A Reel Review: DOCTOR SLEEP

In 1980, famed director Stanley Kubrick brought Stephen King’s horror novel The Shining to the big screen, and even though King hated the adaptation, the film stands today as one of the best horror films ever made. In 2013, King wrote a sequel to his own book, and here in 2019, director Mike Flanagan makes the adaptation. Meet DOCTOR SLEEP. 

30 years after the events of THE SHINING, Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), is living life as a drifter while using alcohol to suppress his super-natural ability, called the “shine”. Just when he begins to get his life back together, he begins communication with a young, gifted girl named Abra (Kyleigh Curran), who is being hunted by a cult led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), who consume people’s “shine” for everlasting life. 

DOCTOR SLEEP begins with two main orders of business. The first involves following Danny Torrance as he still struggles with the events of his childhood at the Overlook Hotel, in which his father, perhaps pushed by restless spirits, went all evil and chased he and his mother with an axe. A brief, yet effective flashback to 1980 establishes Danny’s predicament, as he is still being haunted by spirits and he must find methods to suppress them. Moving into the present state, he finds peace in sobriety and an eventual job at a hospice where he puts his powers into good use for the dying. 

The second order of business involves the deep expanding of the universe that Danny, Abra, and the cult inhabits. The way the “shine” works is explored in effective ways, and even adds more depth and understanding to THE SHINING. Power is what the cult wants, and power is what Danny and Abra must keep close to themselves. All this leads into Danny’s father-issues, and DOCTOR SLEEP takes great steps in telling a tale of trauma and fatherhood. 

Director Mike Flanagan builds a haunting atmosphere of suspense. The scares work, but the real draw of the film is that he makes a hypnotic state; there are so many mysteries to unravel that it’s hard to turn away from it all, and audiences are sure to be on the edge of their seats waiting to see what comes next. Pacing is excellent and makes the hefty running time of 152 minutes zip by. The score by the Newton Brothers is also very good. 

Acting is superb. Ewan McGregor really shows his range as he struggles with his inner demons and has to overcome them to protect Abra. Young Kyleigh Curran is a revelation, but the show is stolen by big-bad villain Rebecca Ferguson, who is as deadly as she is beautiful. 

The last half-hour of DOCTOR SLEEP brings us back to where all the troubles began for Danny, and that place is re-created in stunning, jaw-dropping detail. It provides a setting for a final showdown with the cult that ends in a perfect payoff, wrapping DOCTOR SLEEP as a worthy follow-up to Kubrick’s masterpiece. 

BOTTOM LINE: See it