Doctor Sleep (2019 film)


Doctor Sleep is a 2019 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Mike Flanagan. It is based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Stephen King, a sequel to King's 1977 novel The Shining. The film, which also serves as a direct sequel to the film adaptation of The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is set several decades after the events of the original and combines elements of the 1977 novel as well. Ewan McGregor plays the lead role as Danny Torrance, a man with psychic abilities who struggles with childhood trauma. Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, and Cliff Curtis have supporting roles. In the film, Dan Torrance, now an adult, must protect a young girl with similar powers from a cult known as the True Knot, whose members prey on children to extend their lives.
Warner Bros. Pictures began developing a film adaptation shortly after Doctor Sleep was published in 2013. Writer-producer Akiva Goldsman wrote a script, but the studio did not secure a budget for the film until the box office success of its 2017 horror film It, also based on a novel by King. Flanagan was hired to rewrite Goldsman's script and direct the film. Flanagan said the film would try and reconcile the differences between The Shining novel and film. Filming began in September 2018 in Georgia, including Atlanta and the surrounding area, and concluded in December 2018.
Doctor Sleep held its world premiere at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles on October 21, 2019, and was theatrically released worldwide from October 31, 2019, and in the United States on November 8, 2019. The film received generally positive reviews, with praise for its performances and atmosphere, but with some criticism for its lengthy runtime. Grossing just $72 million worldwide, its performance at the box office was considered to be disappointing due to the success of King adaptations such as It Chapter Two and Pet Sematary, earlier in the year. However, despite the box office performance, the film enjoyed a resurgence of interest and popularity when it premiered on streaming services in 2020.

Plot

In 1980, sometime after their traumatic experiences in the haunted Overlook Hotel, Danny Torrance and his mother Wendy live in Florida. Danny sees one of the Overlook's ghosts—the rotting woman from Room 237—in his bathroom. Dick Hallorann, a benevolent spirit, explains that the ghosts feed on Danny's psychic ability, his "shining". Now that the hotel has been abandoned, the starving ghosts are pursuing Danny. Hallorann teaches him to lock them in imaginary "boxes" in his mind. Meanwhile, the True Knot, a cult of psychic vampires led by Rose the Hat, extend their lifespans by consuming "steam", a psychic essence released as they torture and kill those who have the shining.
In 2011, Danny—now "Dan"—has become an alcoholic to suppress his shining. After stealing money from a single mother, following a one-night stand, and leaving the woman's toddler son next to her passed out body and a pool of her vomit, Dan realizes he has hit rock bottom. He moves to a small New Hampshire town and befriends Billy Freeman, who finds him an apartment.
Sleeping in the new apartment, Dan wakes up to find a ghostly arm wrapped around him. Dan slowly moves away, and has almost escaped the bed when the spirit grabs his wrist. Looking at her face, he recognises her as the single mother he has previously slept with and robbed. She apparently choked on her vomit after he had left her, and she tells him that her neighbors have yet to find her and her son's bodies. She neglected her son often in life, and so the neighbors became used to his crying and did not check on them when he cried after his mother's death, resulting in his own death also when he was left unattended. Dan looks down to see the glazed over eyes of the woman's son staring back at him.
Billy becomes Dan's AA sponsor. Rehabilitating, Dan becomes a hospice orderly. He uses his shining to comfort dying patients, who nickname him "Doctor Sleep". He also begins receiving telepathic communications from Abra Stone, a young girl whose shining is even more powerful than his. Meanwhile, Rose and her lover, Crow Daddy, observe a teenager named Snakebite Andi who has the ability to physically control individuals. They later recruit Andi into the True Knot after feeding her the steam of Violet, a young girl murdered by the cult earlier.
In 2019, the True Knot are starving as the steam has become increasingly rare. They abduct a young boy, Bradley, and torture him to death for his steam. A teenage Abra senses the event, and her distress alerts both Dan, in the form of the word REDRUM appearing on his wall, and Rose. Rose sets her sights on Abra, planning to extract her steam. Realizing the danger, Abra visits Dan in person and tells him she can track the cult if she touches Bradley's baseball glove. Dan refuses to help, telling her to suppress her shining to stay safe. That night, Rose projects her consciousness across the country and infiltrates Abra's mind but finds that Abra has set an imaginary trap, which injures Rose. After cult member Grandpa Flick dies of starvation, Rose sends the remaining members after Abra.
Hallorann visits Dan a final time, telling him to protect Abra as Hallorann once protected him. Dan tells Billy about the True Knot and the two travel to the murder scene and exhume Bradley's body to retrieve his glove. They recruit Abra's father, Dave, and have him guard Abra's body as she projects herself to a local campsite, luring the cult there. Dan and Billy shoot most of them dead, though a dying Andi compels Billy into suicide. Meanwhile, Crow Daddy kills Dave and abducts Abra, drugging her to suppress her shining. Dan telepathically contacts Abra, who lets him possess her, and manipulates Crow into crashing his car, killing him and freeing Abra. While Dan and Abra reunite, Rose consumes the cult's remaining stockpile of steam, healing her wounds and vowing revenge. As a last resort, Dan brings Abra to the Overlook, believing it will be as dangerous for Rose as it is for them. He starts the hotel's boiler and explores the dormant building, "awakening" it with his shining. He revisits the rooms where his alcoholic father, Jack, influenced by the Overlook, attempted to murder him and Wendy. At the hotel bar, Dan is greeted by "Lloyd", a ghostly bartender who strongly resembles Jack Torrance. The apparition attempts to coax Dan into drinking again, but Dan ultimately declines.
Rose arrives at the Overlook. Dan and Abra pull her consciousness into Dan's mind, which resembles the Overlook's endless hedge maze. Dan tries to trap her in an imaginary box but fails. Rose, attracted by Dan's shining, invites him to join the cult, but he refuses. When she overpowers him and begins consuming his steam, Dan opens the boxes, releasing the Overlook's hungry ghosts from his mind. Rose, being a psychic vampire, is vulnerable to direct attacks by the ghosts. They brutally kill her, consuming her steam and then possessing Dan. He and the ghosts pursue Abra to Room 237, where she tells the hotel that Dan sabotaged the boiler. Dan, regaining momentary control, tells her to flee. Possessed, he rushes to the boiler room but regains control before the hotel can make him deactivate it. In his last moment, Dan sees a vision of himself as a child being embraced by his mother, Wendy. Abra watches helplessly as the hotel burns down just as the authorities approach.
Sometime later, Abra talks to Dan's spirit; they assure each other that they will both be okay. Abra's mother learns to adjust with her daughter's powers, especially in communicating with the spirit of her deceased husband. As her mother leaves the room, Abra notices the ghost of the rotting woman from the Overlook is in the bathroom and prepares to lock the ghost up just as Danny did.

