A few years ago, I lauded the success of James Wan’s horror prowess, spawning the Insidious and Conjuring franchises and turning them into superior quality films. Well, every bit his equal, and arguably his superior, is Mike Flanagan. Since 2014’s movie about a killer mirror, Flanagan has done nothing but create tense, thrilling horror films, many of which are Stephen King adaptations. King apparently trusted Flanagan enough that he let him write and direct Doctor Sleep, the sequel to one of King’s most famous movie adaptations, The Shining.
Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), after the events at the Overlook Hotel, has struggled to find meaning and confidence to get back out into the world, beset on all sides by fears, natural and supernatural. Torrance drifts into a New Hampshire town and befriends Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis), who helps now Dan find some meaning that he’s searching for, including using his powers to befriend a powerful fellow Shiner, young girl Abra (Kyliegh Curran). Abra’s power is even bigger than Danny’s, which means she attracts the attention of Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) and her group of what can only be described as soul eaters.
There are several fan bases, many with diverging hopes, that Flanagan somehow satisfies with Dr. Sleep. For those who don’t know, Stephen King hates Stanley Kubrick’s Shining, believing the movie missed the point of the book, tough words for a movie so beloved that there’s a documentary (Room 237) outlining how great The Shining movie is. Flanagan’s biggest hurdle is figuring what Stephen King hopes from Doctor Sleep that The Shining didn’t have. So in writing his script, the talented auteur doesn’t shy away from the supernatural elements of Doctor Sleep, and in fact, makes them the focal point of the movie. At various times, the shine is treated like an addiction, a curse, a superpower: it’s not just one thing. The shine essentially, is grounded by the characters King created, which the directors hopes would appease the novelist. In addition, Flanagan rightly surmises that Shining fans just want their memories of the film untarnished, and what he has to do is find the right Easter eggs. And, most importantly, he has to nail the final 30 minutes of the film, which return to the Overlook Hotel. Without spoiling anything, Flanagan finds the right balance of being reverential to the original film while plotting a new path in Doctor Sleep. What Mike Flanagan pulled off here is really hard to get right, succeeding where It: Chapter Two couldn’t.
Fortunately, the Overlook Hotel sequence is just icing on Dr. Sleep’s cake. Flanagan has found out how to show internal struggle better than most directors working today, a necessity for Stephen King novels, which take place a lot in people’s heads. Doctor Sleep is no different. The shining manifests itself in all sorts of ways. The easiest to film are grotesque horrific images, which certainly will make the audience squirm. However, Doctor Sleep also contains these mental creations by the various leads while they are shining. Great thought was put into set creation here: Flanagan is clearly an Inception fan, using boxes and file cabinets to hide mental secrets and hurt. And that’s where the emotional power of Doctor Sleep resides. Dan has found that there are both good and evil forces looking for shiners, and sometimes there are fates much worse than death. The evil ones are so hungry for his power that it’s a mental strain just to keep them at bay. So how does he keep the mental pain away? Drugs, alcohol, etc. The movie spends a good chunk of time helping Dan understand his problems, and try to overcome them though making connections with others, as Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly) taught him when he was a young shiner. Dan, now back in control, can pass that knowledge onto young Abra, as she learns the extent of her own powers and what else is out there.
Even though Halloween was 2 weeks ago, Doctor Sleep is probably the horror movie of the year. Mike Flanagan continues his streak of good movies, having not made a dud yet. As his sterling resume continues to shine, I hope young filmmakers look to Flanagan as not just a great horror director, but simply a great director period. Come on, he got Stephen King to actually kind of like the Shining thanks to Doctor Sleep! I thought that would be impossible!