DOCTOR SLEEP : Tuesday 12th November 2019.

'DOCTOR SLEEP' which I saw earlier this week at my local multiplex is an MA15+ Rated American horror film based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Stephen King, which is a sequel to King's 1977 novel 'The Shining'. The film, set several decades after the events of 'The Shining', combines elements of the 1977 novel and its 1980 film adaptation of the same name directed by Stanley Kubrick. 'Doctor Sleep' is Written, Directed, and Edited by Mike Flanagan whose previous credits take in such horror offerings as 2011's 'Absentia', 2013's 'Oculus', 2016's 'Hush', 'Before I Wake' and 'Ouija: Origin of Evil' and 2017's 'Gerald’s Game' again based on a Stephen King novel. Flanagan also created, Directed, Produced, Wrote, and Edited the Netflix supernatural horror series 'The Haunting of Hill House' in 2018, and he is currently developing a stand-alone second season, titled 'The Haunting of Bly Manor'. The film was released last week too in the US and Canada, cost about US$50M to make, has so far bought in US$37M and has garnered generally mixed or average Reviews with Critics praising the performances and the eerie atmospherics especially.

In 1980, a short time after the events unfolded horrifically at The Overlook Hotel in the remote Colorado Rockies young Danny Torrance (Roger Dale Floyd) and his mother Wendy (Alex Essoe) have relocated to sunny Florida, with the desire to never see snow again! Still reeling from those recent events, Danny continues to be haunted by the ghost of the rotting woman from Room 237 who now manifests herself in his new home bathroom. The ghost of Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly) who was the Head Chef at The Overlook Hotel and who also possessed the 'Shine' now mentors Danny and one day teaches the young lad to securely lock away such ghosts in imaginary boxes inside his mind. In the meantime, a small yet powerful group of un-dead semi-immortals known as 'The True Knot' led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) feed off the 'steam' expelled in the dying moments of those with the Shine, in order to prolong their lives by slowing down their ageing process.

We then fast forward to 2011, and Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) has climbed inside a bottle and become a down and out alcoholic in an attempt to subdue his memories from his traumatic childhood and his time at the Overlook Hotel. He moves to a small town and forms a strong bond with Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis), who gets him a job and becomes his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. The AA group that Dan joins is headed up by Dr. John Dalton (Bruce Greenwood) who also gets Dan a job as an orderly working three nights a week at the local Hospice. Dan remains committed to his AA group and begins to rehabilitate. One night while on duty at the Hospice, Dan sees a white cat who goes to a patient who is near death - a sure sign that the end is nigh remarks the aged and frail patient. Dan uses his Shine abilities to comfort a number of dying patients over the years, who give him the nickname 'Doctor Sleep'.

At about the same time Dan begins receiving telepathic communications from a young girl named Abra Stone (Dakota Hickman), whose Shining capabilities are even more powerful than his own. Meanwhile, Rose recruits a fifteen year old teenager named 'Snakebite Andi' (Emily Alyn Lind) into her cult after observing her ability to telepathically control people, and on the pretext of immortal life.

We now fast forward to the present day and Dan has been 'dry' for eight years now. The True Knot clan are in starvation mode, and running short on the necessary steam to sustain themselves. Crow Daddy (Zahn McClarnon) who is Rose's lover, right hand man, and long term member of the group, is homing in on a young ten year old baseball protege who also possesses the Shine, Bradley Trevor (Jacob Tremblay). The group abduct Bradley and torture him so as to extract as much steam from him as they can, and then bury his corpse in a shallow grave in the grounds of a disused power plant. A now teenage Abra (Kyliegh Curran) senses Bradley's torture and death, and her distress alerts both Dan and Rose from afar.

Rose, having now sensed the extent of Abra's Shine, sets her sights on Abra, planning to extract her all powerful steam to sustain the cult. Realising that Rose is after her, Abra visits Dan, who insists that she stay away for her own safety sake, and avoid drawing attention to herself. Dan turns his back on Abra and feeling dejected she returns home after bunking off school for the day.

Later that night, Rose astral-projects into Abra's mind, but is out witted when the teenager manages to trap her and enter Rose's mind albeit briefly. With a severely wounded hand, badly shaken and emotionally stirred, Rose returns to her body and sends The True Knot to capture Abra, while Crow Daddy persuades Rose to hang back and recuperate, and gather back her strength. 