Cast

Additionally, Catherine Parker appears as Silent Sarey, Met Clark as Short Eddie, Selena Anduze as Apron Annie, and James Flanagan as Diesel Doug, all members of the True Knot cult. Violet McGraw portrays Violet, a child who is murdered at the start of the film by the True Knot cult and later fed to Snakebite Andi as part of her induction into the group, whilst Bethany Anne Lind portrays Violet’s mother. Sadie and KK Heim portray the Grady sisters, with Kaitlyn McCormick and Molly Jackson providing their voices; the characters were originally played by Lisa and Louise Burns in The Shining. Sallye Hooks portrays Mrs. Massey, Michael Monks portrays Delbert Grady and Hugh Maguire portrays Horace Derwent, respectively; played by Lia Beldam and Billie Gibson, Philip Stone and Norman Gay in The Shining.
Danny Lloyd, who played Danny Torrance in The Shining, makes a cameo appearance as a spectator at Bradley Trevor's baseball game. Lloyd had been retired from acting for roughly 38 years, and was direct-messaged on Twitter by Flanagan to appear in the film. Producer Trevor Macy said of Lloyd's involvement, " was excited to do . He hadn't acted since . He's a schoolteacher, and a very successful one at that, like making the world better. He came back for a day, and we were thrilled to have him." When pressed as to why the filmmakers did not extend the same offer to Jack Nicholson, Macy responded, "With Jack, I knew that they approached him for Ready Player One, and that he seems to be very serious about being retired. I had known that he was supportive but retired."
Regarding the recast characters, Flanagan explained, "We explored everything, and there were only really two options as I saw it: It was either going to be something that was performed, or something that was digital. And even if we had Nicholson come back, based on the rules of the hotel and how the ghosts appear with respect to their age, he'd be performing the part through a digital avatar." Flanagan said that de-aging and digital actors, while improving rapidly, were still inadequate. "The idea of having a digital Danny Torrance riding a trike five minutes into the movie, that just seemed like we were making a video game at that point. It felt disrespectful." Noting that any solution would be controversial, the director decided that the best approach "was not to do impressions; it was to find actors who would remind us of those iconic performances, without ever tipping into parody... I just want to be able to tilt people's memories toward those original actors, but then let the characters be their own. I want to cast someone to play Dick Hallorann; I don't want to cast someone to play Scatman Crothers." The idea of casting a Nicholson impersonator as Jack was also considered, as was casting a big-name actor associated with or reminiscent of Nicholson, such as Leonardo DiCaprio or Christian Slater. Nicholson was also invited to make a cameo appearance as another character, but declined.

