Doctor Sleep

Well, We All Shine On (Like Moon-light and The Stars, and You)
or
Wait'll the Talent Scouts Get Wind of Him

There was no reason for there to be a sequel to "The Shining," either the book or the 1980 film adaptation. It told its story and ended. Each told it differently, but there was no ambiguity to either one. King ended his story by having the Overlook blow up in a boiler-room conflagration. And Stanley Kubrick's movie kept the Overlook in one piece, but put the story to an end.

There ARE no reasons to make sequels of any of Kubrick's films—he ended his stories, having said all that needed to be said, even if the ending was ambiguous. There was no next chapter because there was no point. And if you did do a "sequel"—like the ill-considered 2010: The Year We Make Contact—you basically cheapen the story with considerations that are not central to the first conceit and the whole thing gets watered down. "Oh, yeah, and by the way, this could happen tangentially...only it's not as important as the first story, but...blah blah blah—people will have jobs so let's make a sequel."

And so..."Heeeere's...Danny!"

Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), of Jack (E.T.'s Henry Thomas) and Wendy Torrance (Alex Essoe), is not doing well. One could say he's following in the family tradition—a victim of PTSD from his experiences when his parents were caretakers at the haunted Overlook Hotel, he is drinking and drifting, short-time jobs, the money of which he'll squander on booze and start the cycle again to losing the work and moving on. But, Danny (as we know) has been gifted—or cursed—with "the shining," a psychic ability of some indeterminence, but which played a large part in saving the life of himself and his Mother when father Jack became swayed by the spirits haunting the Overlook. A "very willful boy," he has lost his will since his Mother's death and shines far less brightly these days, the booze having doused it, like water to flame.

For Danny has been plagued by nightmares. Not just nightmares, but the returning spirits of the Overlook, who have followed him and his Mother to Florida—they never wanted to see snow again—and beset Danny until one day he's given a coaching by Dick Halloran (Carl Lumbley), his friend "in shining" at the Overlook, who teaches him about what he used to do as a boy, a trick taught to him by his grandmother. If one of those old spooks comes back to haunt you, you think up a box and just lock them in it, and they'll never bother you again.

Now, for fans of the original Shining—book and/or film (and they're not exactly a group that like both), you know there's an issue: Halloran appears in the book of "Doctor Sleep" because he survived in the book of "The Shining." But, (can it be a SPOILER ALERT for a movie that's 39 years old?), in the movie, Halloran gets cleaved by an ax in an attempt to rescue Danny and Wendy from their predicament. And yet, he appears in Mike Flanagan's movie of Doctor Sleep, to give little Danny that advice about the mental boxes. Flanagan does a bit of finagling to do justice to both book and film, and satisfy the expectations of both (which is no small task) but he does a fairly good job of keeping his feet on both banks of the river simultaneously, but in the process, he kinda hasta change what "the shining" actually is—not that we knew in the first place.*

Problem solved, and if I remember correctly (and I probably don't because I couldn't get through King's novel), that happened in the first twenty pages. Now, Danny may be able to box those demons, but he can't box the ones inherited from his father. And so he spends most of his life wasted and drifting, until he comes to one town, Frazier New Hampshire, where under the stewardship of Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis) he gets a job, a room of his own, and starts going to A-A where he meets Dr. John (Bruce Greenwood), who becomes impressed with Dan and offers him a job as an orderly at a hospice that seems to suit him.

That's where the cat comes in.

The hospice has a therapy cat, who has a strange ability. At night, when everything is quiet, the cat will wander the halls of the hospice and open a door and jump on the bed of one of the patients. The cat, named Azrael, has a reputation among the internees—when the cat visits you at night, it means you're about to die. Despite this, the cat seems to be popular and not kicked off beds right and left. Soon, Danny starts to follow the cat on its rounds, and comforting the about-to-die, giving them peace in their last moments.

And he gets a nickname—"Doctor Sleep." Roll credits.

