Doctor Sleep may keep you up at night

Writer/director Mike Flanagan, known for such films as Oculus, Absentia, Hush and the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House has now brought us a sequel to The Shining. Doctor Sleep promises to meld both Stephen King’s and Stanley Kubrick’s versions of The Shining.

Stephen King is arguably the best-known (and loved) writer of horror in the world, and Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of his novel The Shining is widely considered one of the most influential horror movies of all time. King famously did not care for Kubrick’s version of his most iconic novel, and there were definitely a number of changes in the plotline. So, how does Doctor Sleep compare?

Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of the novel, and I am not a fan of the movie. Like King, I think Jack started out full-on crazy, rather than the Overlook Hotel pushing him gradually down the hill to crazy town. And I absolutely hated that Kubrick chose to kill off the character of Dick Halloran. All of that aside, I did enjoy both versions of Doctor Sleep.

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I am happy to report that Flanagan has done a fine job of blending the visions of both Kubrick and King, and that I was mostly satisfied with the film.

To start with, the casting was excellent. Ewan McGregor gives a great performance as the adult Danny Torrance (known as the more adult-sounding “Dan”), now a recovering alcoholic, and Rebecca Ferguson is absolutely perfect as sinister Rose the Hat.

I love the names given to the members of Rose’s group, the True Knot. They have names like Crow Daddy, Snake Bite Andi, Barry the Chunk and Grandpa Flick (played by Carel Struycken of Twin Peaks and Addams Family fame). Each of the actors did a fine job portraying their characters.

Young Kyliegh Curran is sympathetic as Abra, a girl with a very strong “shine”, who contacts Dan telepathically. Through her, he finds out about the True Knot, who, led by Rose, feed off  the “steam” of children who possess the same powers that Dan has.

We first see the cult charm, then feed on a little girl named Violet, played by Violet McGraw (young Nell in The Haunting of Hill House). Hill House’s Henry Thomas also makes a small appearance as Lloyd the Bartender, then another as Dan’s father Jack (famously played by Jack Nicholson in The Shining).

It is made clear that taking steam from these children causes their deaths. We later see a little boy named Bradley abducted by the True Knot, and this is a scene that actually disturbed me, due to the drawn out sequence of what amounts to torture. Were he, not a child, it wouldn’t have bothered me, but it seemed unnecessary to linger on his screaming face, while his own blood sprayed on it.

Abra is psychically in tune with Bradley, and, horrified, contacts her friend Dan to help her track down Rose and her crew. Though he is reluctant at first, Dan joins forces with Abra, and they do end up at the Overlook Hotel (which burned down in the book but remained standing in the film). When Rose comes after them, we are treated to a psychic showdown, part of which is set in the iconic hedge maze from the movie version of The Shining.

There are a few flashbacks to Dan’s childhood, some of them set in the Overlook, and the characters of Jack, Wendy and Halloran are lovingly re-cast and played by actors who do an amazing job recreating them. Alex Essoe positively nails Shelly Duvall’s distinctive voice, and Carl Lumbly does the same for Scatman Crothers.

There are some departures from the ending events in the book version of Doctor Sleep, but I am not going to go into them here. I left the theater feeling satisfied, and thinking that Mike Flanagan is my new favorite horror writer/director. I am looking forward to The Haunting of Bly Manor, and his future projects.

How do you think Kubrick’s version of The Shining compared to writer Stephen King’s? What did you think about Doctor Sleep in theaters? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.