Connections to ''The Shining'' novel and film

Doctor Sleep is based on the 2013 horror novel of the same name by Stephen King. The 1977 novel was adapted into a 1980 horror film of the same name by director Stanley Kubrick. King was critical of Kubrick's film adaptation to the point of writing and executive-producing a new adaptation with the 1997 television miniseries.
While the film Doctor Sleep is intended to be a direct adaptation of the 2013 sequel novel, director Mike Flanagan said Doctor Sleep still "acknowledge Kubrick's The Shining in some way". Flanagan said, "It is an adaptation of the novel Doctor Sleep, which is Stephen King's sequel to his novel, The Shining. But this also exists very much in the same cinematic universe that Kubrick established in his adaptation of The Shining." He explained working with all the sources, "Reconciling those three, at times very different, sources has been kind of the most challenging and thrilling part of this creatively for us." He first read the novel, and then had a conversation with King to work out adapting all the sources. As part of the process, Flanagan recreated scenes from The Shining to use in flashbacks. Same as The Shining, Flanagan also avoided the horror film trope of jump scares.
On why he wanted to present the film as a continuation of Kubrick's film, Flanagan expressed, "The Shining is so ubiquitous and has burned itself into the collective imagination of people who love cinema in a way that so few movies have. There’s no other language to tell that story in. If you say ‘Overlook Hotel,’ I see something. It lives right up in my brain because of Stanley Kubrick. You can't pretend that isn't the case". King initially rejected Flanagan's pitch of bringing back the Overlook as seen in Kubrick's film, but King changed his mind after Flanagan pitched a scene within the hotel towards the end of the film that served as his reason to bring back the Overlook. Upon reading the script, King felt that the elements of Kubrick's film that he disliked were "redeemed" for him in Doctor Sleep.
While the climax of the film does differ from the novel, it closely adapts the original events from King's source material of The Shining, centered around the final events at the Overlook Hotel ; which was heavily omitted from Kubrick's 1980 adaptation of the latter much to King's disappointment. Thus this film can be seen as a bridge for King's Doctor Sleep and The Shining, incorporating events from both novels. Flanagan said that in his film, "Almost everything Dan does Jack's story from ." In including these elements into the Doctor Sleep film, Flanagan explained, "I saw it as this gift, to me as a fan, and from me to him as well — that yes, we're going to bring back this Kubrickian Overlook world, and I wanted to celebrate that film. But what if, in doing so, at the same time, you get elements of that ending of that novel, The Shining, that Kubrick jettisoned? Then you start to get the ending you never did, and that King was denied."

Production

began developing a film adaptation of Doctor Sleep as early as 2014. In 2016, filmmaker Akiva Goldsman announced that he would write and produce the film for Warner Bros. For several years, Warner Bros. could not secure a budget for Doctor Sleep, or for a different project, a prequel to The Shining called Overlook Hotel.
In late 2017, Warner Bros. released It, a film adaptation of King's 1986 novel of the same name, and its box office success led the studio to fast track production of Doctor Sleep. In January 2018, Warner Bros. hired Mike Flanagan to rewrite Goldsman's script and direct the film, with Goldsman receiving executive producer credit. On why he was interested in directing Doctor Sleep, Flanagan stated, "It touches on themes that are the most attractive to me, which are childhood trauma leading into adulthood, addiction, the breakdown of a family, and the after effects, decades later."
From June to November 2018, the cast was assembled.
Filming began in September 2018 in the U.S. state of Georgia; locations included Atlanta and St. Simons. In the area of Atlanta, specific locations included Covington, Canton, Stone Mountain, Midtown, Porterdale, and Fayetteville. Production concluded in December 2018. By January 2019, Flanagan was editing the film.
The film score was composed by The Newton Brothers, who also composed scores for Flanagan's previous works. WaterTower Music has released the film score.

