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.  

Film Review - Happy Death Day 2 U (15)

It's Monday the 18th... again. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!

2017's Happy Death Day was a winner - namely of the Filmic Forays Low-Expectations Award for a Film that was Massively Better Than I Expected (quite the honour, let me tell you). Expecting the kind of C-grade teen horror movie you laugh at, I was delighted instead to find myself laughing with that strangely sweet-natured horror-comedy. A Groundhog Day/Mean Girls/Scream triple-fusion, it took sorority piece-of-work Tree Gelbman, put her through a nasty-stabby time-loop wringer and turned her into a proactive heroine for whom the audience was rooting all the way. Of course such enthusiasm meant I approached Happy Death Day 2 U as a wary fan - nervous of what a sequel might do to the first film's crowd-pleasing legacy...

Aaaaaand relax. It's good. Not without its flaws, but - definitely good. 

It's also a huge surprise in its own right, in that it take the genre conventions established in the first film and smashes a whole new genre into them with the force of a particle accelerator. Within the first ten minutes most of what you might have been expecting is blown to smithereens, before being reassembled into something that is definitely familiar, but - different. Okay I'm tiptoeing around plot points here, as HDD2U is best experienced by fans with its WTF-factor intact. What I can say is this... Tree is happy with new boyfriend Carter, the time-loop is broken and her life is back on track. But the cause of said time-loop, which has an unexpected connection to Carter's oafish roommate Ryan, is still in play and soon she finds herself trapped back in Monday 18th - the same as before, only not. The stakes this time around are very different.

There's a degree of sadness (expressed by Tree herself in the movie) that whatever mystical explanation audiences had for the heroine's Groundhog experience has been totally undermined by the sequel's radical twist. In addition the new plot elements require some wild leaps in logic that we're left to bridge for ourselves, as the story is far too busy moving forward to sort them out for us. However the new tack does usher in a multiverse of possibilities that serve to keep the central premise fresh. There's a ticking clock aspect, a clutch of new/developed/altered characters and a heartbreaking central dilemma for the Deathday Girl.

Speaking of Jessica Rothe, she is - once again - the chief reason for this film's success. In the first she made a sarcastic 'beatch' likeable and that character's repeated slaughter palatable through bolshy energy and a nice line in gallows humour. Now she reenters the loop as a raging blonde torrent - fierce and hilarious, attacking the material with the panache of a star rather than a standard B-movie scream-queen. Despite an enjoyable group dynamic this is her show and she excels - both in the helter-skelter craziness of the plot and in the genuinely affecting character moments. Seriously, give the girl more work. She's good! 

The unleashing of this comedic whirlwind is indicative of the film's intentions as a whole. While some horror elements remain - a bit of stalk-and-slash down campus/hospital corridors - this is much more a comedy, a character drama and a romance, plus that other thing I've not explicitly stated. It succeeds totally at the first three and has a good stab at the third, the musical score and an early film reference cheekily underscoring the daring new direction. Do all the elements hold together? Just, and only if you fill in various plot-blanks and tie up on or two plot threads yourself. However the whole enterprise is so good-natured and gleefully played that you'll likely be happy to do that. And there may very well be a HDD3 - so that Tree Gelbman and friends can all die another day.

Gut Reaction: Some fairly major head-spinning at the genre-hop and a bit of grasping for sense. But mostly laughter and delight at seeing Tree in action again.

Memorable Moment: Montage of the macabre.

Ed's Verdict: 7/10. If you can get your head around the new concept and roll with the madness, you'll find this a worthily fun follow-up. What's Happy Death Day for, if not to screw with your expectations?