“Doctor Sleep” is like the illegitimate child of Stephen King’s 2013 novel of the same name, and Stanley Kubric’s epic 1980 masterpiece “The Shining.” While I haven’t read King’s book, I can safely assume based on his resume that it’s handled far more smoothly that the movie.
Released in 2019, “Doctor Sleep” stars Ewan McGregor, who we last saw dueling Anakin Skywalker in “Revenge of the Sith.” McGregor plays Dan Torrance – the little boy from the original “The Shining” who is now a grown up and, in true King style, an alcoholic. A group of magical vampires led by the beautiful Rebecca Ferguson stays eternal by feeding off of those that possess the shining power. Dan befriends their latest target, a young girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran), and must help her stop the ensuing evil forces.
While “The Shining” is an epic horror tale in both print and film, “Doctor Sleep” is a dull story and confusing mess that may have been better off staying within the pages of a novel. McGregor is fine in the leading role, as is Ferguson and Curran. But all three are just sort of whatever type characters. It’s a horror movie with very little (if any) scary parts, so good acting performances are almost irrelevant.
The plot contains typical King creepiness, and that’s always a good thing. But at 152 minutes I got the impression that they included too much from the book to make a concise film, and too little from the book to have it fleshed out as it needs to be. Director Mike Flanagan channels his inner Rian Johnson to create a confusing maze of nonsense that unravels all borders for the magic of the world. By the end you won’t know what the hell is going on or whether or not what you are seeing is actually happening.
I did like the chalkboard style way Dan and Abra use to communicate with each other, though I found the eight year gap between the opening scenes and the present to be head scratching at best. That’s a considerable amount of time, and while I assume the novel fills this In with nice details and happenings, here it’s useless. And as we’ve witnessed with many recent horror movies, the plagues of modern effects are there to eliminate anything that would have doubtless been terrifying if the same thing had happened in a 70s or 80s movie.
Fans of “The Shining” will enjoy the subtle, and some not so subtle nods to the original film. But by the end, it’s as if they are just inserting Easter Eggs and blatant homages for no other reason than to pad an already too long run time.
The pedigree is there for something truly great, but in the end it falls flat. “Doctor Sleep” is an average movie, “The Shining” is a magnificent film.
