The Reel Easy Review

Doctor Sleep: Or Doctor Edge of My Seat. 

Well this was a pleasant surprise. I won’t lie to you I basically had to drag myself into this cinema for this one as I was very sceptical about a follow up to The Shining. I also won’t lie to the fact I’m not the worlds largest fan of The Shining but still found it ridiculous they would dare to make something even close to approaching the Kubrick universe. 

Doctor Sleep however far surpassed all my expectations to a point where I might posit the question ... Could it be possible that this film is better than The Shining? Well I dare not say from fear of the backlash I’d get from the “Uber Kuber” fans out there. 

Now I’ve not actually read Doctor Sleep so I can’t say this with huge amounts of authority, but from what I’ve heard and read from other reviewers, this film is very much one for the Stephen King fans over the Kubrick fans. Kubrick, as some of you may know took a few liberties with The Shining, especially its ending, whereas Mike Flanagan was a little more faithful.

Mike Flanagan also pulled no punches and it was an incredibly gripping film, with a fantastic narrative and some bits that were genuinely hard and quite distressing to watch. I don’t want to spoil any of it for you my readers because I want you to go see it for yourselves, but the scene with the baseball boy had my teeth reaching for my fingers nails. 

This was all made possible by three or four fantastic performances by our leading actors. First off, this was a properly good showcase of what Euan McGregor can actually do. I’ve always liked him but he does has the tendency to go for the easier roles but this was a hard, gritty, highly complex character that he really bedded himself into and it was brilliant to watch. 

Euan plays a grown up Danny, ie the little boy from The Shining, who is still struggling with the traumas from his past and also wrestling with his ability to “Shine” (Telepathy on steroids). He meets a little girl played by Kyliegh Curran, who incidentally is stunning in this film and one to watch out for.  Abra (Kyleigh) has seen a vision of these “Steam Catchers” who are stealing people’s “shine”. It is their mission to stop them. One such steam catcher, the leader, is played by Rebecca Ferguson, who was remarkably unnerving in this movie and I would love to see her play more roles like this. It is up to Danny and the girl to stop her. Simple.

There are some lovely throwbacks to the original which I hear are causing tremendous amounts of historical whining from the die hard Shining fans but I really enjoyed them. 

Overall, even though it was a touch too long, I really enjoyed this film and it has edged its way to a RATING OF 8.1/10, which is darn good going. I urge everyone to see it in the cinema and if you hate it then please get in touch and i’d love to have you on my podcast to discuss it further. 

My names been Christopher Whitmore and thank you for reading.