As a lover of the movie adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining, which was directed by Stanley Kubrick, I was excited to watch the sequel Doctor Sleep. I remember watching The Shining when I was 12 with my dad. It wasn’t scary to me; I laughed at the parts that people would normally be afraid of. The wrinkly ghost lady in the bathtub was always one of the funniest parts for me. So, I thought Doctor Sleep would have humorous bits with dark and chilling scenes. But all I got was a giant snooze fest. I’m a true horror fan, so watching this movie that claims to be horrific and scary truly let me down. 

The movie follows actor Ewan McGregor as Dan Torrance, an alcoholic, who is still traumatized by the events of his childhood at the Overlook Hotel. He tries to live a very peaceful life, but that all seems to shatter when he meets Abra (played by Kyleigh Curran). Abra is a teen who shares his gift of the “shine”. She seeks his help to take down a cult —called The True Knot— that is led by Rose The Hat (played by Rebecca Ferguson) who feeds off of those who “shine” to become immortal. In order to help take down Rose and her cult, Danny helps Abra unleash her special abilities as he faces his fears of the past. 

This storyline would be more engaging if the director made the cult leaders more intimidating and horrifying. This movie is rated R for being ‘disturbing’ and ‘violent,’ but all I got was PG-13 for its lack of horror. If something is going to be rated R, it should be one of the most skin-crawling movies ever to see the light or at least scare me a little. The Wrap website wrote an article on the 5 Reasons Doctor Sleep Snoozed at the Box Office. The main points of the article state that there was a much older horror audience, too much time between sequels, the release date, a short marketing campaign, and that not all Stephen King adaptations are equal. I agree with what The Wrap wrote (especially about the film’s release date). Doctor Sleep was released in November, but the movie might have done better if it came out before Halloween, which is the spooky season.

The scare factor isn’t the only thing that disappointed me. Close to the end of the movie when Danny and Abra went back to the Overlook Hotel, Dan has to “wake up the hotel and all the monsters in it”. Dan goes to the same bar at the hotel his dad use to go to and gets served by a man who calls himself “Lloyd” that resembles his father. At this scene, I was hoping that Jack Nicholson would randomly cameo, but my prayers were denied. Maybe Nicholson was busy or they couldn’t get him to show up for that part, but it would’ve been exciting to see him in it for that small amount of time. 

Overall, the movie had a terrible downfall. Doctor Sleep could have succeeded a bit better if it had the spookiness that a rated R movie has, a smaller gap between the original and the sequel, and a bigger marketing campaign to help people get excited and hyped for the movie. A Jack Nicholson cameo would have made the movie come a long way too, but I understand if the director just couldn’t get Jack to show up for five minutes of the movie. 

It was one of the only horror movies that made me sleep. I don’t usually sleep that well so I guess that’s a plus side to the movie. 

If you’re interested in the movie at all, check out the trailer!

Cassandra Purcell

Cassandra is a second-year student in the Professional Writing program at Algonquin College. She loves writing real-life horror stories, being anti-social, and watching American Horror Story.