All well and good, if that was all there was to it. Danny finds peace giving peace, his "shining" bringing comfort like a spooky version of Last Rites. But, there are other shiners who don't give comfort at all; they're The True Knot and over the years—and there have been many, many of them—the Knot led by its cult leader "Rose the Hat" (a particularly on-point Rebecca Ferguson) have been luring children with shining abilities and ritualistically killing them...slowly, so as to absorb their shining abilities like a life-force, that manifests itself as a mist, giving them rejuvenation and renewed life. They're like vampires, but for shining, not blood. This is a new wrinkle, that the "Shining" has a physicality, that—with an expanded range of abilities—makes it feel more like George Lucas' midichlorian-based "The Force."

The activities of The True Knot psychically alerts a shining adept teen, Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), who is traumatized by the murder of a child (the always amazing Jacob Tremblay) by the group. Abra has been is psychic contact with Danny, the way a HAM radio operator talks with other stations around the world. But the night of the boy's murder, Danny is blasted by Abra's terror and the blackboard the two have used to communicate is covered with the word "MURDER" which Danny first sees in a mirror as a an all-too familiar word—"REDRUM"

The movie then turns into a three-way struggle between Danny and Abra and the Knot, and particularly Rose, a fight that escalates from merely invading each other's thoughts to more murderous physical contact. Pretty soon, everybody is tracking the movements of everybody else and Danny decides to take Abra and stage a last stand at the one place that might be suffused with enough evil energy to defeat Rose—the Overlook Hotel, containing all the ghosts and memories that have haunted Danny's past, including the restless spirit of his father. 

Director Flanagan has done a very creditable job of directing Doctor Sleep, making an intriguing film that stands on its own without depending on the very heavy shadow of Kubrick's film (although he does fall back on it a lot—which we'll talk about later). If there are gripes, they can be directed at King's novel, which gives far more substance (literally) to The Shining ability, which now allows astral projection, mind and body hijacking—"pushing" to use King's phrase from the book and from his novel "Firestarter"—and the capacity to get into people's heads, even those that shine, and messing around with their "files." 

That's a big jump from the psychological manipulation and thought-reading that had been the extent of the earlier versions. Think about it: if the shining ability was originally presented the way it now is, little Danny wouldn't have had to do what he did in the original to spare himself and his Mother. All he would have to have done is take over Daddy Jack's mind. Problem solved.

That aside, there is a bit of diffusion of the original story—the True Knot is too big a group that has lasted too long to not be noticed, even at the time of the first book. In a way, it overshadows the first story, even threatening to swamp it.

Flanagan ignores that, giving the Knot its due, and deftly combining both versions of The Shining, book and film. He takes a lot of tricks from the Kubrick film, not just in creating a near duplicate of the Overlook sets—that was probably a chore—using key images, like the swooping Main Title sequence, digitally altered for effect, recreating the "Here's Johnny" sequence that is so spot on, you will initially think they used the sequence with Shelley Duvall, but, no, that's Alex Essoe playing it perfectly. The film is also bracketed with the same music (Wendy Carlos' distortion of "Dies Irae" and the old tune "Midnight, the Stars and You") as well as the thumping heat-beat Kubrick used to underscore tension.

But, his best weapon is employing the same creepy technique Kubrick used in The Shining, which is purely cinematic—the framing. Kubrick imbued his film with his usual trope, the one-point perspective.** But, with The Shining, he gave it an extra element—nothing. For much of the film, Kubrick centers his one point on a negative space, giving the film a vertiginous depth despite its horizontal perspective.

Most of the time it works, but there are moments when it's jarring—like a shot of Greenwood's Dr. John in his office that is so influenced by Kubrick's shots of the Overlook's manager, Ullman, in his office—in the Overlook Hotel, mind you—that for a moment it took me right out of the movie. That seemed a bit slavish...and unnecessary—an irrelevant echo that is a complete mis-match, despite its adherence to the original.***

But, we can overlook that as maybe taking a good idea too far. For the most part, Flanagan has taken an old haunt and managed to bring it back to creepy life.

Maybe Kubrick was right—how could The Shining be a down-beat movie when it suggests there is life after death? Perhaps there's a corollary of that thought to sequels, as well.

* I suspect it has something to do with midichlorians, but I might be confused...

**

*** That's what I'm talking about