Man, was I impressed with this movie; Doctor Sleep is one of the best sequels I’ve seen in a long time. It is a direct sequel to the 1980 film The Shining, directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, so it had a lot to live up to.
It is no secret that Stephen King did not like the 1980 film adaptation of his novel. But Director Mike Flanagan does an excellent job putting together a cohesive story — while balancing Kubrick’s 1980 film adaptation and King’s original 1977 book.
Flanagan manages to brilliantly pay homage to Kubrick’s vision while at the same time aligning it with King’s original story. In certain aspects, it is closer to what Stephen King wanted to be included in Kubrick’s film version.
The story picks up right from when Danny Torrance and his mom, Wendy, left the Overlook Hotel and moved to Florida to restart their lives. Danny is still dealing with the spirits from the Overlook; they follow him to his new home in Florida and continue to haunt him. Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly) from the original film shows up as a spirit. Carl Lumbly replaced the original actor that played Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), who died in 1986. Dick continues to guide Danny in dealing with his psychic abilities, showing Danny how to confront and lock away the spirits using boxes embedded into his consciousness. One box per entity, designed to lock and put those evil spirits away. Meanwhile, Danny can carry on with his life.
Then, the movie jumps to an all-grown-up Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), who now lives a turbulent life — full of bad choices, drug use, and alcoholism. Danny tries to control his trauma and inner demons by drowning them with alcohol and drugs. His drinking seems to suppress his Shining abilities. Danny wanders from town to town, doing odd jobs, and eventually joins a support group. He finds a job as an orderly at a hospice where he uses his psychic abilities to comfort dying patients and embrace their forever sleep, thus earning the nickname Doctor Sleep.
As Danny settles into his new life, he starts to make improvements to his life; he begins to build a psychic friendship with a young girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran); her Shine seems to be as powerful as Danny’s or maybe even more powerful. Ewan McGregor is fantastic here — His performance felt natural and subtle. I felt like the movie needed more of him.
There is a group of villains called the True Knot — they are an exceptional bunch. Each member of the True Knot has their own unique Shining abilities. They have the characteristics of a cult but with psychic power — like psychic vampires. They track down and murder other humans who also have Shining powers. They feed on something called Steam, which keeps them alive longer than natural humans, but it does not necessarily make them immortal. Their fear of death keeps them united under the same goals. We also discover that some True Knot members are ancient beings.
Steam is an individual’s life force — a person’s psychic abilities produce this Steam (because it looks like Steam). They extract this Steam from individuals by torturing and killing them slowly and painfully. Generating terror from their victims is crucial for enhancing their Steam. They feed on it, which keeps them feeling and looking young. They move around in caravans like gypsies, killing and feeding as they go along. They also turn people into one of them — if they happen to find an individual with unique powers beneficial to the group. The whole concept of the True Knot as a group of ancient psychic vampires was outstanding. Maybe more time spent on the origins of the True Knot would’ve been interesting.
The True Knot’s leader, Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), is one of the most sinister villains of recent cinema history. I was both smitten and terrified by her. She deserves her own stand-alone origins story.
The True Knot detects Abra and her powerful Shine, a power that they have never seen before on a person. As a result, Rose wants to kill Abra and not turn her into one of them because she feels that the energy in Abra’s Steam could keep them alive for a long time.
The movie spends a considerable amount of time sprinkling breadcrumbs all over the story, leading up to an eventual return to the Overlook Hotel in Colorado. Where Danny and Abra will have a final showdown with Rose. We find out that the Overlook Hotel was closed down after the events of The Shining. The hotel has been sitting there empty, slowly rotting away all these years.
Spoiler alert: in the first book (The Shining), the Overlook Hotel blows up when the boiler explodes. Stanley Kubrick changed the ending. So this sequel addresses and course corrects the fate of this haunted winter resort.
The recasting of some of the original film’s characters was remarkable—there was no need to de-age them or any weird CGI to bring them back. The evil twins, the hotel spirits, and the recasting of Danny’s mom, Wendy (Alex Essoe), were all on point. Alex Essoe looked very similar to Shelley Duvall. The spirits from the Overlook were almost dead-on from the original film actors (no pun intended). Even Henry Thomas was convincing enough as Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson). It all worked well for me; they didn’t seem to be trying to imitate the original characters; instead, they managed to capture the original characters’ essence artfully.
Everything in this movie ended up working well while fitting into the entire scope of the original story. If you look under the plot’s hood, you can see the whole superhero, X-Men vs. X-Men aspect to it. We have good Super Heroes vs. Bad Super Heroes type of thing, but instead of superhuman abilities, our characters have unique supernatural powers.
The world-building was superb; I wanted to continue to inhabit and be part of their world when the movie was over. All the supernatural and horror elements were well executed. I wanted more of Danny Torrance and maybe more flashbacks of Rose the Hat throughout history. There is room to further explore this whole Shining extended universe in books, films, and even a TV series.
All in all, Doctor Sleep does what it is supposed to do. It is a well-crafted bridge to one of the most revered films of all time. It took me on a highly entertaining, nostalgic, and psychological ride. It has all the aesthetics established by Stanley Kubrick, and it also fixes and addresses the storyline issues initially conceived by Stephen King. Doctor Sleep is very much indeed a worthy successor to The Shining.
Four out of Five Popcorn Bags 🍿🍿🍿🍿
DOCTOR SLEEP (2019).
Rod Rioja 