Themes

Author Stephen King said he wrote Doctor Sleep because he wondered what Danny Torrance would be like as an adult. Flanagan has stated, "Danny is so traumatized by what he's been through, he has no idea how to deal with this," and McGregor added, "Dan Torrance's philosophy early on in the story is not to use the shining. He's drunk to suppress the horrible visitations, the spirits that are from the Overlook Hotel."
Flanagan described The Shining as "very much about addiction, which is doom. It's about annihilation and the destruction of a family," while Doctor Sleep was about "recovery," stating, "In the way that addiction feels like doom and annihilation, recovery is rebirth, and recovery is salvation, in a way."

Release

Doctor Sleep had its world premiere at the Regency Village Theater in Westwood, Los Angeles in October 21, 2019. Warner Bros. Pictures released the film theatrically in the United States and Canada on, 2019. They opened the film globally earlier,, 2019, coinciding with Halloween. The film was initially scheduled to be released on January 24, 2020. Deadline Hollywood said the rescheduling reflected Warner Bros. giving "a major vote of confidence" in the film.
A director's cut along with the theatrical cut of Doctor Sleep was released on Digital HD on January 21, 2020 and was released on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K on February 4. The director's cut is 28 minutes longer.

Reception

Box office

Doctor Sleep grossed $31.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $40.7 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $72.2 million.
In the United States and Canada, the film was released alongside Last Christmas, Midway, and Playing with Fire, and was initially projected to gross $25–30 million from 3,855 theaters in its opening weekend. BoxOffice wrote, "Early social and trailer trends are indicative of a potential box office hit should reviews and audience reception prove favorable," but added, "Doctor Sleeps primary barrier to breakout status could be how reliant it is on younger audience familiarity with the source Stephen King novels and/or The Shining." The film made $5.2 million on its first day, including a combined $1.5 million from advanced preview screenings on October 30 and Thursday night previews on November 7, lowering weekend projections to $12 million. It ended up debuting to $14.1 million, getting upset by Midway for the top spot. Deadline Hollywood speculated that despite it being "well-reviewed and well-received" by critics and audiences, the underperformance was due to the 2-hour runtime, as well as the perception the film was meant for older audiences.
Following its debut, it was projected the film would lose Warner Bros. around $20 million. In its second weekend the film made $6.2 million, dropping to sixth. Business Insider speculated that, according to box-office experts, Warner Bros. overestimated The Shinings influence among younger audiences, who don't care much about Kubrick's film, as well as made the mistake to release the film worldwide in November after Halloween.

