on Dr. Sleep

The review is will be up soon on CultofWhatever but for now here’s a snippet from my impressions of Dr. Sleep, followed by the final score…

…I didn’t feel like I was watching “a half dozen horror tropes held together by the loose-stitching of a bare-bones plot.” In other words, it didn’t feel like a typical modern-era horror movie.

I suppose it being a book adaptation (with several liberties taken, though it follows things a bit more closely to the source material than the 1980 movie did to its) is the reason why it doesn’t have the same feel of most horror movies these days. Dr. Sleep doesn’t follow the same conventions, go for the same scares, follow the same rhythm, etc.

Unlike most modern horror movies, where the plot is often built around either a central gimmick or written around a few key set pieces/moments that the producer or director came up with in pre-production, Dr. Sleep has a strong narrative. Again, that’s probably due to King, but it was nice to be able to follow a character from point-A to point-B, watch him go through a character arc, and reach a satisfying conclusion in the end.

It was like watching a real movie!

There are plot developments (not twists, but merely scenes that advance the plot) that completely surprised me, both in their function in the story and in the way they were shot. As for the plot itself, I appreciate how the movie didn’t really continue the story of The Shining in a direct way but instead just told a new story with one central character from the previous, and went in a new direction, introduced new concepts, and played with those old toys in a new world. That’s a great way to do a sequel, especially one as ingrained in our culture as The Shining.

Because the movie spent so much time treading new ground, when the payoff came and they finally stepped into the Overlook Hotel, that moment felt earned, whereas in a lesser movie the Hotel would have been the setting from the start of act two through to the end, cheapening the effect with a “haunted house” retread that never could have lived up to Kubrick’s idiosyncratic masterpiece.

9/10 – Dr. Sleep is one of the best horror movies of the year, and a worthy follow-up to a horror classic.