Dr. Sleep – Is it a Worthy Sequel to The Shining?
[image error]Let me start of by saying I’m 100% biased. In my opinion, The Shining is the gold standard for horror movies. Nothing scares me as much as the Overlook hotel, and the ax scene is forever branded in my mind. Shelley Duvall’s top-notch performance entrances me every time I see it. This makes judging the sequel very difficult since, to my mind, nothing would compare with it. However, I will do my best to rein in my prejudice.
Dr. Sleep takes up where The Shining left off. Danny Torrance, now a middle-aged man with a serious drinking problem, is challenged to help a teenage girl manage her own set of supernatural skills when she goes up against a traveling band of soul-sucking gypsies.
I don’t want to get sidetracked by the plot, however. As interesting as it is, I’m more concerned with how the other horror elements work (or don’t work) together to create what, ultimately, is a promising movie that, alas, falls short.
Let me start with the things I liked about Dr. Sleep. The acting comes to my mind first. Ewan McGregor’s Dan Torrance does a wonderful job of becoming both sinner and saint. He’s the man who assists a desperate teenager, but he’s also the one who caused the death of a mother and her child. He’s a man begging for salvation, and I like his transformation.
My other favorite character is Kyliegh Curran as teenage Abra Stone. She’s a tough character, but inexperienced. She doesn’t know her own strength, and at the same time she misjudges the threat she’s up against. She’s courageous and fearless, even when faced with a deadly enemy.
Characters aside, there are other elements to Dr. Sleep that make it – if not a great – then at least a good horror movie. The soundtrack is one of them. One of the reasons I love The Shining so much is the simple, haunting music that makes me feel as isolated as the shots of the Overlook during a blizzard. Dr. Sleep‘s music works in the same way. It’s delightfully eerie, but sparse, and sets a great mood.
The word that comes to mind whenever I think of The Shining is ‘eerie’. When I watch a horror movie, that’s what I want. I like movies that drag me out of my comfort zone. Gross and grisly doesn’t affect me nearly as much as a world off-kilter. To my mind, The Shining is a perfect example of that.
Dr. Sleep also offers several creepy scenes. My favorites were the shots of Rose’s caravan in the dark woods. Or the way Abra fell into Rose’s mind. In Dr. Sleep, things are never as they seem.
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So, on the one hand, I found Dr. Sleep entertaining and – if not scary – certainly unnerving. Yet, I do have one big complaint, and that had to do with the second part of the movie.
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Mike Flanagan is an excellent director (I loved The Haunting of Hill House and Oculus), and I appreciated that he wanted to pay homage to Stanley Kubrick. However, there is too much Kubrick in this movie. The clips from The Shining detract from what I think is Flanagan’s vision for the film. Yes, I understand the need for backstory. This is, after all, a sequel. Yet, the second half of the movie almost comes off as a hastily, stitched-together clip show. Instead of adding to the tension, the cuts to Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson bog things down, and what you end up with is a mess. To me, Dr. Sleep would have been much more effective if it had paid more attention to the new without trying to wedge in the old.
In the end, I enjoyed Dr. Sleep much more than I thought I would. Yes, I was disappointed in parts of it, but to be fair, I went in with a bias. If I’d never seen The Shining, I probably would have walked away quite satisfied. Dr. Sleep won’t become one of my top ten horror movies, but it ranks solid in the top 200.
