BASED ON THE 2013 NOVEL, DOCTOR SLEEP, BY STEPHEN KING. ALSO BASED ON THE 1977 NOVEL, THE SHINING, BY STEPHEN KING, AND THE 1980 FILM OF THE SHINING BY STANLEY KUBRICK.
STARRING EWAN MCGREGOR, REBECCA FERGUSON, CARL LUMBLY AND KYLIEGH CURRAN.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
‘Well, hi there…’
Heeeeeeere’s Danny…! (PS, this line doesn’t actually appear in the film, I made it up but you’ll see why…)
It’s been a while now since I read the book DOCTOR SLEEP by horror maestro Stephen King, but I was hugely looking forward to seeing the film version when it came to Netflix. Well, it’s come to Netflix, I’ve seen it and I can now declare it top-notch stuff, lol. Just in case you were hanging on the edge of your seat waiting for my verdict…! It clocks in at a satisfying two and a half hours, so it’s good bang for your buck, and the great cast produces stellar performances.
Ewan McGregor plays Danny Torrance, all grown-up now after the events that traumatised him so much in THE SHINING, the 1980 film by Stanley Kubrick. The traumas were so great that Danny grew up an alcoholic, just like his old man, Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in the 1980 smash hit film.
He’s in recovery, though, going to his AA meetings and working in a hospice as an orderly. He’s still got his powerful psychic ability known as ‘the Shining,’ and, as he uses it to comfort dying patients, they in turn call him Doctor Sleep. That’s the title explained, at any rate.
His dear old pal from the first movie, Scatman Crothers as Dick Halloran, the chef from the Overlook Hotel, has visited him psychically to help him to deal with his old ghosts from the hotel, who’ve continued to plague and terrorise him.
I love the idea of the lockboxes in Danny’s mind. Catherine Deneuve tried to do something similar in THE HUNGER, but as her lockboxes were physical rather than psychical, her boogeymen all escaped and gave her what for, lol.
I also love the adorable, fluffy hospice cat, who has the ability to suss out who’s about to shuffle off his or her mortal coil. A most intriguing characteristic, unless you’re the one on whose bed the moggy chooses to park his furry butt. Then it’s Goodnight, Vienna…
Anyway, Danny is not without his problems in this excellent sequel. There is a band of very bad nomadic people known as the True Knot on the loose, extending their lives by shortening other peoples’.
They feed off other psychically gifted individuals by inhaling their ‘steam’ at their moment of death. Rose the Hat, a beautiful young woman who just so happens to be one of King’s most interesting characters, is their leader.
When we meet them, though, the cult members are starving for lack of psychic steam. One of their member, Grampa Flick, dies of actual psychical starvation. He’s played by Carel Struycken, an actor with a condition known as acromegaly which gives a person enlarged hands and feet and sometimes enlarged or elongated facial features as well.
Like the actor Rondo Hatton, who suffered from a similar condition, Struycken has used his appearance to his advantage to get acting jobs. He did a fantastic job as Mr. Moonlight in the film adaptation of another Stephen King classic novel, GERALD’S GAME (2017).
Anyway, Danny becomes aware of the True Knot when a little girl with outstanding psychic abilities, Abra Stone, informs him of their existence after they kill a little boy and devour his ‘psychic steam’ as he dies in agony.
Reluctantly, Danny gets involved with Abra and they plan together both to lead law enforcement to the boy’s grave so his parents can have closure, and also to take out the True Knot, and I sure as shit don’t mean for a romantic dinner.
The final showdown happens at the only place where it could ever have happened… at the Overlook Hotel, where you’ll meet some old friends who, if you’re like me, might just have given you nightmares for years after you met them first in the original SHINING film.
I just loved that Danny goes here again after all these years, and that a man who looks a lot like his father but isn’t his father greets him from behind the iconic Gold Bar…
I just love this film. Bruce Greenwood, who plays the rich businessman trying to spice up his flagging sex life in GERALD’S GAME, appears here as the leader of Danny’s AA group and the hospice boss. Jocelin Donahue plays Abra’s beautiful and young-looking mother.
Ms. Donahue is one of my favourite scream queens as she starred in THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, an excellent horror film from 2009, and she was also in INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER TWO (2013), as the young version of Barbara Hershey’s character.
Also, Carl Lumbly, who appears here as the ghost of Dick Halloran, used to play Detective Martin Petrie in CAGNEY AND LACEY, a brilliant cop show from the ‘80s. He wasn’t really the detective I had eyes for, though. That was Detective Victor Isbecki, played by the fantastically muscular Martin Kove who took his shirt off and bared his superb hairy chest in the opening credits every week. Can I get a ‘phwoaaaaar…?’
I must go and read the book again now, if I can remember where I put it. One thing I don’t get about the film. When the Overlook is burning (sorry, spoiler!), how come the authorities get there so dang quickly? Those roads are supposed to be impassable in the snow. Certainly they are in the original film. Ah well. It’s only a technicality. Enjoy the film. Oh, and bring back Rose the Hat, she’s magnificent…!
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
Her new book, THIRTEEN STOPS EARLIER, is out now from Poolbeg Books:
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