you'll probably go and watch The Shining for the thousandth time.