Review of Doctor Sleep (2019) by Captainron — 05 Jun 2020

Watching this directly after The Shining felt like evidence of a severe collapse and degradation of art and civilization. The acting is good, mostly, by the leads; however it is extremely long, convoluted, absurd, more young adult novel than horror, occasionally laugh out loud funny in its awkwardness but not enough to be entertaining. There are an enormous number of forgettable characters and scenes. The discussions of steam and the villains are poorly executed and goofy, not frightening at all, though they may have been decent world building in the novel, which I did not read. It’s bizarre that the filmmakers did not attempt to make it more ambiguous and cut this goofy exposition, considering this is a sequel to the Shining.

Overall it has TV production values and it’s just a goofy bore, which challenges you to turn it off throughout. People fond if the original who did not read the novel will view it as a cheap made for tv sequel and should avoid.