Critical response

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 77% based on 314 reviews, with an average rating of 7.05/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Doctor Sleep forsakes the elemental terror of its predecessor for a more contemplative sequel that balances poignant themes against spine-tingling chills." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, based on 46 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an average four out of five, with 60% saying they would definitely recommend it to a friend.
Brian Tallerico of RogerEbert.com gave the film three out of four, stating, "Flanagan was tasked with making a sequel to a film that stays loyal to a book that ignores the changes made in the first movie. That ain't easy... And while one can sometimes feel Flanagan struggling to satisfy both King and Kubrick fans when he really should be trusting his own vision, he's talented enough to pull off this difficult blend of legacies." Simran Hans of The Guardian gave the film four out of five, noting "adapting Stephen King is one thing, writing a spiritual sequel to a Stanley Kubrick movie quite another. Director Mike Flanagan takes on King's 2013 follow-up novel to The Shining, but adjusts some details to ensure continuity with Kubrick's cult 1980 adaptation of the original book... The new material is fresher and considerably more fun."
BBC's critic Nicholas Barber gave the film four out of five and stated, "Credible in its characterisation, rich in mythological detail, and touchingly sincere in its treatment of alcoholism and trauma, the film is impressive in all sorts of ways. But its greatest achievement is that it makes The Shining seem like a prequel – a tantalising glimpse of a richer and more substantial narrative." Chris Hewitt of Empire gave the film three out of five and noted, "Working off source material that is very different from its predecessor, anyone expecting a straightforward Shining sequel will be disappointed. This isn't a gruelling exercise in pure horror. It's odder and more contemplative, but worth checking in." Kyle Smith of National Review wrote "Though Kubrick's adaptation and The Shawshank Redemption are the only films made from King's stories that achieved greatness, nearly everything he writes contains at least one brilliantly twisted element, and Doctor Sleep has lots of them. It's a shame that more top-tier directors haven't chosen to dig around in the capacious mines of King's imagination."
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film three out of five stars, saying: "Doctor Sleep relies way too much on borrowed inspiration and eventually runs out of — pardon the word — steam. But this flawed hybrid of King and Kubrick still has the stuff to keep you up nights." Angelica Jade Bastién of Vulture wrote "The film aims in its closing moments to be bittersweet yet hopeful. Instead, it has an unintended, even dour messaging about the cost of escaping your past and whether that's even possible in life. Doctor Sleep could probably never fully stand on its own, and perhaps it's not meant to. It's a horror film with messy pleasures if you're able to meet it on its own level." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter stated, "It doesn't have Jack Nicholson, Stanley Kubrick or even much of the Overlook Hotel, but Rebecca Ferguson and other good actors provide some shine of their own in Doctor Sleep, a drawn-out and seldom pulse-quickening follow-up to The Shining that still has enough going on to forestall any audience slumber."
Tim Grierson of Screen Daily commented, "For a horror director, Flanagan is particularly adept with actors, concerned more about character arcs than cheap frights. That's why Doctor Sleeps uninspired plotting feels even more disappointing. Flanagan gives us such a sense of these people — their demons, their fears, their resilience — that it's a shame that the twists and turns aren't as compelling. Not everyone will make it out alive from the Overlook, but Flanagan brings enough smarts and soul to the flawed, fascinating Doctor Sleep that he manages to escape The Shinings shadow mostly unscathed." Michael O'Sullivan of The Washington Post gave the film two stars out of four and wrote "Part homage to Kubrick's moody atmospherics, and part hyper-literal superhero story, Doctor Sleep is stylish, engrossing, at times frustratingly illogical and, ultimately less than profoundly unsettling... Doctor Sleep will by no means make you drowsy, but it won't keep anyone up at night either." Austin Collins of Vanity Fair added "Doctor Sleep is a horror movie, but what's immediately striking is its sudden breadth, it's humble resistance to the usual perils and thrills of blockbuster. It's refreshing. This is a story that feels larger than it is, in part because this story takes the shine and does something with it, reveals it for the tenuous, impermanent, vulnerable force that it is." Michael Roffman of Consequence of Sound mentioned "Doctor Sleep shouldn't work. Even now, the idea of making a big-budget sequel to arguably the greatest horror film of all time reads like a disaster on paper. Yet, to our surprise, Flanagan's execution warrants its existence."
Tom Philip of GQ wrote "while Flanagan delivers an ending that sort of respects King's book and rhymes with The Shinings filmed conclusion, it all feels quite forced. At its heart, this is a film about a son rejecting his destiny to become his ghoulish father and forge his own path. It's a shame Doctor Sleep doesn't have the guts to do the same." Johnny Oleksinski of New York Post gave the film three out of four and said, "The movie skillfully builds to the tense final sequence, in which writer/director Mike Flanagan has re-created the hotel just as it was in the 1980 film. He even films it in Kubrick's cavernous, blinding manner."
David Sims of The Atlantic said, "Flanagan clearly understands how Kubrick's adaptation eclipsed King's attachment to the original story and became entrenched in the broader culture. But this movie is still just a very good facsimile. Doctor Sleep is wonderfully reverent when it comes to Kubrick's film, but that means it can't escape The Shinings shadow, no matter how much King might have wanted it to." Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the film a C+ grade, commenting, "... Doctor Sleep shows considerable effort to ingratiate itself to discerning cinephiles, from the moody Newton Brothers score to cinematographer Michael Fimognari's dark blue nighttime palette; as a whole, the movie conjures an eerie and wondrous atmosphere that blends abject terror with a somber, mournful quality unique to Flanagan's oeuvre. But his pandering to dueling source material results in a jagged puzzle beneath both of their standards". Alison Foreman of Mashable stated, "Doctor Sleep could have tried to be The Shinings sequel, an intimidated son yearning to be like his father. Instead, it's entirely new... Doctor Sleep isn't The Shining, but it does shine." Justin Chang of Los Angeles Times wrote, "You can't blame Flanagan for fetishizing the visual iconography of Kubrick's movie, for plunging back into his funhouse of horrors like the proverbial kid in a candy store. But the effect can't help but fundamentally alter the tone and intent of Doctor Sleep, briefly transforming a richly disturbing fantasy into an extravagant act of fan service. It taps into the minutiae of Kubrick's masterwork without fully teasing out its mystery."

Future

Prior to the film's release, Warner Bros. had enough confidence in the film that they hired Flanagan to script a prequel with the working title Hallorann, focusing on the character of Dick Hallorann. Following the disappointing box-office performance of Doctor Sleep, the future of the project is unclear.
Flanagan also confirmed that he was interested in directing a sequel focused on Abra Stone, and that he had asked King, who was open to the idea.