Horror movies are watched by many people so they can experience a nice scare. However, Doctor Sleep did not hold up to these expectations.
The Shining
Doctor Sleep is a prequel to the horror classic ” The Shining”. The shining is about Jack Torrance and his family as they agree to watch over the overlook hotel. The manager tells Jack about how the last watcher ended up killing himself and his family. Instead of scaring Jack he just replies with how his wife would love to hear that because she loves stuff about murder. When the family moves in as new guests, they receive a tour of the hotel.
Throughout the movie, Danny ( Jacks son ) begins to get weird visions or just get a strange feeling about the place the first couple days they stay, he sees a hallway with blood rushing down and two little girls offering to play with him. Jack begins to develop a strange connection with the Hotel and slowly starts to go crazy. Wendy ( Jack’s Wife) starts to realize that Jack is going crazy and tries her best to keep her distance from him. Wendy goes out to find Jack with a baseball bat to defend herself because she isn’t sure what he is capable of. Jack and Wendy end up fighting and she hides him away while he still unconscious but he manages to escape from the food storage room. Danny and Wendy are able to escape from Jack and get away from the Overlook Hotel.
Doctor Sleep Summary
Doctor Sleep revolved around Danny, Jacks Torrance’s son. Danny is now much older and has also acquired some of his fathers traits like being violent and alcoholism. The events that happened at the Overlook Hotel, has lead Danny’s mother to still be coping and traumatized from. Danny is slowly noticing his psychic abilities as he joins AA and sobers up. Danny telepathically links up with a young girl named Abra who also has a “shining”. A group called “True Knot” is chasing and tracking down Abra. This is who she came across in one of her earlier visions.
The members of True Knot are slowly dying and the main leader believes that Abras powers will be the only thing to heal them because her powers are so strong. Danny meets Abra’s dad as they try to protect her from the True Knots. The True Knots they are lured back into the Overlook Hotel during the battle between Danny and Abra. Danny relives the terror he went through as a kid. Danny and Abra are able to trap and kill the members of the True Knot, and burn the hotel making sure all the evil in the hotel is killed.
Review
In most cases in can be argued that the original movie was better than the prequels. This movie proved that argument to be correct. Both The Shining and Doctor Sleep were both very long movies rounding at about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Doctor Sleep wasn’t available to captivate audiences like The Shining was, with doctor sleeping not making their estimated box office the weekend of it coming out in theaters. Doctor sleep wasn’t very interesting or as thrilling as the first movie. Compared to the original movie, Danny was the only main character who made an appearance. Danny character only really developed when it came down to his alcohol problems. The whole movie moved at a slow pace the whole time. There’s a major lack of suspense that you would expect from a movie that is classified under the horror genre.