Written And Directed by Mike Flanagan
The Bartender: "I apologize mister Torrance. I don't know where everyone is, but it will pick up."
Danny: "Oh, I know where they are. And you're right... it will pick up."
The lengthy sequel. Both in terms of distance from The Shining and for the fact that it's at least ten minutes longer than said movie. And there's Mike Flanagan.
Has there ever been a writer/director who's been as big a fan of Stephen King as Mike Flanagan? I don't think there is. Now having him take on the sequel to that movie just as his horror credentials were at peak. Talk about good time.
The movie started with Danny Torrance (Roger Dale Floyd) still getting tipsy about his abilities from the recently killed Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly), which included a warning of how to trap ghosts in psychic boxes. Then there was an update on his mother, Wendy (Alex Essoe) before getting to the main plots of the movie.
Let's look at Danny. Falling into a King/Flanagan trope, he's become a promiscuous addict (Ewan McGregor) numbing his abilities before eventually signing himself up to rehab in order to sort himself out. He's also found himself placed having to mentor a young psychic named Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), who also posed a major threat to the baddies of this sequel.
Now the baddies themselves were a psychic vampiric cult of sorts named True Knot who fed off those with the shining abilities. Their figurehead was Rose the Hat/Rosie (Rebecca Ferguson). When I say she's the highlight of the movie, I mean she's the highlight of the movie. She might be one of the villains in a horror movie from the last decade. The performance she gave was magnetic throughout.
Throughout the film, there's a continuous battle of wills between both Rose and Abra as the pair kept underestimating one another. If anything, it's more their movie than it's actually Danny's but all three of them are somewhat dragged into the Overlook Hotel for a final battle and plenty of returning faces/nods to it's predecessor.
As protagonists, Danny and Avra's relationship did slightly mirror the one Danny had with Dick with the passing of the torch arguably being better handled. Both Ewan McGregor and Kyleigh Curran play off each other well with a connection between them that transcended the death of one of them. After the events of this movie, it did make sense to end things with that character.
- Aside from Carl Lumbly and Alex Essoe, other alumni of Mike Flanagan's that appeared included Violet McGraw, Jacob Tremblay, Robert Longstreet, Bruce Greenwood and Henry Thomas.
- Rebecca Ferguson is Swedish in real life but her Irish accent was really spot on.
- Henry Thomas's bartender character was meant to be Jack Torrance and the right use of lighting/prosthetic did almost have him capture Jack Nicholson's likeness.
- Emily Alyn Linda and Zahn McClarnon had strong supporting roles as cult members Snakebite and Crow Daddy.
- Standout music: Rebecca Ferguson's My Wild Irish Rose.
- Chronology: 1980 in Florida and near the Overlook Hotel as well as some in 2011 before the main events in 2019 in New Hampshire.
As a sequel, I really didn't expect Doctor Sleep to be so good but it absolutely blew me away as a movie. A fantastic sequel with great performances from Ewan McGregor, Kyliegh Curran and Rebecca Ferguson - especially the latter. Easily one of Flanagan's best movies to boot as well.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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