One of the best horror sequels of all time is once again streaming on Netflix. And, if you haven’t seen it yet, then you shouldn’t waste the opportunity to check it out now. Because only is it one of the best horror sequels of all time, it is one of the best horror movies of the last decade, as well as one of the most underrated. That would be Doctor Sleep, the sequel to Stephen King’s iconic horror novel (and Stanley Kubrick’s iconic horror movie) The Shining.
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What Is Doctor Sleep About?
Doctor Sleep is set over 30 years after the events of The Shining. Danny Torrance grows up to be a troubled man (played by Ewan McGregor), still haunted (literally) by the ravenous spirits of the Overlook Hotel. Danny’s slide into alcoholism (like his father before him) leads to a dark tragedy that sends him running away to start a new life; he even manages to make a few new friends, including a young girl named Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), whose “shine” may be even brighter than Danny’s ever was.
The problem is, Abra’s shine is so bright that it attracts dark things – hungry things that feed on the shine of others. A particularly old and powerful dark creature called “Rose the Hat” (Rebecca Ferguson) eventually picks up Abra’s scent, forcing Danny to call upon his own powers after so many years, to protect his young friend from becoming food.
Why Doctor Sleep Deserves Way More Love
Doctor Sleep only made $72.4 million at the box office (on a budget of $45-55 million) when it was released in theaters back in 2019. But then, a nearly three-hour R-rated movie (over three hours, in the Director’s Cut) wasn’t the biggest sell for theatergoers; moreover, at the time, there wasn’t any sort of precedent for the combination of factors that were coming together to make Doctor Sleep a truly great horror epic.
The film was written and directed by Mike Flanagan, who would go on soon after to have a big breakout success with his Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, The Fall of the House of Usher, and Midnight Mass. However, it was Doctor Sleep that proved Flanagan was a horror visionary able to take on large-scale projects, make them frightening, but also inject them with deeper heart and subtext. The Shining sequel also showcased Flanagan’s ability to spin old horror lore back up into modern stories of a prestige level.
For years, there was a massive rift between Stephen King’s book The Shining and Kubrick’s 1980 film adaptation, which King unabashedly disliked. Flanagan was handed the task of cracking a sequel story that bridged the continuities of King’s original book, the Kubrick film, and King’s sequel book – and he nailed all three. From the amalgamated plot beats and lore, to a third act that pays serious homage to Kubrick’s vision, Doctor Sleep arguably carries more water for the franchise than any other sequel ever has.
On its own merits, Doctor Sleep is also a hard-hitting movie full of violence and scares. The supernatural threats range from vampire-substitutes (Rose and her tribe) to the violent spirits seen in The Shining. Children get slaughtered, and there are genuinely high stakes: no one is safe. Visually, Doctor Sleep is one of the most ambitious and captivating horror films around, with sequences and visual effects that could go toe-to-toe with a Marvel movie, let alone other horror flicks.
Ewan McGregor’s already-impressive star power has only gotten brighter and brighter since 2019, as the actor has returned to Star Wars (Obi-Wan) and done other genre (Birds of Prey) and prestige (A Gentleman in Moscow) projects on the big and small screens. Meanwhile, Rebecca Ferguson has become a much bigger star, thanks to her continued role in Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible franchise, as well as projects like Apple TV’s Silo, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune movies, and most recently, Kathryn Bigelow’s (Zero Dark Thirty) nuclear disaster thriller A House of Dynamite for Netflix. At this point, getting to see Ferguson play a villain role like Rose the Hat is a novelty in and of itself.
You can stream Doctor Sleep on Netflix.
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