Filmic Frighteners 2019 - Doctor Sleep (15)

I don't know about magic. I always called it 'the shining'.

Screen-writer/director Mike Flanagan faced a uniquely difficult task in bringing Doctor Sleep to the screen. He wasn't simply adapting Stephen King's 2013 follow-up novel to The Shining. He was also crafting a sequel to Stanley Kubrick's 1980 iconic adaptation of the original book. That task would have been relatively easy had not King's and Kubrick's visions diverged so radically; key moments and plot twists from that movie bore no relation to the literary source material, so that the author felt (with some justification) that it did not truly represent his work. How then, in creating a new film within the Shining universe, do you satisfy the expectations of both sets of fans? Flanagan, it turns out, makes a remarkably good stab at it - or rather he swings the axe with aplomb.

Danny Torrence, the little boy who fled along with his mom from his murderously possessed father in the Overlook Hotel, has grown up learning to manage the paranormal ability - or 'shining' - with which he was born. Childhood trauma has taken its toll, and the middle-aged Dan (an initially ropey-looking Ewan McGregor) exhibits the same alcoholic and violent tendencies that afflicted his dad. He's battling his demons and finding positive ways of channelling his abilities, when he forms a psychic connection with Abra, a teenage girl significantly more powerful even than him. But Abra (Kyleigh Curran) is becoming a target for members of the True Knot, a travelling cult who feed vampirically on children who possess the shining. And as the group close in, Dan is the only person who can help her.

Director Flanaghan is well-acquainted with King's work, having already shaped Gerald's Game into a critically well-received TV mini-series. Here he digs deep into the author's preoccupations with character motivation, in an opening act that you'll consider either overlong or commenably nuanced. Multiple story strands are introduced - Dan's wrestling with the inner demons he inherited, Abra's struggles with her supernatural talents, even the villains are developed as a bizarre but tight-knit family unit. Serious time is taken weaving it all together, but everything dovetails neatly as the narrative progresses; it provides all the emotional context that The Shining movie might be said to lack, along with a real sense of investment as events turn critical.

Robust performances back up Flanaghan's intentions. McGregor proves a hugely sympathetic Dan Torrence, haunted figuratively and literally by his past and striving to be the better version of himself. Curran is great too, full of depth and spirit while side-stepping precociousness as the wise-beyond-her-years Abra. But it's Rebecca Ferguson who arguably steals the movie as the True Knot's formidable leader Rose the Hat; despicable to her core, there's still something delicious about the character with her hippy chic and fiercely intelligent allure. Even in her introductory scene - a shudder-inducing display of predatory intent - she makes Rose disturbingly irresistible.

At all points King's literary world is developed with a sense of dark wonder, not least in how all the second book's crazy psychic connections are represented on screen. There's remarkable storytelling craft in these sequences, as when young Abra clashes mentally with Rose. It serves to establish Doctor Sleep as its own story - an essential, since the final act plunges deep into the iconography of the original film. It's in this return to a derelict Overlook Hotel that book and film worlds collide most strikingly. While not 100% convincing in terms of plot logic, the experience does hold together thematically - plus there's an undeniable enjoyment in retreading the Overlook's horror-replete corridors after all the intervening years. It's a Kubrickian greatest hits with added psychological exploration of the relationship between Torrence father and son and it's nothing short of fascinating.

Thanks to Flanaghan's firm stamp on proceedings Doctor Sleep is more King than Kubrick, despite the fun it has paying homage to the classic Jack Nicholson crazy-fest. It's to the film's credit that it makes its original storyline and characters so compelling and the grown-up Danny such an appealing lead. The later avalanche of fan-service is earned, part of an expanded Shining world and a lot of spook-house fun into the bargain. It doesn't entirely avoid clunkiness, but it's entertaining nonetheless and one satisfyingly gripping ride. Considering how unlikely that seemed at the start, it's worth a round of applause - and an extra swing or two of that famous axe.

Gut Reaction: Appreciation of a well-forged adaptation, a hint of patience required at points, then complete absorption (including one wincing moment of horror) as events pushed towards their end.

Memorable Moment: The terrible fate of Baseball Boy - a sequence you may find truly upsetting.

Ed's Verdict: 7.5/10. As someone who doesn't wholeheartedly embrace Kubrick's The Shining, I found Doctor Sleep a worthy follow-up - less ground-breaking iconography, but more fully empathetic storytelling. And a rich expansion of the 'shine' mythology.