Review of Doctor Sleep (2019) by Foxgrove — 08 Nov 2019

This Stephen King film adaptation of his sequel to 'The Shining' is immediately more impactful than I remember the book being, even if neither attain the heights of the original (book or film of 'The Shining').

The film starts slowly and one's initial response is that we are in for yet another unremarkable screen treatment. However, once Ewan McGregor's grown up Danny Torrance makes contact with Abra, the little girl with his same gift, things start to rock n roll.

The film is high on atmosphere with some brilliant cinematography and bombastic, but effective sound, and once it has a hold the film is mesmerizingly creepy and extremely effective. Impressive reconstructions of the sets from the original film come into play at the end and an effort has been made to style the look of Danny's parents around the original actors as played by Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duval.

Make up and special effects add their contributions and, unusually, in today's cinema, the film gets better and more involving as it goes on. It's all complete tosh of course but it comes as a pleasant surprise to find that the film's hefty running time of 151 minutes has literally flown by.