Cast: Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, and Kyliegh
Curran
Director: Mike Flanagan
152 minutes (15) 2019
Warner 4K Ultra HD
[Released 9th March]
Rating: 8/10
Review by Christopher Geary
Stanley
Kubrick’s The Shining (1980) is perhaps
the greatest modern horror movie and a vastly superior artistic effort compared
to Stephen King’s own adaptation, directed for TV by Mick Garris. Jack
Nicholson’s career-defining stint as winter caretaker at the imposing Overlook Hotel
is one of the supernatural genre’s finest performances of craziness. Right from
the start, his character of Jack Torrance seems odd, psychologically. Yet susceptible
to overwhelming pressures of frustration and isolation, and haunted by an
assortment of weirdly menacing apparitions, Torrance cracks up spectacularly,
becoming a new modern archetype for loony axe-murderer, stomping through a
snowbound garden maze while he chases his terrified wife and son. Rodney Ascher’s
frustrating and flawed but nonetheless fascinating documentary, Room 237 (2012), explored the cultural puzzles
and impact of Kubrick’s major work.
Anything
from Kubrick remains a difficult act to follow, but director Mike Flanagan (maker
of mystery horrors Absentia, and Oculus, and TV series The Haunting Of Hill House) rises to this
formidable challenge with sparse usage of typical Kubrick formalism until later sequences, when the necessary punctuation of suspense means that such
potent imagery is unavoidable. ‘Rose the Hat’ is a leader of killers. They are
psychic vampires, travellers like a gypsy cult version of the violent maniacs
in Near Dark (1987), feeding on ‘steamy’
essence from their tortured victims. She recruits teenage psycho ‘Snakebite’
Andi (Emily Alyn Lind), for her ‘True Knot’ gang, for a tribal relationship
like a corrupted variation of the communal gestalt ‘family’ in seminal SF novel
More Than Human (1953) by Theodore
Sturgeon, or the ‘clusters’ of linked people in the Wachowskis’ TV drama Sense8 (2015-8), which was basically a queer
style updating of British TV sseries The
Tomorrow People (1973-9; revival 1992; US remake 2013), and David Cronenberg’s
classic film Scanners (1981). Rose is
brilliantly portrayed by the capable Rebecca Ferguson (‘Ilsa Faust’ in two Mission: Impossible sequels). Whether
her eyes are glowing, or not, she is the very best performer in Doctor Sleep.
Telepathic shiner
Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) is not a real ‘doctor’ here, but he does care
enough about living, and other people’s lives, to help some terminally ill
patients go off gently into their final goodnight. Elsewhere, young powerhouse
Abra (Kyliegh Curran) can defy intrusive mind-bender Rose, and she successfully
defends herself, without any guidance or assistance from her parents, during
this dark thriller’s extraordinary, often nocturnal, encounters with predators.
“Eat well, live long.” Despite horror story framings and much darker genre
concerns, Doctor Sleep is mainly a
plain-clothes superhero team-up movie, while trying hard never to become simply
another spectacularly obvious X-Men
copycat movie like Paul McGuigan’s Push
(2009).
The scope and
heft of movie inspirations and great variety of references in Doctor Sleep is hugely impressive,
fashioning a contemporary world that’s home to human mutations in an intriguing
and expansive scenario. This greatly expands on the compressed wintry timeline
of the original movie’s artistic genius, as the ultimate haunted-house story with
access to epic narrative concerns is imbued with a study of alcoholism for its
contrasting murky greys against backdrop themes about bleakly existential darkness
versus uplifting brightness of the shine. “The pain you feel is only a dream.” Doctor Sleep tackles horror’s taboo of
adults committing murderous violence against helpless children, meaning a few
scenes are quite harrowing to watch, and are especially distressing for a cert.
15 movie.
Considerable
verve establishes visual manifestations of psychic powers, so Doctor Sleep is also enjoyably bonkers
in its mixing of supernatural thrills, with nods to King’s oeuvre of uncanny
chillers - including the ‘General’ segment from Cat’s Eye (1985), and variably effective sci-fi tropes, recycled
from movies like Dreamcatcher (2003).
King has explored this vast territory of sci-fi horrors before. His novels like
Carrie, Firestarter, and The Dead Zone, charted many ideas re-appearing
here, and some definite allusions harking back to the Salem’s Lot franchise, play-out alongside recent TV hits, like Haven (based on King’s The Colorado Kid), so Doctor Sleep is an assembly of
borrowings that presents something like a thematic and authorial catalogue of
King’s greatest hits.
The replacements playing
The Shining characters like Torrance’s
wife Wendy (Alex Essoe does a fine impression of Shelley Duvall), and Dick
Hallorann (Carl Lumby is just perfect as the upgrade of Scatman Crothers), are
welcome. Henry Thomas excels in a composite role as Overlook barman Lloyd (Joe
Turkel), and Dan’s ghostly dad (Jack Nicholson). And of course, the essential
character of the old hotel itself is also recreated here, in glorious decay. All
hard work and no playfulness would have made a dull jack-in-a-box or simple Jackanory story-telling effort. Flanagan
revisits surrealistic scenes from The
Shining, but wisely maintains an ironic distance, adding charmingly
sarcastic (Elm) street-wise views. This is fully in keeping with an
unpretentious darkly magical scare-fest leading headlong towards an indulgent -
yet agreeably so - and satisfying fairytale conclusion. “Try harder than you’ve
ever tried to believe me.”
This
three-disc edition includes the three-hour director’s cut on a separate
Blu-ray. The longer version has chapters:
Old
Ghosts
Empty
Devils
Little
Spy
Turn, World
Parlour Tricks
What Was
Forgotten
Chaptering adds
to the comic-book appeal, while strengthening sections of the storyline to
better support an extended running time, and much of this extra material helps
with our understanding about motivations of blatantly evil characters.
