‘DOCTOR SLEEP’ WORTH STAYING AWAKE FOR
When we first see little Danny Torrance in “Doctor Sleep,” a crafty and curiously moving sequel to “The Shining,” he is riding his tricycle once more through the serpentine corridors of the Overlook Hotel. The details are uncanny and instantly transporting: the boy’s overalls and red shirt, the hexagonal pattern on the carpet, the gliding virtuosity of the tracking shots.
So fully does the writerdirector Mike Flanagan commit to the illusion he’s conjured that you may not fully register the difference until Danny stops and turns his head — toward Room 237, naturally — revealing the profile of the actor playing him (Roger Dale Floyd). It’s a deftly timed little reveal: The flashback we’re seeing is not footage spliced in from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film but a fastidious re-creation, an attempt to channel the detail-oriented obsessiveness that defined both that movie and the extraordinary devotion of its fans.
Those fans famously did not include Stephen King, who has been outspoken in his dislike of this most famous adaptation of one of his most celebrated novels. Decades after its initially divided reception, Kubrick’s “The Shining” is widely revered as a landmark of modern horror, as well as a useful reminder that a great picture isn’t always a model adaptation (and vice versa).
Adapted from King’s mythology-expanding 2013 novel of the same title, “Doctor Sleep” follows an older, present-day Dan Torrance into a world of bright-minded children and nomadic child killers, all of whom share some version of his psychic gift. Flanagan’s movie thus faces the unenviable challenge of both faithfully adapting King’s story and maintaining consistency with the pop-cultural colossus that is Kubrick’s film.
For the most part, Flanagan has pulled off that reconciliation, imperfectly but intelligently. This is no easy feat, for reasons that have as much to do with basic plot mechanics as with warring aesthetic sensibilities. The Overlook was destroyed at the end of King’s novel but still standing at the end of Kubrick’s movie. The opposite was true of Dick Hallorann, the kindly Overlook chef who first taught Danny about his extraordinary perceptual powers. Flanagan’s narrative workarounds are smart and fairly intuitive.
And so at the beginning of “Doctor Sleep,” young Danny receives a benevolent visit from the deceased Hallorann (Carl Lumbly), who teaches him how to deal with the various demonic denizens that have followed him from the boarded-up Overlook, drawn to his “shining” capabilities. Even as he and his mother, Wendy (Alex Essoe), try to recover from the trauma of Daddy’s terrifying rampage and untimely death, Danny is haunted by the shriveled old specter from Room 237.
Flanagan is a fast-rising name in contemporary horror, and for good reason. Best known for masterminding the Netflix series “The Haunting of Hill House,” he also wrote and directed several eerily effective, low-budget creepfests like “Oculus,” “Ouija: Origin of Evil” and “Gerald’s Game,” itself one of the better King adaptations in recent memory.
But beneath the movie’s slick surfaces there is also an insistent, pulsing humanity, an understanding of the deep emotional underpinnings of King’s fiction. “Doctor Sleep” may cut a wider narrative swath than “The Shining,” but it returns to many of the same themes: the innocence and mischief of children, the protective and predatory capacities of adults, the vulnerability of the family unit.