Doctor Sleep Movie Review

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Buy Doctor Sleep on Amazon Video // Buy the book
Written by: Mike Flanagan (screenplay by), Stephen King (based upon the novel by)
Directed by: Mike Flanagan
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Cliff Curtis
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
Years after the events of The Shining (1980), a now-adult Dan Torrance must protect a young girl with similar powers from a cult known as The True Knot, who prey on children with unique powers to remain immortal.

Verdict
While this had a novel as a starting point, this movie manages to balance being unique and paying homage to the original.While it doesn't rank as high as The Shining, it's still a really good movie. The cult aspect adds a fantasy element not present in the original, but I liked this a lot more than I expected.
Watch it.

Review
I don't think The Shining needs a sequel. This is more marketing than anything, but trying to follow that movie might be more of a detriment as the original is a classic.

Director Mike Flanagan created great moods in Hush and Gerald's Game, but the more recent The Haunting of Hill House was his best work yet. So where does Doctor Sleep land? I'm really impressed with what Flanagan did.

This starts with child Danny at the Overlook Hotel. If you are doing a sequel why not use scenes from the original. The Shining is such a touchstone, that if you didn't reference it, people would take issue. This does a great job of including call backs to the original but not leaning too heavily on it. It starts with a greatest hits of scares from the first movie, but those scenes do have a point later in the movie.

Danny at the Overlook Hotel.

It's no surprise that Danny is so messed up. He's living with his friend Hallorann in his head and monsters lurking around every corner. He's coped by suppressing the powers he possesses. He can communicate telepathically, and because of his experiences at the Overlook the monsters want to feed on that energy.

It's not The Shining, but I didn't expect that. This is really good. It's a bit more fantasy than The Shining, but those are neat moments when Abra transports to a different location and Rose floats at the top of the atmosphere.

Kyliegh Curran and Ewan McGregor play Abra and Danny.

Danny connects with Abra, another person with "the shining." She's very powerful and attracts the attention of Rose. Rose leads a group of spirit vampires. They feed on the shining energy of kids. The vampire aspect of this is wild. It might be the weakest aspect of the story, but that's because I love the extreme focus of The Shining and how it felt grounded. I also don't understand why so may of these vampires wear hats. The movie highlights this with Rose calling herself "Rose the hat."
With Stephen King's novel coming so long after the original novel, I wonder if some of this is him having fun with fans.

Rebecca Ferguson plays Rose the hat.

I like that Abra is more powerful than Rose. So often, the protagonist is the underdog. It's a neat twist as movies hardly ever flip the power dynamic. To defeat Rose, Danny and Abra need a boost. They need the demonic powers of the Overlook Hotel. I don't know the book, but it's a great touch to go back to the Overlook. It doesn't feel forced. We avoid the easy ending of defeating the vampire in a one on one dual and instead introduce another adversary.

I was hoping for just a decent movie, but this is much better than that. I like the ending. It's reminiscent of The Shining's ending with a bit of ambiguity. Though it's possible to read it as straight forward.