Dr. Sleep: Local Recovering Alcoholic Foils Vape-Cloud-Stealing Vagrants

I managed to catch Dr. Sleep with a friend a while ago, and it was pretty ok. It fundamentally changes the story of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and it does end the same way as Steven King's novel, so it's somewhat interesting to me from that angle. It's Steven King, so don't expect sunshine and rainbows, especially for unlucky kids (a point that I appreciate from time to time in the horror genre). It's not anything mind-blowing or even particularly notable (even to me and I love The Shining), and it does have some good bits but the sum total is a pretty forgettable experience with some glimmers of what could have been.

It's an interesting reversal from The Shining as Danny sees the message in reverse in the mirror, but in all honesty the most surprising bit of this scene is that such a marketed scene took place more than halfway through the film.

To be entirely honest, I was biased agains this film's story to begin with. Why did The Shining, one of the most iconic horror novels and movies to date need a sequel? It was already an excellent standalone story to begin with, so why continue it? I haven't read the book version of Dr. Sleep, but by the end of the film I could at least see the narrative purpose besides making money, as I mentioned earlier. It's a very different story thematically than The Shining, having an overall bleaker (at times) story than its predecessor. After a series of flashbacks, Dr. Sleep opens to us seeing Daniel (Danny) Torrance in the modern day, and the future hasn't been kind to him, having completely given into his alcoholism and fallen into a life of pleasure-seeking to numb his PTSD and visions. He is given guidance by the late Dick Halloran, but he rarely heeds it. Eventually he makes his way to the Northeast US in his wandering, where he settles down for essentially the entire film. Without a doubt in my mind this is the strongest aspect of the film narratively and thematically, with Danny gradually overcoming his alcoholism through a combination of positive relationships, a support group (AA), charity from a total stranger (who quickly becomes his best friend), accepting responsibility for actions while understanding influences, and having meaningful employment (as a hospice care worker). It's all rather heartwarming, and in all honesty I'd be content to watch an entire film like this, but alas that's mostly regulated the first and second act. It's a sad statement, but I found Danny's personal story of redemption to be much more engaging than the larger story. Essentially there's this unnamed gang of vagrants that hunt those with 'the Shining' for their breath/life-force (basically they're vacuum cleaners crossed with vampires), which they use to fuel their long lives in much the same way as food. As the breath of psychics isn't exactly in high concentrations, they travel the world in search of other 'Shiners' to either consume or convert to one of them, and along the way they incidentally discover a young teenage girl that has some of the strongest ability they've ever seen. Surprise, surprise though, she's also close friends with Danny, being one of his friends and something of a pen pal (via the 'shine-net'). Much of the film after this point is devoted to the vampires' hunt for the girl and Danny, and even though The Overlook Hotel is included and incorporated, nothing much about motivations or the psychic world is particularly well-explained. We know that these vampires are old, and that the breath is a food source, but what is their ultimate aim besides living longer? What even are the rules of the Shining? Why does it seem like The Overlook is the only psychic location? Why has Jack Torrance taken Lloyd's place? I have no idea the answer to any of these, and in particular with this film the story raises far more questions than it answers, so expect to be frustrated. Danny Torrance's story of overcoming his latent alcoholism does redeem the film somewhat as a non-Hallmark-like look at overcoming addiction without consistent wallowing in misery and pity, but besides that the film's plot could be far better.

Danny recovering and overcoming his alcoholism was probably the most heartwarming part of this film. Sometimes you just need a little wholesome in your horror, no? 

Much like the plot, the technical achievements of Dr. Sleep are pretty easy to write off as middle-of-the-road or by-the-numbers, but there's a few things that I feel make the film worthy of at least a bit of consideration. The performances by the actors, in particular Ewan McGregor, were pretty strong, and were able to sell the more unbelievable or ridiculous-seeming portions of the film very convincingly. There was also probably the best use of actor lookalikes I've ever seen in a film (though with cgi nowadays it's a dying art), though this did seem somewhat revisionist, especially in the case of Wendy Torrance, who is much more conventionally attractive compared to Shelly Duvall's Wendy. There were a good number of scenes where much was done with the set and cgi to make the environment mind-bending. The reflections from characters eyes (the vampires specifically) were probably the best use of CGI though. Besides those, as mentioned earlier, there's not much that I noted while watching Dr. Sleep, it's definitely not even in the same league as its predecessor in terms of cinematic innovation and achievement.

Man, never thought I'd live to see the creepy Irish gypsy druid card used as a villain in my lifetime, maybe I should make a bingo card?

Unfortunately, while I'm generally hung-ho for anything Steven King, Dr. Sleep seems to be the exception to the rule, and I'd have to say that you can pass on this one. It has easily watchable elements, but at the end of the day unless you're watching Dr. Sleep specifically for those redeeming points it's plainly not worth it I'd say. If you're like my friend and haven't seen The Shining (as a lot of people I know haven't seen apparently), watch that instead, it's much better, or even watch IT Chapter 1 and 2, they're a great horror pair. You could easily watch this film on a meme, but at the end of the day there's just far better films to watch than Dr. Sleep, and it's a wonder I remembered this film for the two weeks it took for me to get around to writing this.