BY CHRISTOPHER STAMM
GUEST MOVIE REVIEWER
Doctor Sleep (Now streaming on multiple platforms)
This film is rated R – for language, disturbing violence involving a child, and adult themes
Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to 2023. Let’s hope it’s better than 2022 or 2021 or 2020. Yeah, it’s been a rough couple of years, but every day brings new opportunities, so let’s be positive, folks!
Having spent the last two weeks of December on vacation, I had a chance to watch some old favorites and one really stood out for me, so I decided to write a review of this them.
Doctor Sleep is a straight up sequel to The Shining and, frankly, in my humble opinion, it eclipses its predecessor by a country mile.
We all know the story of The Shining, so no need to revisit that. Doctor Sleep picks up 25 years later, and Danny Torrance has not done well in life, haunted by his memories of the Overlook Hotel. He has crawled into a bottle and never looked back. An event occurs, and he finally hits rock bottom and decides a change is needed.
Jump ahead a few years and Danny is clean and sober and working at a hospice where he uses his talents to ease people into the next life, and they call him Doctor Sleep.
He is also made aware of a little girl who has the same “shine” as he does and is just as powerful, but the problem is, he isn’t the only one who is aware of her, and that’s where the story gets moving.
This is a fantastic film, everyone, and well worth the watch. But be warned: there is some very disturbing content in this one, and I mean disturbing with a big fat capital D, involving the murder of a child shown in brutal and graphic fashion. Mind you, it is not gratuitous; it does serve a purpose in the film, to show just how evil and ruthless Danny’s adversaries are, but nonetheless, I was profoundly unnerved by that sequence. Nobody said going back to the Overlook Hotel would be pleasant, now did they?
You have been warned.
Propelled forward by an excellent story line, incredible performances, and outstanding direction, Doctor Sleep gets the full five out of five stars from me.