Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

By The Popcorn Guru

Popcorn Guru

MOVIE REVIEW: Doctor Sleep

Feb 24, 2020 | 10:29 AM

Whether you attribute it to insanity or literary genius, Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 The Shining is still considered one of the best horror films of all time. This opinion wasn’t shared by the author of its source material, however. Stephen King famously disliked Kubrick’s adaptation of his novel because of how much it changed, altogether not capturing the spirit of the book. Because of this, the motion picture adaptation of Doctor Sleep had more than one big pair of shoes to fill.

No. It isn’t as good as The Shining. It couldn’t have been. But, as its own movie, it can be enjoyed with tapered expectations.

Ewan McGregor plays a mature Danny running from the trauma that he endured as a child, at the same time having to deal with ghosts from the Overlook Hotel who pursue him to feed on his shine. Some might find the first act slow, but I appreciated the normalcy of its world-building. You get to see him from a The Shining-era young age learning to protect himself and to control his shine, meandering from city to city before encountering fellow ‘Shinee’ Abra, who is marvelously played by brilliant child actor Kyliegh Curran.

For those wondering, no, you won’t see Jack Nicholson in this one. Returning characters were quite tastefully recast rather than artificially resurrected or de-aged.

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In short, it’s a film nobody needed, yet one that is worth watching. It doesn’t heavily piggy-back on nostalgia until the third act, where director Mike Flanagan makes use of some shot recreations that are very good. However, the soundtrack and aerial shots are very reminiscent, and serve as a good reminder that this is the same world.

When it’s trying to be its own thing, Doctor Sleep feels fresh and frightening, but I’m not sure that it can be called a ‘horror film’, exactly. It’s more thriller and drama than it is scary, giving the antagonists substantial amounts of screen time, even showing the initiation of a new member into their fold. Sometimes, I found myself wondering if we were on the side of Dan and Abra, or Rose the Hat and her Shine-eaters. It’s nice to have such well fleshed out villains for a change. It’s too often that the ‘horror film monster’ is some dark, identity-starved plot device that only serves to jump out at the audience when a film fails to keep the tension going. Doctor Sleep is not like that. It takes its time getting that tension rolling, but when it starts, it doesn’t pause.

Doctor Sleep – Runtime 2hr 32 min