[Review] Doctor Sleep (8.5/10)

Title - Doctor Sleep
Studio - Warner Bros. Pictures
Starring - Ewan McGregor, Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Emily Alyn Lind, Zahn McClarnon, Cliff Curtis, Carl Lumbly
Writer - Mike Flanagan
Director - Mike Flanagan
Release - 30 October 2019

I have not been a fan of Mike Flanagan's earlier horror movies up until he adapted Stephen King's Gerald's Game. (Now come to think of it, there's one hand injury that are present in both movies.)

One has to wonder, was it Gerald's Game that got him the job for another King's adaptation. And this one has precedent to live up. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining is beloved by many, except Stephen King. And having watched Doctor Sleep now, I know why.


The Good:

- Flanagan has done such a wonderful job merging Kubrick's movie to King's sequel. Kubrick's version would still be a little hard to understand, Flanagan has brought back King's flavour but also breathe new life to Kubrick's.

- I loved the back and forth of switching focus between McGregor's character and Curran's, a reminiscence of how King always tells his stories.

- Ferguson played such a great villain in this one, she was the embodiment of pure evil.

- Cliff Curtis played a great supporting character that you would really feel for. And Curran also surprisingly gave an impactful performance as half of the movie was about her.

- There were no jump scares in this one, or not that I can recall; and this was fundamentally different from Flanagan's previous work which incorporated cheap scares with a lot of loop holes in the story. Here, the storytelling itself was scary and the story felt more complete.


The Bad:

- I didn't like how "Redrum" was introduced because this was from McGregor's character's past, and it seemed like the text on the wall was created by Curran, whom had no knowledge that the word would be spelled that way.

- There was the running-scare of the lady in the tub, which I still don't get what was her significance and why the kids always have to "lock her away". It felt like it was just a scare tactic.


This sequel is a much better horror than IT: Chapter Two will ever be, and is the best horror this year.