Doctor Sleep (2019) Warner Bros./Horror RT: 152 minutes Rated R (disturbing and violent content, some bloody images, language, nudity, drug use) Director: Mike Flanagan Screenplay: Mike Flanagan Music: The Newton Brothers Cinematography: Michael Fimognari Release date: November 8, 2019 (US) Cast: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyleigh Curran, Cliff Curtis, Zahn McClarnon, Emily Alyn Lind, Carl Lumbly, Carel Struycken, Robert Longstreet, Catherine Parker, Met Clark, Selena Anduze, Zackary Momoh, Jocelin Donahue, Bruce Greenwood, Alex Essoe, Roger Dale Floyd, Jacob Tremblay, Henry Thomas, Dakota Hickman, Sallye Hooks, Violet McGraw. Box Office: $31.6M (US)/$72.4M (World)
Rating: ***
I never expected Doctor Sleep to be as great as The Shining (to which it’s a sequel), Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s best-selling horror novel. It sets a bar too high for any filmmaker to surmount with its trifecta of Kubrick, King and star Jack Nicholson. It’s a masterpiece of terror and my all-time favorite horror movie. How do you compete with that? The answer is you don’t. Writer-director Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House) went ahead and made his own movie, one that retains its own identity while still showing respect to its original source with the many call-outs to its predecessor, especially in the climax which takes place in a very familiar location.
The good news is we got lucky with Doctor Sleep. I went in hoping for a good movie (at least) and that’s what we get. It’s a damn good movie. It’s also a little surreal in how it recreates characters and scenes from the original movie using different actors. In the Florida-set prologue circa 1980, young Danny (Floyd), rendered mute by his traumatic experience at the Overlook Hotel, is visited by the ghost of his friend and fellow “shiner” Dick Hallorann (Lumbly, Supergirl) who teaches him how to mentally lock away the ghosts of his past. It seems to help him at the moment; he starts speaking again much to the relief of his worried mother Wendy (Essoe, Starry Eyes). To Flanagan’s credit, the new actors do resemble their 1980 counterparts.
The story jumps ahead by 30+ years to adult Dan Torrance (McGregor, the Star Wars prequels), a man still traumatized by the horrific events of his childhood. An alcoholic and drug addict, he hits rock bottom when Dick stops him from stealing money from the passed-out single mother he partied with the night before. He decides to relocate to a small town in New Hampshire where he befriends a local named Billy (Curtis, Hobbs & Shaw) who helps him clean up and find a job at a hospice where his psychic abilities make him uniquely qualified to comfort dying patients. That’s how he earns the nickname “Doctor Sleep”.
Dan also starts communicating telepathically with Abra (newcomer Curran), a preteen girl whose powers to shine exceed his own. Her parents are freaked out by what she can do so she doesn’t talk to them about her “magic” (as she calls it). One night, she has a nightmare about a young boy being tortured and murdered by the “True Knot” a roving cult of quasi-immortals who feed on the essence of children with psychic abilities. Their leader is Rose the Hat (Ferguson of the last two Mission: Impossible movies), an evil bitch who becomes aware of Abra and resolves to steal her powers too. Realizing the danger she’s in, Abra goes to Dan for help. He initially refuses and sends her away, but changes his mind after another visit from Dick. They team up, along with Billy, to take on Rose and her evil followers.
Although overlong at two and a half hours, Doctor Sleep is consistently compelling entertainment. I wouldn’t say it’s terrifying, but it’s definitely eerie. Although a few of the shots are familiar, like the famous opening credits helicopter shot used when Dan and Abra head to the Overlook, it has a different overall visual style. Flanagan employs a cool blue-and-gray color scheme. He also doesn’t rely too much on Steadicam. At times, you may forget you’re watching a sequel to The Shining, but the final half hour will quash any and all of that definitively. I won’t say what happens, but fans of the original will appreciate it.
I never expected McGregor to be any kind of substitute for Nicholson and he’s NOT. Not by a long shot. Jack is Jack. There is NO substitute, not even Christian Slater. That being said, McGregor is fine as adult Dan. The trauma written all over his visage reads like a horror book. Ferguson makes a great villain. She truly projects malice and viciousness. She leads her followers like a modern-day Lost Boys. One of her followers, a teenage girl named Andi (Lind, Lights Out), has the ability to control people. Rose recruits her after observing her deal with a pedophile in a movie theater showing Casablanca. Young Curran, in her first significant role, is equally great as a child dealing with the sheer magnitude of her powers and the real implications of possessing them.
One of the main questions we ask about horror movies is simple; is it scary? Like I said, Doctor Sleep is eerie. It has scenes that will unsettle you. The scene of the boy (played by Good Boys’ Jacob Tremblay) being murdered is disturbing. As for jump-scares, there are a few, but Doctor Sleep relies more on tone and atmosphere than the generic cheap thrills of most horror flicks. Flanagan, who also directed Oculus, Ouija: Origin of Evil and Gerald’s Game, has a good eye for scene composition. He knows how to tell a gripping tale. I’d say it’s one of the better horror movies I’ve seen this year.
