Doctor Sleep stars Ewan McGregor as Dan Torrance, now grown up since the events of The Shining, and recovering from alcoholism just like his father before him. He moves to New Hampshire, goes to AA thanks to his new friend Billy - played by Cliff Curtis - and uses his shining powers to comfort dying hospital patients. His comfortable new life is interrupted though, when a young girl named Abra, played by Kyliegh Curran, whose shine is much more powerful than Dan’s ever was, is discovered by a cult of murderous psychic vampires, led by Rose the Hat - played by Rebecca Ferguson - and now Dan must stop the group from killing Abra and become something even more dangerous and powerful.
Writer-director Mike Flanagan set out to do a seemingly impossible task with this film: Make an adaptation of the Stephen King novel of the same name, while also making a proper sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, which altered much of King’s original novel. And said alterations caused an issue as they affected certain key plot points of the original Doctor Sleep novel, which itself is a sequel to King’s original novel. Though not only did he manage to reconcile the many differences from essentially three pieces of source material, but he made an excellent film in doing so.
The film is two and a half hours long, and spans nearly forty years, starting off not too long after the events of The Shining, all the way to present day. And despite such an ambitious runtime, that length is almost never felt. This is a film that is very emotionally engaging, with plenty of extremely well-written character arcs and a story that is exciting, funny, terrifying, and heartbreaking all at once.
Because the film isn’t so much a straight-up horror movie. In fact, at times it doesn’t even seem to be completely interested in being a horror movie. At its heart, this is a character drama centered on themes of family. This is very much Dan’s story, and it’s not only just about him trying to find his place in the world. It’s also about him struggling with the trauma he endured from his father, and facing all the fears that haunted him for so long. It’s about finding forgiveness, and coming to terms with how to comfort others while recovering from the pain his own family put him through.
That’s not to say this isn’t a scary movie. In fact, it’s often quite frightening. Though it’s not scary in the traditional sense. Like in The Shining, this isn’t filled with any jump scares. Even when it leads the audience to think it’s going for a jump scare, it chooses to forgo that. While Flanagan is known more for his ghost stories such as Oculus or Ouija: Origin of Evil, most of Doctor Sleep’s scares lie in the form of physical, concrete threats. And even when the audience sees them coming, there’s still this unsettling feeling from watching them in action.
That’s because they’re people who don’t do what most horror villains do, and simply play “grab-and-go” with their potential victims. When they enter a scene, they immediately act. And what happens when they do act is shown in one particularly hard-to-watch scene. This is a particularly brutal movie, and Flanagan never hesitates to crank the intensity up to eleven, whether it be through scenes that are uncomfortable or exciting. And after a certain point, around maybe the hour mark, Flanagan keeps the film at such a consistently high energy that its shift between tragic and thrilling never feels jarring.
While the scenery is enough to keep audiences on the edge of their seats, this film is ultimately anchored by its performances. All the major players are just fantastic. Ewan McGregor brings just enough pathos to the role to really bring out Dan’s fragile vulnerability. He goes through so many internal struggles throughout the film that really bring such high emotion to the film, particularly in the sequences in which he’s seen comforting the dying patients and he’s trying to hide his own pain at the same time.
While McGregor is at the center of the film, Kyliegh Curran absolutely knocks it out of the park as Abra. Children in horror movies tend to be either whiny or trying too hard to be creepy, and she never encounters either issue. She goes through various extremes herself, going from almost being a victim of the vampire cult, only to turn the tables on them. And she shifts so seamlessly between scenes of her own painstaking trauma to completely taking over the scene, and feeling so naturally in control.
Rebecca Ferguson is easily another huge standout as Rose the Hat, bringing with her a manic energy that feels reminiscent of some of The Shining’s more heightened moments. She can be absolutely menacing, knowing how to manipulate people’s emotions while still acting on every single one of her threats. She’s someone who always knows how to control others, and when she’s seen losing that control, she becomes even more terrifying as one can see the resolve in her eyes to rectify that situation. And having already witnessed what she’s capable of, it makes that resolve even more chilling to see.
What makes Rose and the entire cult so mesmerizing to watch is the fact that these are some of the most well-written villains in a horror movie. They’re all given a fleshed-out backstory, which never feels like it detracts from the rest of the film’s events, and because there’s a reasoning given as to why they do what they do, it raises the stakes immensely. And what’s a nice touch is that they’re not portrayed as being so one-dimensionally powerful and evil all the time. When something may not go their way, they seem legitimately frightened or shaken up, and it gives them a sense of realism that allows the audience to be invested in their next move.
While the film has a lot of great things going for it, the one element that is a key concern among many is its handling of the material from The Shining. Kubrick’s 1980 film is considered a classic horror film by many and it contains plenty of moments that went on to be iconic. And this film does have to call back to quite a few events from that movie in order to play into a lot of Dan’s storyline, including revisiting the Overlook Hotel itself.
Much of The Shining callbacks take place during the film’s final forty-five minutes, and it’s handled via set recreation, as well as showing off new actors taking on roles from the previous film without digitally altering them to resemble the actors who previously inhabited each role. This will be seen as jarring by some, though Flanagan stated in an interview that had he attempted to make digital recreations of the previous actors, he would have come under fire for such a decision (which is what exactly happened when the children in It: Chapter Two were de-aged to hide their growth since the previous film). So while it may be off-putting at times, it is highly respectable why the film goes down this route.
And if there’s one other part of The Shining callbacks that may be a problem is the fact that it maybe leans into referencing that film a bit too much. And that’s understandable as well. While the film gorgeously recreates many set pieces from Kubrick’s original film, and even perfectly gets down capturing the feel of the soundtrack with its screeching violins, sometimes it may go on for just a bit too long. The film does slow down at times during some of these callback sequences to simply just indulge the audience in the film they love, and it may be some of the only times the pacing feels thrown off at all.
And while those are notable and legitimate criticisms, one thing to keep in mind as this film plays out is that it needs to reference The Shining plenty of times in order to bring its arcs and themes full circle. One of the film’s biggest themes is facing the past and standing up to your fears, and in order to do that, of course it needs to go back to The Shining and not make it feel like it’s just an afterthought. It’s not a film that is simply relying on nostalgia, but one that looks to combine both past and present into something unique. And while it would have been great had some of these moments been just a tad shorter, Flanagan brings everything together wonderfully, and his recreations of the classic film ultimately help craft an overall beautifully told story.
Doctor Sleep is by far one of the best adaptations of a Stephen King novel, and is also by far one of the greatest horror sequels of all-time. It is excellently directed, thanks to Mike Flanagan, and once it reaches a certain energy, it stays there and is an intense mix of emotional heartbreak and sheer brutality. And it’s also brilliantly written, with plenty of fleshed out characters who are easy to get invested in, supported by some truly standout performances from the likes of McGregor, Curran, and Ferguson. This is, simply put, filmmaking at some of its finest this year.
Recommendation: Must-See
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