Doctor Sleep

I wanted to watch this one months ago, but they booted it from theaters before it could get a proper response from viewers, likely due to the lengthy runtime. Now, I hear there's a 3-hour cut, but we wont go into that one today. The 2.5 hour theatrical cut is plenty to talk about, so here we go...

The film begins in 1980, right after the Overlook incident. We get to see some well-recast renditions of Danny Torrance and his mother, now played by the sexy Alex Essoe, and we even get a bit of Doc Halloran in there, which is a nice touch. Clearly, there's still a bit of trauma going on and Danny is trying to find a way to deal with it.

Years later, adult Danny (Ewan McGregor) is a drunk piece of shit. He's been channeling a bit too much of his father and he's sick of it, so he goes to rehab and hopes for the best. He's dulled his shine over the years, but a young girl taps back into it, but unknowingly alerts a family of hungry vampires. Now, these aren't blood-sucking vampires mind you, but they suck the "steam"/lifeforce out of anyone who seems to have a good flavor to them, and they've grown a taste for young children who shine.


It may be a long movie that I was already fatigued going into, but damn if it wasn't interesting enough to wake me the fuck up. It's got some really good cinematography, some very cool shots, a lot of great callbacks, and somehow it even has good pacing. Without saying too much to give anything else away, you can rest easy knowing that it goes full-blown Shining at the end, and those bits made me giddy.

When you say the sequel to The Shining is going to be about vampires, it might confuse you a bit. I wasn't entirely sold on the whole idea, though rather mildy curious. However, by the end of the movie, I was very satisfied. I really liked what they did this movie. Some scenes even gave me chills. Very well done, and very faithful to the original.