This
is a somewhat cumbersome 151-minute sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s horror
masterpiece, The Shining. (Review by Patrick Compton 7/10)
Remember the little muppet who spent his
time tricyling along those spooky corridors in the Overlook Hotel in the Rocky
Mountains?
Well, Danny Torrance rides again in Mike
Flanagan’s adaptation of Stephen King’s follow-up to his novel, The Shining, but this time he’s a
grown-up alcoholic played by Ewan McGregor, tormented by his childhood
experiences at the hands of his father (played by Jack Nicholson in the film
version) and a collection of demons.
King famously loathed Kubrick’s chilly
gothic adaptation, but Flanagan makes it clear that he’s more interested in
making a sequel that pays homage to Kubrick rather than King.
Danny has now morphed into Dan who has
become a tormented alcoholic following the death of his mother. In a bid to
save his sanity he goes to live in a quiet town in New Hampshire where he gets
a job as a carer in an old people’s home.
But this moment of peace doesn’t last long.
Roaming the countryside, hunting for young people with “the shining”, is a grisly
group called The Knot, led by Rose (Rebecca Ferguson) a blue-eyed seductress
who wears a Babadook hat. She and her gang are a particularly nasty
neo-vampiric collective who tend to torture and kill their victims, sucking in
the steam – a kind of soul energy – that escapes from their mouths as they die.
Dan connects with a fellow “shiner”, Abra
(Kyliegh Curran, making an impressive film debut), who becomes psychically
involved with the Knot and is threatened by them as she attempts to put a halt
to their demonic enterprise.
That's as much plot as you need.
Thematically, Doctor Sleep is a
slow-burning, uneven horror movie, more intent on contemplating the nature of
evil than offering audiences a scare-fest, although there are a number of
moments that will make you uneasy. There are also characters aplenty from
Kubrick’s movie, captured in flashback, such as Dan’s dad (Henry Thomas with
darting Jack Nicholson eyebrows) and a mother (Alex Essoe) with Shelley
Duvall’s saucer eyes and vocal inflections. Furthermore, the hotel itself
becomes a major character in the film's climax.
The film has some gratuitously unpleasant
moments, such as the sadistic killing of a young baseball star by The Knot, and
on a number of occasions the audience is asked to ridiculously suspend its
disbelief in order to swallow a number of incredible developments.
As an independent horror movie, I suppose Doctor Sleep is decent enough, but as a
sequel to Kubrick's masterwork, its shine definitely lacks lustre.
Doctor
Sleep opened on Friday, November 8, 2019, and is
showing at various cinemas in Durban. – Patrick Compton
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