One night while on duty at the Hospice, the white cat leads Dan to an empty room where he has another visit from Hallorann, who instructs him to protect Abra. Abra tells Dan what happened with Rose and says she can track the cult if she can touch Bradley's baseball glove, knowing that one of The True Knot handled it. Dan confides to Billy about the Shining and asks him to suspend all disbelief and to have faith in what he is telling his friend as the truth. Billy agrees and they travel to the murder scene and exhume Bradley's body to retrieve his glove. They then go to Abra's house, where they recruit her initially disbelieving father Dave (Zackary Momoh) and devise a plan. Using an astral projection of Abra as bait, Dan and Billy lure the cult members out into a remote forest clearing and shoot most of them dead, although Snakebite Andi telepathically manipulates Billy into killing himself before she dies.

Rose has been able to sense the death of her fellow cult members and becomes increasingly distraught as one by one they are all popped off. In the meantime Crow Daddy who was not at the forest clearing shoot out, has abducted Abra, sedated her to render her Shine dormant, and killed her father Dave. Dan communicates with the drugged Abra, whose sedation is now wearing off, and allows him to possess her temporarily and force Crow Daddy to crash the van that they are travelling in into a tree at high speed. Not wearing a seat belt Crow Daddy is sent hurtling through the windscreen and lands in a heap in the headlights ten meters in front of the crash scene. He dies from his wounds, as Abra looks on, free once more. Dan and Abra reunite, while Rose consumes the cult's remaining stockpile of steam, so instantly giving her renewed strength, healing her wounds and vowing revenge for the deaths of her True Knot friends. 

Dan makes the decision to return to the abandoned Overlook Hotel, believing it will be as dangerous for Rose as it will be for him and Abra. Upon arrival late into the evening on the snow covered mountain, he breaks into the long time abandoned hotel and starts up the hotel's boiler and generators and promptly sets about exploring the building once again, 'awakening' it in the process.

Dan revisits the rooms where his father Jack, influenced by the ghostly and evil apparitions of the Overlook Hotel, attempted to murder him and Wendy all those years ago. At the bar in the hotels grand ballroom, Dan is offered a shot of Jack Daniels by 'Lloyd', a bartending ghost who looks a lot like his father. Dan refuses much to Lloyd's disgust. Just then Abra who has been sat in the car diligently waiting for signs of Rose's imminent arrival calls out to Dan that her cars headlights have been spotted on the approach to the hotel.

Upon arriving at the hotel, Dan and Abra confront Rose, by pulling her into an astral plane, in the shape of the Overlook's vast snow covered hedge maze. Dan attempts to trap her in one of the boxes inside his mind, but fails so releasing Rose from the astral plane. Dan instructs Abra to run before being overpowered by Rose, and incurring a severe axe wound to his femoral artery in his leg. As she drains his steam by applying pressure to his open wound, Dan releases the Overlook's ghosts from the boxes in his mind, who overcome and kill Rose.

However, when done, the ghosts turn on and possess Dan, who begins to hunt for Abra who seeks refuge in Room 237. Dan, wielding the fireman's axe, catches up with Abra who is able to momentarily free him. He tells her to flee the hotel. Struggling with possession, Dan returns to the boiler room which is now working to maximum capacity and becoming overloaded. It quickly becomes engulfed in flames as hot boiler oil spills all over the floor, and as Abra watches helplessly from outside as the hotel burns down, with Dan still inside. The blue and red lights of the fire trucks driving up the mountain side signify that help is at hand and that Abra will be rescued.

Allegedly Stephen King was none too impressed with Stanley Kubrick's 1980 big screen adaptation of 'The Shining' and by the changes he had made to the storyline. So much so that in 1997 Stephen King wrote a new Screenplay which was turned into a three part television mini-series which ended up picking up thirteen award wins and ten further nominations. Fast track to 2013 and King wrote the 'Doctor Sleep' novel and it was left to Writer and Director and long time horror film geek Mike Flanagan to combine the two novels and Kubrick's movie together in this 'Doctor Sleep' film. And I would have to say that I think that Mike Flanagan has by and large succeeded on that front by remaining faithful to that landmark 1977 novel and Kubrick's cult 1980 film. This films works as a stand alone movie where you can easily enough pick up the pieces from its predecessor while also serving as a strong companion piece that complements what went before, without seeming like a Hollywood cash grab for the sake of a late sequel. With strong performances from McGregor, Ferguson and Curran especially, an extended running time that does not linger, and enough emotion, suspense and scares to maintain the interest and please fans of Kubrick's 'The Shining' and King's source novels, this film is well worth the price of your cinema ticket. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

'Doctor Sleep' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-