Doctor Sleep

A very faithful adaptation of a book I enjoyed very much, that builds on one of the best films I've ever seen. The courage of the makers of Doctor Sleep was tremendous – to continue Kubrick's story, but at the same time be true to King and make more than an epilogue to The Shining. They succeeded brilliantly, thanks largely to Mike Flanagan, who straddled the line between King and Kubrick, standing firm, and I can only thank him for it. When you see all the original and very impressively executed mind travel (and combat), the atmosphere, which is much better than the trailers suggested and relies not on scares but on honest suspense... That's exactly how I imagined it when reading the book, and yet the book lacked the film's biggest trump card – the Overlook. I could find a scene or two to fault, but overall I'm so pleased with Doctor Sleep that I can't, or rather won't. The ending is a downright treat for anyone who has not only seen The Shining, but also read it... Notto mention the amazing Ewan McGregor. (11/15/2019)

King's The Shining is quite an interesting long-running phenomenon, now comprising two novels (from 1977 and 2013), both of which have been made into films, the first also as a miniseries, and there's one more TV project to come, apparently called Overlook. So how good is the film version of Doctor Sleep? It’s a decent modern King film, with an excellent McGregor and a declaration of love for the original The Shining. It’s comparable to the new versions of It or Pet Sematary. (12/31/2021)

Doctor Sleep might put you to sleep! Mike Flanagan tries his best, but once again I was not pleased. I find his films terribly uninteresting. This one is a direct sequel to The Shining after 40 years and introduces the main character played by Ewan McGregor (the boy in The Shining) who follows in the footsteps of the True Knot cult who suck the souls out of dead victims. Filmed decently, both Ewan and Rebecca Ferguson, playing the villain, are solid. The music is also good, fans of the first film will be pleased with the many references and the finale is quite intense. But the film is not scary, suspenseful, brutal and certainly not entertaining, I haven't seen such a slow film in the cinema for a long time. I'm personally not a big fan of The Shining either, so this story and mythology doesn't do anything for me and actually doesn't interest me much. I don't want to put it off completely, fans of The Shining will probably enjoy it and IMDB praises it as well, so it's not a dud, more like nothing for me. 55% (11/01/2019)

A difficult to adapt yet incredibly good work by Stephen King. If the screenplay were to strictly follow the structure of the original, half of the running time would be devoted to AA meetings. I therefore understand why Mike Flanagan focused much more on Abra and Rose because their storylines are far more cinematic (albeit not too personal), but poor Danny remains a secondary character. Considering that it necessarily had to follow on the film version of The Shining and less so on the book, the ending is surprisingly strong, more terrifying in terms of its logic, and respectfully faithful to the source material, despite some changes (including the biggest) being frustrating at first. From a story about overcoming one's own shadow, something different has emerged: a horror movie that is not afraid to avoid cheap scares and only uses the atmosphere to pay homage. (01/15/2021)

I really like The Shining (perhaps because I’ve never read the book) and that's mainly due to the audiovisual treatment and the demonic Jack Nicholson. So I was very much looking forward to Doctor Sleep, even though I reckoned that it had been a while since 1980 and that the theme might have cooled down somewhat. All my fears were unwarranted! Doctor Sleep is in many ways different from The Shining, so it is not a mere copy reviving old (but still very timeless) material. I liked that the film focused mainly on the "enlightened people", their universe and their "hunters" (with regard to these beings I couldn't help but think of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children). As a horror film, Doctor Sleep doesn't primarily rely on scares, rather it builds an uncomfortable atmosphere with some very raw scenes. Even though it is two and a half hours long, it still keeps the tension at a decent level, in addition to artfully following the plot of the original The Shining (the final half hour). If I wasn't familiar with Stanley Kubrick's film, I'd probably feel lost in the cinema, but this way I enjoyed to the hilt the nostalgic and (still very) oppressive return to Danny and the "redrum" Overlook Hotel. (11/27/2019)