Doctor Sleep
Dream Director: Mike Flanagan (Oculus, Before I Wake)
It’s a sequel to The Shining that involves life vampires. Do you need to hear anything else?
It might seem like a no brainer to sequelize one of your most popular texts (let alone a text that would see one of the most successful adaptations to a horror film of all time), but it’s also the sort of decision that naturally involves a lot of trepidation. It took King over 30 years to pen is follow-up book, but thankfully Doctor Sleep is more than worth the wait. Doctor Sleep has a number of references back to the Overlook and dear old Jack Torrance, but this is a story much more concerned about a grown-up Danny and his quest to not become his father. There’s plenty of Danny trying to straighten out and not indulge his alcoholic tendencies, but underneath all of that there’s an incredibly moving story about Danny trying to help a young girl, Abra, who also shares his Shining ability. Oh, and the two go head to head with a cabal of traveling soul vampires who might be some of the most terrifying villains that King has ever created. Audiences deserve to see Danny setting his life on track, and a director like Mike Flanagan has just the sort of range and experience with children to realize the nuance of this story.
